This came about from a conversation. where a friend who had been raised in church had finally given his life to the Lord and was proclaiming the change in public full immersion.
I has known of him for well over 10 years. He remained in church circles well into his 20’s, yet for all the encouragement from friends and family, he resisted commitment. Now he was ready, he felt the call, he was responding.
As we spoke he had the glow and zeal if the new convert, but there was something else familiar. There was a sentiment that because he has been in church so long, he knew the score. He knew what needed to be done in terms of church attendance and church behaviour. He had already applied some of it in the years before through the church education system. He knew what it was to give a testimony, an admonition, an exhortation, a sermonette and was even the full thing. He had been well cultured in the church in which he was brought up. I did not dispute at all that he knew the ropes.
The problem, however, and it’s a sad problem to mention, but it remains true, is just because you know the ropes of doing church the way you’ve seen church done, it does not mean you are equipped to be a follower of Jesus.
On Twitter I follow a dude by the name of Neil Cole. The other day he retweeted a quote from the book Church Transfusion (set for release here later this month) that hit the spot:
Our mission is to find and develop Christ followers rather than church members
Experience has shown that because of the culture of church, it can be more prone to developing members who subscribe to the norms and behaviours of their peers. This is rather than individuals passionate about pursuing Christ and from that contributing to the community of grace in the hope that others will be built up in the holy faith, even as you are being developed by others.
To be fair, this is not a blanket statement about all of church over all time, but it is a warning to those who have been brought up in church and so develop a norm of what it is based on the practices of those in that church. Following Jesus is not merely imitating what the norms and behaviours of others have been. Especially if those norms and behaviours have actually stifled the life of Christ and rather perpetuated lifeless, loveless, lukewarm religion (as opposed to the true religion that James proposes).
I think it’s healthy to have the norms and behaviours challenged and sometimes the only way to do that is to step away from it. Consider it from someone else’s perspective. See how other expressions of church exist.
More than that though, and even if that is not possible, growing as a follower of Christ and all that entails should be a far more expansive experience than just going with the flow of what we know. Encounters with Christ that are life-changing, should be doing just that, rather than slightly adjusting some of the furniture in our lives.
I don’t say all this as a judgement against my new brother in Christ. I certainly believe he is sincere in the new walk he embarks on. It was just a good trigger to recall elements of my own journey into following Christ, which involved those encounters with Christ that informed me that it was a lot more than what being brought up in church had taught me. That’s not a disrespect against my upbringing, that’s a celebration of the fullness of Christ being found in the Body of Christ and the Body pointing towards how wide and expansive it is to truly know who He is.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 