Not the Apostate Worldly Church Organizations

You hear it all the time.

I'grand washed with church building.

I don't actually need to go to church…my relationship with God is personal.

I've had it with organized religion.

The church is a man-made invention, non God's thought.

I completely understand why a growing number of people are bailing on church. Fifty-fifty people who used to lead in the church often stop attending (here are 9 reasons why church leaders practice that).

While information technology'south easy to point to the significant exodus after the pandemic every bit a temporary blip, the truth is the leave has been happening for decades, fifty-fifty a generation or two.

We've spent a lot of fourth dimension working through the issue of declining church building attendance (and growing disillusionment with the church) on this blog and on my leadership podcast. (For a summary of the bug, here's a piece on the 10 reasons fifty-fifty committed church attenders are attending church less often).

I go it.

The church is far from perfect. Life is complex. At that place are growing options. And the post-modern heed distrusts most things organized or institutional.

But every bit trendy as the idea of writing off the church may exist, it'south a error.

While writing off the church building passes as sophisticated thinking, it'southward actually the contrary; what if it'southward a simplistic and fifty-fifty reductionistic line of thinking that leads nowhere effective?

While writing off the church passes as sophisticated thinking, it's really the opposite. Click To Tweet

The church isn't fifty-fifty biblical, is it?

People argue the thought of church isn't fifty-fifty biblical.

So permit'southward commencement with the basics.

First, if you lot're a Christian, church is non something you lot go to. It's something yous are.

You can't disassociate from the church building as a Christian any more than you can disassociate from humanity as a person.

You lot don't become to church building. You are the church.

You don't go to church. You are the church. Click To Tweet

2nd, the church was non a human being invention. Half-reading the New Attestation with one centre closed will even so lead you to the inescapable conclusion that the church was God'due south idea.

In fact, about of the New Attestation is non about the teachings of Jesus. It's about the work of the church that Jesus initiated and ordained. I won't fill this mail with scripture verses that prove my indicate, considering, quite frankly, you'd have to get rid of the majority of the New Testament to argue that the church was a parenthetical, made-upwardly organization.

If y'all desire to go rid of the church, you also need to become rid of Jesus.

Y'all tin't have one without the other.

If you desire to become rid of the church, you likewise need to get rid of Jesus. He created information technology. Click To Tweet

Maybe what bothers y'all should actually amaze you

I understand that the idea of the church beingness imperfect makes some people despair.

Simply rather than making us despair, the fact that Jesus started the church with imperfect people should brand us curiosity at God's incredible grace.

That God would apply ordinary, broken man beings as vessels of his grace, and delight in it, is awe-inspiring. He's proud of how his grace is beating through your imperfect-but-redeemed life and through the church (have yous ever read Ephesians three: ten-eleven?).

The idea that God would useyou lot andmeis pretty astonishing. He had other options.

He could take spoken to the globe directly, but instead, chose to use broken people to showcase his grace to a world in need of redemption.

The idea that God would use you and me is pretty amazing. He had other options. Click To Tweet

For sure, community is messy.

People sin. Leaders are sinful.

Virtually of the New Testament is non a story of an arcadian church where everything worked perfectly all the fourth dimension (just read 1 Corinthians whatever fourth dimension you're frustrated with your church).

Nearly of the New Testament is a story of Jesus using his followers to spread his dear in spite of themselves and as they overcome obstacle after obstacle.

The fact that Christ uses flawed people to accomplish his work on world is actually a sign of his grace, not a sign of his absence.

The church building'due south story, every bit twisted equally information technology gets at times, is a cute story of God'southward grace, God'southward ability, and God'due south redemption.

So, past the way, is your life, which reflects the story of the church more you lot would want to acknowledge.

The church gives the globe a front-row seat to the grace of God.

The church gives the globe a forepart-row seat to the grace of God. Click To Tweet

The ultimate consumerism isn't going to church…it's walking away from it

People criticize the church today as existence consumeristic. And to some extent, churches cater to consumerism—often to our detriment. I agree that consumerism is a problem for Christianity.

But ironically, much of the dialogue about why people are done with church pushes people deeper into Christian consumerism than it pushes them into deeper discipleship: Here I am, all alone, worshipping God on my schedule when information technology's convenient for me.

Listening to a podcast of your favorite preacher while you're at the gym or on the dorsum deck and pushing three of your favorite worship songs through your ear buds does not make you a more than passionate Christ-follower.

Information technology usually makes you a less constructive one.

Disconnecting yourself from community is really less faithful than connecting yourself to a flawed community.

If you think the church building today isn't enough (and arguably, we demand to reform it), then practise what the early Christians did.

If you desire a more biblical church…don't gather weekly, gather daily. Before dawn.

Get upward before the lord's day rises to pray together with other Christians before you go to work. Puddle your possessions. Don't claim annihilation every bit your own.

Be willing to lose your chore, your home, your family unit, and fifty-fifty your life because you follow Jesus.

Then you'll exist more accurate.

And notice that the early church did indeedgather.

Gathering always leads to some course of organizing.

To pretend the church building doesn't demand to exist organized is every bit logical every bit arguing that society doesn't demand to be organized.

Because customs is inevitable, organization is inevitable.

Considering customs is inevitable, organisation is inevitable. Click To Tweet

Our power to organize and to achieve more than together than we tin can alone is one of the crowning achievements of humanity, and our power to work together makes the Christian try far more effective.

It's also part of God's design for how nosotros should collaborate while we're on this planet. Come to think of it, heaven is a community too.

The only 1 who wants united states of america to believe that nosotros are better off alone is our enemy.

If y'all really recall about it, it's really a very clever tactic.

The simply i who wants Christians to believe we're improve off lone is our enemy. Click To Tweet

The church building has helped even those who resent the church

Finally, if y'all're reading this commodity and yous have any modicum of organized religion in Jesus, may I propose your faith is actually the result of the mission of the church.

Very few people come to know Jesus because he appears to them supernaturally when they are alone and calls them by proper noun.

Does that ever happen? Certain. But not to 99.nine% of united states of america.

About all of united states who follow Jesus have had our lives changed by a flawed trunk called the church that Jesus so passionately loves and calls his ain.

Think near that.

Exercise nosotros need more than churches? Yes.

Do we need more humble churches? We do.

Practice we need accurate, transparent leadership? Admittedly.

Does the church building demand to change? Without a doubt.

The church needs continual reformation and transformation.

So what will the future look like?

Will we gather in quite the fashion we do today in the future? In some means yeah; in others, no.

Hopefully, nosotros gather more than frequently and work through our differences at a deeper level and impact our communities more powerfully.

These two posts offer 10 predictions about future church attendance and xi traits of churches that volition affect the future.

Just regardless of how the church gathers in the future, nosotros will gather…we need to gather.

We Christians need each other, probably now more than ever.

And fifty-fifty if you don't think you need other Christians, I promise you, y'all exercise, and so does our world.

At present, more than ever, the world needs Christians working together humbly nether Christ to lead people into a growing human relationship with him, in whatever innovative and fresh forms that takes.

The church is not dead.

Far from it.

Mayhap it's just beginning to take shape for a brand new era that desperately needs it.

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Source: https://careynieuwhof.com/a-response-to-christians-who-are-done-with-church/

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