Is the Church Supposed to Be a Safe Place?

We're starting up our Transform (Confirmation) class this next weekend, so I was finding some ideas from other youth groups around the world for ways that teenagers can experience learning the Bible.  Of course each denomination is different and, certainly, churches have different priorities for what is important in their congregations.

But I was taken aback by one video of a Youth Pastor of a large church somewhere in the United States who was decked out in his youth polo shirt, khaki pants and cooler than cool wavy hair (this is envy rearing its head, mind you) and as he stared into the camera introducing his church and youth group his first words were these (I'm paraphrasing):

"Everyone who is watching this, I want you to know, if you are intending to bring your young people to our church, or even if you are watching this video from a different church, the number one priority that we want to tell our parents and kids is this:

We are a safe place."

At first when I heard it, I nodded and thought, Yes, this is the twenty-first century.  We have to make people feel comfortable in church, make sure that all of their stress and distress is completely wiped away, knock off the corners of the tables, don't run with scissors and make sure all risk assessments are done for any activity including the risk of consuming pizza beforehand.

But then there was something about that statement that started to bug me:  When did the church become a place devoid of risk?  Of course, there will be an assortment of people that will immediately think - 'You have to avoid circumstances where kids will be hurt.  We've seen enough trauma in that area from certain denominations which have destroyed the credibility of the Universal Church throughout the last hundred years.'

Correct.  As families come to the building known as 'the church' we should create an environment that doesn't jeopardise the physical well-being of the attendees, but if I'm thinking back to the time when I was a kid, a sterile environment, free of risk-taking would be the last place I would want to go to.  Would I really have wanted to play on a playground that had six inches of foam underneath and the tallest slide was made of plastic and reached a soaring altitude of five feet (and the greatest risk to my safety was the static shock from wearing a sweatshirt and touching the sides when I hit the bottom)?

I liken it to going to the bowling alley and putting up the bumper guardrails so that nobody misses any pins and never fails.  I mean really, what's the point?

What I liked about going to church when I was a kid was climbing to the third storey of the Sunday school rooms and then sliding down three storeys of railings.  I liked it when Mike Jordahl, during our crafting mural activity, stuck a piece of corn up his nose and they had to go to the hospital to tweezer it out.  I liked it when we played a game called Red Rover, running across the open field into a waiting group of kids holding hands and trying desperately not to dislocate someone's shoulder or give myself a concussion.

Some of this sounds like old people when they say, I remember when I was a kid - I get that, but in our physical safe age (which is important and we have to do it) perhaps we've gone too far in protecting adults and kids from actually struggling inside the church, especially spiritually.  We tell everyone who enters, 'This is a safe place, feel free to simply soak in the love of Jesus and then go home.  If you start to feel anxious, don't worry, we'll help you forget about it."

What's wrong with feeling anxious?  What's wrong with persevering through the difficult passages of the Bible (or better yet persevering with difficult people)? What's wrong with letting people take theological risks and working through them (maybe with difficult people)?  Why not a spiritual version of Red Rover where we take a step back and run as fast as we can at the connected hands of someone who holds an opposing view and see what happens if their argument holds true?  Can I join their team then?

That's part of the question as we seek longevity for the church: how can we have the church be a safe place to take risks?

When the early church was in its infancy as told in the book of Acts, there was no disciple standing at the front of the throng of people, with his church polo shirt and khaki pants, lovely styled hair, standing up and saying, "Please, come join The Way.  When you do, you'll find a safe place free of any danger, physical, emotional or otherwise.  You will fee a perpetual sense of peace and you won't have to do a single thing which will push you outside your comfort zone."  With a smile on his face, Peter finishes, "That's our main priority.  That you feel safe."

No Way.

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.  But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.  (Acts 8:1-3)

There was a real threat for real people to believe in a man who was not safe.  Jesus did not necessarily make people feel good about themselves (His first words were about repentance, remember?), but helped them see that they needed God.  As they believed in this revolutionary human who happened to be God incarnate, they recognised, in some way, that being part of the Church was going to hurt a little.  Jesus said it: take up your cross and follow me, not sit in your pew and escape.  Paul, the changed man who nearly destroyed the church in its beginnings, repeated it.  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  (Romans 6:4)

I think the mere fact that there was a sense of danger was a real cause for the early church to recognise the legitimacy of the message.  When the people experienced the persecution and when they experienced the risk for their faith, it tempered and hardened them spiritually to do battle against the evil of the world, while at the same time hearing and knowing the love of Jesus that sustained them.  If they simply had to sit in a safe building for one hour each week, remaining unchanged and unchallenged, would the early church have survived and spread?

My hope is that during our own Transform classes, during our worship, during our Bible studies, during our service projects that we can risk the pain of encountering new experiences that challenge us.  My hope is that we can allow the risk of talking about topics like gun violence, domestic abuse, gender fluidity, sexuality, speaking in tongues, the call to overcome greed, etc. so that we can be a strong light in the world for the next generations to see.  And when those who are seeking see that we haven't sanitised or sterilised the Law and the Gospel, and they see that this Church is not a well-cushioned playground or a bump-proof basketball court, maybe they will want to engage in the struggle of God's story here with us right now.

I hope you find that risk in your church this week.

Finding Longevity in (and for) the Church

I was scraping through my Facebook news the other day when I unearthed the story of a reporter who was investigating a curious phenomena on the Italian island of Sardinia.  (No, the residents are called 'Sardinians' not 'Sardines', in case you were wondering.)  Sardinia is home to the largest percentage of centenarians (those who live past 100 years of age) in the world.

The oldest man in the world lives in Japan and is 114 years old, but seven out of the next ten live in Italy.  So, the obvious ensuing question is: Why is this?  How is it that Sardinia can have seven times per capita more centenarians than almost all of the rest of Western society?

If you were to ask the Melis siblings, all nine of them who live on Sardinia and have an average age of 90 - the oldest is 105 and the 'youngest' is 78 - they would chalk up the ability to survive and thrive to an assortment of things: clean living, a glass of red wine and goats cheese at night, working outdoors and staying healthy by walking, but another factor was brought up.  These siblings, along with many other Sardinians, feel that because they are in close connection as family units, constant interaction with the younger generations, often revered for (not revolted by) their age, they are connected and have a will to live and enjoy life.

This story got me thinking:  How can the contemporary Church continue to enjoy a long age but also new growth in it's 21st century and beyond?

In thinking about these things and speaking with some other people, here are four things that are not programs and cost no money whatsoever, but hopefully can sustain Church life and growth.

1.  Find Unity

When Jesus proclaims that he is going to prepare a place for us - His Father's house which has many rooms, but one house, he's giving us a model.  So it is here on earth - one Church with many rooms.  Unfortunately, much of contemporary Christianity still has a mindset of Many Churches and One God.  I may alienate myself with this, but planting churches, although good, seems to be somewhat short-sighted.  When Jesus speaks of making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:20) he doesn't specify that a building is included (or even needed).  His command is 'Go!'

I think as members of the body of Christ and members of local congregations, we can, and should, feel free to worship in any room (church building) that is nearby.  Unified in Christ, we connect with others, made holy through God's power, and find unity in movement.  Church membership seems to almost inhibit the mobility of the Great Commission.  As a member of a local congregation, all of my energy and resources generally are about the one Room, but as we move and support each other, we find that we evangelise along the way.

We are connected by love, not location.  (Jesus' prayer before his arrest is unsurprisingly not about planting churches.)

 John 17:20-23  

'My prayer is not for (the disciples) alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one - I in them and you in me - so that they may be brought to complete unity.  Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you love me.'

2.  Find the 'We'

One of my favourite passages of scripture comes from Romans 5:1-11, 6:1-14.  In these two passages, the word 'We' is used thirty times.  We encounter the plural, a soldering of 'you' and 'I' into the 'we' and 'us', to our great benefit.  No greater is this spelled out than 6:4,5; 

'We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.'

Here are the ultimate ideals of the Church - new life, long life, productive life.  But it comes through baptism and the drowning of the 'I'.

In Greek, the word for 'I' is ego.  Of course we see this in psychological circles everywhere, the ego is the centre of who we are in our own personal universe.  From a worldly perspective it regulates all that we think and do.  The ego controls what I find most important in life and who I find most important in life.

But Paul draws the line and says that the Ego,  the I, must be drowned in baptism - killed - and in the subsequent explosion from the Waters of Life, we find new life in the We.  In essence, the Ego  is shed and the 'We-go' arises.

How do we do this?

Maybe it begins in the core of our spiritual practices?  Perhaps we begin in worship where the songs that we sing are much more about Christ and including the We, than it is about making sure I am shoring up my own shortcomings and making sure that 'Me and Jesus are okay.'  Corporately, we find unity; individually we may encounter the loneliness of solely a personal relationship with Jesus.  In our prayers, can we look to the outer rather than inner?  As much as I want God to 'Jabez' me (from Bruce Wilkinson's Book The Prayer of Jabez, where the author postulates that if you pray like Jabez - 1 Chronicles 4:9,10 - you will get whatever you desire, blessing, territory, no harm and free from pain), I know that in the broad scope of things, the desperate prayer of the faithful is to be unified in the territory that we are given, in the difficulties of life and the associate pain of being connected as parts of One Body.

Tomorrow (hopefully) we'll look at the last two ideas and then, perhaps, we can start discussing in our local chat-rooms (congregations) how to start moving together.

A Great Exaggeration

The other night, as the sun was going down, I, with another pastor, was looking over the football field surveying a group of thirty-odd young people running around on the grass playing a game of Capture the Flag.  I looked over at Greg, who, with arms crossed and smile stretched across his face, caught my eye and spoke.

'Reports of the death of the church are greatly exaggerated, I would say.'

Bemusedly, we watched the vibrancy and vitality of the youth as they strained and pressed forward towards the goal that had been clearly marked for them - the pink flag on the end of a stick poking up between the goal posts; unfortunately, the sun was getting quite low in the sky and not only were the flags more difficult to see, it was also humorous to watch the youth try to remember who was on their team and who was not.  Eventually, they gave up trying to decipher whose team they were on and simply tagged everyone.  Laughter and shouts of joy echoed in the stillness of the twilight.  And I nodded.

Indeed, reports of the church's death are not only exaggerated, but quite clearly fake news.  This is not a head-in-the-sand mentality, but a true to life hope in the immense power of God as He reimagines the future of the Body of Christ for us in a tremendously powerful secular age.

Mark Twain penned those words about his supposed demise in 1897 (according to This Day in Quotes), but it was not the original sentence.  Supposedly, Twain, while in London, was aware that some newspapers in the United States were writing him off because of an illness, and his response was this:

 “I can understand perfectly how the report of my illness got about, I have even heard on good authority that I was dead. James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness. 
     The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Illness, especially in our contemporary phobic society, can be misconstrued easily as the next footstep onto the threshold of death's door.  We seek to find any solution for illness on WebMD, or any other website that may seem to lump symptoms together, and then we point our fingers at the screen while our heart thumps steadily in our chest, There, see that!  These symptoms seem to say that in just a little while the gravediggers will be shovelling the last fill of dirt into the hole.  I suppose I'd better write up my will again.  With fear tightening in our guts, we close the laptop in front of us and resign ourselves to fatalism that no matter what, there's nothing we can do about the demise that seems to be just across the doorstep...  Why even try?

Which is why, as Greg and I surveyed the scene last Friday night, captured by the surround sound of young people enjoying life together, I think to myself - This is why we try.

The contemporary church has an illness - there are no denying the symptoms:

According the Australian Bureau of Statistics from the latest Census in 2016, fifty-one percent of Australians still claim Christianity, but...

The largest growing demographic for the Millennial group is 'no religion' or 'other religion.'  Young people are absconding with their religious (or non-religious) lives intact to somewhere way beyond the denominational church walls.

Of those who claim Christianity (whether or not they claim Christ is a different issue), only a small minority would attend worship weekly.

Biblical literacy seems to be at it's lowest level since the Protestant Reformation.

Prayer, for the most part, has that sense of soft drink machine mentality - I put in my time, pray earnestly (for a good three minutes) and then, when I'm good and ready, I expect that God will eject a positive answer to my prayer.  Quite a bit different to C. S. Lewis' thoughts of prayer: 'Prayer is a request.  The essence of a request, as distinct from compulsion, is that it may or may not be granted.'  (But that doesn't make the granter unfaithful.  Maybe the granter is simply more patient?)

When prayer isn't answered within seconds, like the nervous Facebook poster who receives no instantaneous thumbs up or smiley faces, we believe that either there is no God, or that He doesn't care about us.

This illness seems entirely depressing, and the immediate reaction by most church leaders is to turn to the internet for some kind of panacea that will fix the malady (but more likely just ease the symptoms) of the contemporary church - a new program, a bigger building, some fog machines during worship, a better sermon and especially a more charismatic pastor - but the incredible cure for what ails the church is (unsurprisingly) found in the scriptures and some of our youngest are intuitively reconnecting with what Paul writes about to the Ephesians:

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.  Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:1-6

To be bound by peace.

To be one.

To find unity.

To see, beyond a doubt, that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers  of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  (Ephesians 6:12)

In the new life of the church, we recognise that those who profess Christ stand with those who are at a different stage on the path of faith, not against them, and certainly not above them.

In the next instalment of the new life in the church that is coming, we'll look at four ways that churches can continue to release, not harness, the excitement and joy of our people, young and old alike, in mutual partnership of walking this pathway of life together.  I recognise the ultimate irony of writing a blog on the internet on how to help the church, but these four ways are images of new opportunities of sharing the Gospel without 'programming' them.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in his classic book, Life Together,  “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.”

Let's find the new life together in the 21st century community that is our Church.

A Church Without Walls

Imagine, if you will, a father wakes his children in the morning with a light rap on the door.  It's barely light; the sun has only begun to yawn, the clouds are still rosy and the children, rapt with Sugar Plum Fairies, are grumbling about the early start to the day.  The father, full of anxious expectation, throws open the curtains, eyes aglow and announces to the kids, "Today is the day we begin something new!"

The children, still adjusting to the hour, groggily wipe the sleep from their eyes.  "What are we doing today, Dad?"

"Well," he says rubbing his hands together as if a meal has been placed on the table in front of him, "We're going to build something new, something different, something immense!"  This statement grabs the children's attention, and with new energy, they throw their legs over the side of the bed, put their slippers on, and bound to their father who has already exited the room.  As they pass down the hallway, the children, a brother and sister, whisper excitedly about what kind of construction could be taking place.  A doll house?  New cabinets for the pantry?  A shed?  Maybe even a new play room!  As they reach the living room, their father is standing beside the front bay window.  His smile is wide and his hands are already reaching for the curtains.

"What is it!" The children shout excitedly.

The father throws open the curtains and they see the immense oak tree in the front yard which stands sentinel over their house.  It has been their constant shade, their toy and their protection for all of their years.  "Yes?" they ask again.

"Imagine this," the father says as he begins by waving his arms in the air painting ideas like images on a canvas, "that instead of having just the old oak tree in the front, we actually have..." he calls for a drum roll which they supply, "A tree house!"

The children are ecstatic.  They begin jumping around the room hugging each other like they haven't in years.  A tree house!  Think of all the things that they could do!  Immediately, after their brief explosion of joy, they settle themselves at the coffee table, grab a notebook and begin to sketch their plans for their new creation.  The one that will produce and protect their joy until they become disillusioned adults.

"Here is where we'll have the living area," the boy says as he draws a large central space between the boughs.

"And here," the sister points to a branch farther out, "Is where the ladder will go - way up high!"  Their excitement is only barely contained by their imagination, and as they continue to draw, their own plans for the tree house grow bigger than the actual tree itself.  The father, watching bemusedly, crosses his arms and then pulls a piece of paper from his pocket.  As he sits down, he pulls the plans of the children from in front of them and lays them aside.

"Actually," the father says to the children as he puts his own paper in front of them, "these are the plans we'll be using.  I drew these up with the help of a great architect."  He begins showing them the plans - they are somewhat confused by the architectural language, but they are intrigued by the size and scope, but as they look between the father's blueprint and their own imagination, they feel a pang of disappointment that they weren't involved in the planning.

"And," the father continues, "I know that because you two are young and inexperienced, you'll need quite a bit of help so..." he points back to the window where some people have already arrived, "I've called in some of the neighbours to build it.  Now, the children are confused.  What had started out as a thrilling morning of shared vision and building, was now a project to be completed independently of the children.

"What do you think?" the father asks with great joy.

What would you think?

This story is an image of a biblical story from I Chronicles.  At the end of his life, David is about to die and return to his Father, but he wants to pass on what he believes is his ultimate representation of his life's work.  When the idea first came to David for a temple, David wanted to build a house for God, but, as I wrote in the last blog, the Temple of Jerusalem, would not be a place where God is contained, but where his name would rest - like all places of worship.  Solomon knew this already, and even after it was built, in his message to Hiram he explains the purpose of the Temple:

(2 Chron. 2:5,6)

 'The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods.  But who is able to build a temple for him, since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him?  Who then am I to build a temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices before him?'

But in proposing the Temple to Solomon, it's interesting how David passed on his ideas:

(1 Chronicles 28:10-12a)

Consider now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary.  Be strong and do the work.  Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement.  He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the Lord...

To me, it doesn't read as if Solomon was consulted on the plans for the temple, only that David was passing over what was in his mind that the Spirit had placed there.  Now of course, I'm not putting down the plans of the Spirit - not by any means - but is it not possible that the Spirit could have spoken to, and through, Solomon also about his own reflection of what the Temple would look like?  Could Solomon, the representative of the next generation of leadership, have been invited into the discussion for the House of God's Name?

To top it all off, after David had given his plans to Solomon with a stern encouragement to be faithful, David gathers the entire assembly, the entire Ecclesia (or Church) and says to them, "My son, Solomon, the one whom God has chosen, is young and inexperienced... (1 Chron. 29:1a). It can be inferred, as David tells the assembly that because of Solomon's youth and inexperience, Solomon cannot do this task, so they must do it for him.

Now, I'm all for sharing the labour and allowing the church to use their gifts, but why not let Solomon lead this part?  So what if he is young and inexperienced?  Maybe he might bring some new perspective, or some new energy to the old ways of doing things?

And so it happens in our contemporary churches.  When it comes to building and sustaining the new Church, we often engage the youth and young adults in the excitement of constructing something new, perhaps even a new understanding of community where God's name will be perpetually present, but then we hand over our own plans to them. Even though the Spirit has worked diligently in our own generation, can the Spirit work just as (or even more) powerfully in the next generation - a mobile generation that sees relatively little import in membership to a specific location or building, but belonging in a community?  This current generation seems to value connections much more than denominational fences.  While Baby Boomers and Gen Xers get distracted by worship style, Powerpoints and the colour of the carpeting, the next generations are focussing on how we can live a life worthy of the calling of the Gospel of Christ and be faithful to Law while rejoicing in the Gospel.

As the next wave of generational humanity sweeps across the earth, it's my great hope and prayer that we sit with them in the building process, give them the crayons and the stories of the past, and allow them to draw a picture of the future of the Church.  We, as this current generation in leadership, have our own patterns of what seemed to work in evangelism and teaching (and many things that did not - especially for Gen Y, Millenials and beyond), but allowing these next generations to take ownership of their architectural blue prints for A Church Without Walls - that is exciting for me.

Take a read through the last chapters of 1 Chronicles and reimagine how we might be passing on the leadership without our own strings.