Category Archives: Books

Books, Church health

What Will the Church Be Like 30 Years from 1970?

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I have been reading Francis Schaeffer’s book, The Church at the End of the 20th Century. Schaeffer, the great evangelical philosopher-theologian who died in 1984, published the book in 1970. It has been on my shelf for years, but I am reading it now for the first time.

Part of the intrigue of reading this book in 2006, more than three decades after it was written, is to see how accurate Schaeffer was in identifying challenges that faced the church then and projecting how those trends would play out during the remainder of the century. In what I’ve read so far, Schaeffer is right on target and in some cases prophetic.

The Church at the End of the 20th Century is a follow-up to Schaeffer’s better known works, The God Who Is There (1968), and Escape From Reason (also 1968). Those books addressed the rise of relativism. This book considers the impact of relativism on the modern church.

Here is one excerpt (from Chapter 3) that caught my eye:

Suppose we awoke tomorrow morning and we opened our Bibles and found two things had been taken out… Suppose God had taken them out. The first item missing was the real empowering of the Holy Spirit, and the second item the reality of prayer. Consequently, following the dictates of Scripture, we would begin to live on the basis of this new Bible in which there was nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit and nothing about the power of prayer. Let me ask you something: what difference would there be from the way we acted yesterday?

It is a powerful question. It is a question for each believer to consider. But remember, Schaeffer’s focus in this book is the church. His question is an especially powerful and timely one for any modern church to consider.

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has a good one-page summary of Schaeffer’s life and work. I will post more from The Church at the End of the 20th Century in coming days.

Books, Church growth, Church health

BOOK REVIEW

Why Men Hate Going to Church

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I recently read David Murrow’s book, Why Men Hate Going to Church (2004, Thomas Nelson, Inc.). Despite the book’s numerous faults, Murrow has made one of the most important observations of this decade about church practices.

Why Men

Let’s get the negative out of the way first, and then get to substance. Murrow’s publisher should have brought in an editor, such as Terry Hull, to grind off some of the unpolished portions of what could have been a crystalline gemstone. Murrow is prone to unsupported overstatement (“The typical American man has only one friend, his wife.” At 120). Murrow makes inconsistent statements that are never reconciled.

He accuses churches of being anti-intellectual by discouraging questions and orderly debate. He then accuses churches of being dominated by book readers and Bible thumpers with whom “real men” cannot be comfortable because of their lack of education and their disdain of books. Which is it, is the church insulting our intelligence or overwhelming us with information that is over our heads? Personally, I am one church-going male who wouldn’t mind hearing more content from the pulpit that sounds like it has been informed by some academic study and is aiming above the 5th-grade intelligence level.

Murrow lurches between describing Christian men as immature, spiritually and emotionally, versus simply being bored, regardless of the level of their spiritual maturity, by the feminized church. Murrow wanders through pop psychology and brain chemistry, clearly lacking any qualification or study to support such meanderings. Then, worse, lacking any consultation, interviews or collaboration with the experts, he draws all sorts of inconsistent conclusions in an attempt to explain gender differences. Then he contradicts it all by claiming the reason church attendance by women is declining is because they are adopting male attributes as they become acclimated, or assimilated, in formerly male-dominated business environments.

Despite all these problems, Murrow is right that many churches have abandoned the Biblically described role as an assembly of believers and have become service companies with marketing departments rather than evangelistic programs. Murrow describes many churches as “sickly sweet,” feminine to the point of patronization, and attempting to communicate the Gospel using bedroom language and Top 40 love songs. Churches that do this make men uncomfortable, or bore them silly. Murrow is absolutely right.

Murrow claims the popular syndicated Christian radio network KLOVE has developed a model listener called “Kathy.” He claims “Kathy” is a soccer mom with a mini-van and 2.5 kids. He claims KLOVE is intentionally formatted to attract and hold Kathy as a listener, and that KLOVE staff meetings sometimes actually refer to her by name. As a result, KLOVE literally presents a “Top 40” Christian love song format, Murrow claims, that many church music programs then try to emulate, further alienating men.

Murrow does not go so far as to claim that the retirement of Petra was caused by the Manilowization of Christian music, but he does claim Christian men prefer “old time rock.” Murrow believes KLOVE and similar stations are influencing Christian worship by focusing on “Christian love songs” that reach women but put off men.

KLOVE’s website certainly reflects Murrow’s assertion. On June 10, 2006, at www.klove.com, the home page had several pictures of women, similar to what one might find on any woman’s magazine, and the only males were a prayer circle of soldiers at the bottom of the page that could be seen only by scrolling down a few screens. No rebuttal of Murrow’s assertion is offered on the website, and that is not surprising, given KLOVE’s “positive and encouraging” marketing spin. (KLOVE does post its financial statement and allows its finances to be reviewed by an outside organization, so it has my respect for that.)

Murrow did not mention Christian book publishers and dealers, but he could have. The Christian pulp fiction romance novel is in full bloom. While I’m not personally critical of or even interested in that trend, it is interesting that the genre has come to dominate the advertising and display space, and seems to further prove Murrow’s thesis.

The result, according to Murrow, is a spirituality about as challenging as fingerpainting and about as interesting as a bologna sandwich. The church, Murrow asserts, has become focused on “relationships,” provides only a tiny percentage of its budget to missions, and has abandoned the growing numbers of martyrs sacrificed for Christ around the globe. Even if he is wrong about the cause, Murrow is exactly right in his indictments. Far too many churches would have no defense to these charges.

Indeed, in too many churches, racism is not dead, and is now being expressed in hatred for immigrants, especially those not fluent in the King’s English. Meanwhile, those same churches often have no ministry even in their own operational areas to the black community, the Hispanic community or any Asian community. These churches do not Se Habla Espanol. The legal community has done a better job of learning Spanish than nearly all churches in all denominations — just look at the lawyer advertising in any telephone book in any city for the proof.

Having diagnosed the problem, Murrow, again brilliantly, suggests some of solutions. He thinks the church has gone silent, and thus, soft, on Satan. The result is there is no enemy to fight, so no need for Christian soldiers. There is no playing for keeps on any spiritual battlefield and the only threat is disease and old age, resulting in prayer and share times devoted to medical issues and loss of loved ones brought by a line of women dutifully traipsing up to the open microphone. Prayer is seldom if ever used for spiritual conquest. Murrow concludes that there is no need for lifeboats, no need for search-and-rescue missions, no need for Christian soldiers, and thus no need for men.

Murrow thinks part of the problem is that the male relationship, such as between Paul and Timothy, has been abandoned by most churches. There is no spiritual fatherhood and there is no mentoring (aka discipleship). After all, why prepare men for battles and wars that will never be fought? The closest most churches come to needing men is lawn care, parking lot control, and occasional construction projects — oh, and writing checks.

Murrow does not add another solution that seems obvious to me. Men should stop writing checks to churches that do these things, or should at least split their tithes and offerings. If more men wrote checks to KLOVE, maybe KLOVE would have to add “Frank” to their model listener category. It might be too late to bring back Petra, but who knows?

Checks could also be diverted, in whole or in part, away from these no longer glorified churches and paid to local Christian benevolence ministries, especially those that Se Habla Espanol and are not afraid of black people. Maybe Christian men can still teach their churches not to be afraid of the people who live a few miles away, as well as to care about the Christians imprisoned and executed in other parts of the world. Maybe churches might be forced to hire the lawn care done because their men are too busy ministering to the helpless, rescuing the captives from fortresses of sin, and building ladders and bridges so the lost can climb out of Hell before its too late.

Books

Barna on the Radio / My Take on House Churches

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Christian author George Barna will be a radio guest tonight to discuss (defend?) his latest book, Revolution. Thanks to Zane Anderson of House Church Unplugged for tipping us to Barna’s interview.

I imagine Barna is making the rounds to respond to the broad criticism he and his book have received from many Christian leaders and teachers. Rod Heggy and I both read Revolution and agreed that, while we share Barna’s discouragement about the poor shape of the modern America church, he has gone too far by endorsing the abandonment of the local congregation.

In my review of Barna’s book, (“You Say You Want a Revolution?”, Dec. 28, 2005) I wrote:

Revolution … exalts the decision of many “revolutionary” believers to drop the church from their busy schedules. … To those revolutionaries Barna pronounces: whether you become “completely disassociated from a local church is irrelevant to me (and, within boundaries, to God).”

In Rod Heggy’s review (“Barna’s Revolution,” Dec. 23, 2005), Rod wrote:

[Barna concludes] that the local church concept is approaching obsolescence … Barna’s “discovery” of a large “breed” of Christian “revolutionaries” who do not have the time or feel the necessity for local church involvement, or even worship service attendance, seems poorly explained or documented. Rather than concluding that these Christians are marginal or backslidden … Barna concluded that these Christians represent a “significant recalibration of the American Church body.”

Barna will discuss Revolution at 8 p.m. (Central) tonight on Moody Broadcasting Network’s “Open Line” call-in show. At this link, you can find a radio broadcast in your area, or listen to the show live online, or if you are a pod person, download the podcast after the broadcast.

I predict that Barna will tell us we have all misunderstood his book — that he didn’t really mean what we think he said. I don’t think there is any misunderstanding what Barna wrote. As Christianity Today put it in the title of its review, Barna’s message is: “No Church? No Problem.” But I’m not surprised if, in response to the backlash he is getting, Barna is doing some back-pedaling now.

HOUSE CHURCHES TEMPTING, BUT NOT THE ANSWER
Thanks to Zane Anderson for the tip. Zane’s blog is called House Church Unplugged. House church leaders probably love Revolution. In it, Barna predicts that the local church as we know it will decline to about half its current participation level by 2025. One of the alternative forms of worship that Barna predicts will fill the void is the house church. House churches have already given up on the traditional neighborhood congregation; they are among the “revolutionaries” Barna praises.

I am not an advocate of the house church movement. However, I am very much in sympathy with what the house church movement is all about. There is something beautiful about stripping away all of the noise and nonsense of the modern American church experience, to gather with a handful of believers in someone’s home for a simple time of worship. During 40+ years as a Christian, most of my fondest moments of worship, of Bible study, and of fellowship have been in just that setting. Gathered in someone’s living room, sitting face to face, with open Bibles, the wind of the Spirit blowing through the room. That is awesome. It worked for the early Church for two centuries before the first church buildings were introduced to Christian culture.

But there is an important distinction between house churches and cell churches, and I would advocate the cell church as closer to the biblical model. A cell group meeting is almost indistinguishable from a house church meeting. However, the house church is a church unto itself, while the cell group is part of a larger church, i.e., a corporate body composed of many cells. Cell group members participate both in cell meetings and large-group worship services. The hub of our fellowship and body life should be small groups meeting in homes, but the connection to the larger group has its advantages, too. The first Christians met in homes, but were very closely connected with the other home groups throughout the city.

Nevertheless, Zane, I understand only too well what has motivated you and your fellow house church members to take that approach. I hope your house church is prospering. If you are willing to give us a description of your house church experience, I would be happy to publish it as a guest post.

Books, Church health

BOOK REVIEW

You Say You Want a Revolution?

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If you love the local church, you probably won’t like George Barna’s latest book, Revolution. If, on the other hand, you are a Christian who has quit local church involvement, you may welcome Revolution, which exalts the decision of many “revolutionary” believers to drop the church from their busy schedules.

Barna is well known as a researcher who tracks beliefs and practices in the church and nation, and as the author of more than 30 books on church growth and church health. I have enjoyed some of Barna’s previous books and was looking forward to his latest contribution. Sadly, what this pocket-size 144-page book provides is a burned-out, disillusioned Barna serving up more of a rant than a revolution.

In Revolution (Tyndale House Publishers, 2005), Barna predicts that by 2025 involvement in local U.S. churches will plummet to half its present level. It is an alarming prediction. What is more shocking, however, is that Barna all but applauds this dismal vision of the church’s future. In Revolution, Barna basically says, “Bring it on!” and chides anyone who does not join him in welcoming the decline of the church as we know it.

During the next twenty years, Barna predicts, local congregations will decline in importance as Christians increasingly turn to “alternative faith-based communities” and to “media, arts and culture” for their Christian education, fellowship, and ministry. Barna provides few details about these alternative “means of spiritual experience and expression,” which he says currently constitute 25% of how Americans express their faith, but will reach as high as 70% by 2020. He mentions house churches, the Internet, and such peculiarities as “marketplace ministries” and “Christian creative arts guilds.” It’s all rather vague. It is remarkable that Barna knows so little about what his revolution will look like, yet he is able to measure down to the percentile what its impact will be two decades from now.

Actually, according to statistics published on Barna’s own website, U.S. church attendance has remained stable for at least the last twenty years, with slightly less than half of all American adults attending a religious service during any given week. However, not only does Barna predict that significantly fewer people will be active in churches twenty years from now, but Barna describes those who are abandoning the local church as “revolutionaries” who should be applauded rather than exhorted to return to the fold.

Who is a “Revolutionary” ala Barna? The best example is the one with which Barna opens his book. Two men, both suburban CEOs in their 30s, are golfing on a Sunday morning. Both are “born-again Christian[s] who had eliminated church life from their busy schedules.” Nevertheless, these men regard themselves “as deeply spiritual people.” As they work their way through eighteen holes, David and Michael discuss the Bible, an upcoming missions trip, volunteer work at a homeless shelter, and they pause to admire the mountains on the horizon. Says Barna, “David, you see, is a Revolutionary Christian. His life reflects the very ideals and principles that characterized the life and purpose of Jesus Christ … despite the fact that David rarely attends church services. He is typical of a new breed of disciples of Jesus Christ.”

Many of us can sympathize with the fictional pair’s disillusionment with the local church. They were driven out, Barna says, “by boredom and the inability to serve in ways that made use of their considerable skills and knowledge.” I am deeply dissatisfied with the contemporary church, so when I first heard about Revolution, I was eager to read it, glad to know any suggestions Barna might have for changing the church for the better. Unfortunately, Barna has no suggestions, because he has all but given up on the local church.

Why has the local church become an increasingly empty exercise? Barna lays much of the blame on the megachurches. He observes that the contemporary church is or wants to be a supersized megachurch whose glory is its big-screen projection system. He lays into churches that are personality cults rather than proclaimers of truth and whose legacy is expensive “man-made monuments,” presumably a reference to the goliath church “campuses” we see popping up all over. “Jesus did not die on the cross to fill church auditoriums [or] to enable magnificent church campuses to be funded.”

By the way, one movement that rebels against the slick and glitz of the megachurches is the emergent church, which attempts to redefine church in a “postmodern world.” Emergents will be disappointed with Barna’s take on their community. He mentions them only in passing, and what he says is unflattering: “The ‘emergent’ or ‘postmodern’ congregations really are not new models but simply minor refinements of the reigning model.”

Among a glut of spiritually empty churches are Barna’s revolutionaries, “spiritual champions who have no spiritual homeland” and who feel like “the odd person out” in the typical contemporary congregation. To those revolutionaries Barna pronounces: whether you become “completely disassociated from a local church is irrelevant to me (and, within boundaries, to God).”

Barna attempts some sleight of hand, claiming that his purpose “is not to bash the local church. Christian churches have an incredible 2000-year legacy … It is horrifying to imagine what the world would be like if the local church had not been present to represent Jesus.” However, Barna concludes his book by chiding those who oppose his Revolution because they stubbornly cling to the old-fashioned notion that “the Bible disallows a believer to intentionally live at arm’s length from the local church.”

I certainly cling to that notion: that God has commanded believers to be active participants in a neighborhood church. Barna would dissuade us, saying:
* “The Bible neither describes nor promotes the local church as we know it today.”
* “The Bible does not rigidly define the corporate practices, rituals, or structures that must be embraced in order to have a proper church.”
* “We should keep in mind that what we call ‘church’ is just one interpretation of how to develop and live a faith-centered life. We made it up. It may be healthy or helpful, but it is not sacrosanct.”

As I read such statements, I get the impression Barna is carefully inserting some qualifying words to leave himself an escape, should anyone attempt to hold him accountable. Let’s step over the qualifiers and ask some straightforward questions. Does the Bible describe and promote the local church? Of course it does. Does the Bible define corporate practices, rituals and structures that we should embrace to have a proper church? Of course it does. Did we just make up the local church? Of course not. Is the local church “sacrosanct,” i.e., a holy institution? You bet it is.

I am the minister of a small nondenominational church. Our church is similar in most important ways to other Bible-believing, Christ-honoring churches. Some manifestations of our effort to follow the New Testament pattern are the selection of elders to shepherd the flock, observance of the Lord’s Supper each Sunday, and the preaching and teaching of God’s Word corporately and in smaller groups. Your church no doubt has similar practices and some practices that are different. If we were to sit down with an open Bible, we might enjoy a lively discussion about why each of our churches does things the way we do. In such a discussion, we would certainly have no shortage of Scriptures to turn to. The local church – its structure, its leadership, its sacraments, its meetings, its practices – is a primary topic of the New Testament. Barna, however, sweeps all these questions away with a couple of off-hand remarks claiming that the Bible simply gives us no instructions, and therefore it is entirely up to us to choose how we do church or whether we do church at all.

No question about it: the modern U.S. church desperately needs change. A true revolutionary wants to affect that change. But Barna wants to just give up and move on. Barna calls it revolutionary for a disenchanted Christian to focus on family gatherings, Internet hook-ups, and golf course worship – and leave the local church to us diehards who refuse to see the handwriting on the wall. I call that tempting, and easy, but not revolutionary.

Local churches have been assembling, teaching, shepherding, disciplining, equipping and encouraging Christians for two thousand years. The local church is God’s idea, and no secular culture or false revolution will prevail against it. Barna may be right that in modern America, involvement in the local church is on the decline and will only get worse. However, Barna is very wrong to become a cheerleader for that decline.

To any church leader or member who may be tempted by Barna’s words to throw in the towel on the local church, please be reminded of the Apostle Paul’s words to a struggling group of local churches in Galatia. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest — if we do not give up.”

Books, Church health

BOOK REVIEW

What Ever Happened to Grace?

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Tim Challies reviews and recommends What Ever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? by James Boice. According to Challies:

It was Boice’s conviction that much of what passes as Christianity today is anything but. … The author shows that where the evangelical church was once known for and defined by what it believed, today it is increasingly defined by its style. He is especially critical of the church growth movement, saying that this movement adjusts Christianity to the desires of our culture. The modern church does not understand that Christianity can only thrive by offering people not what “they already have, but what they so desperately lack – namely, the Word of God and salvation through Jesus Christ.”

Dr. Boice died in 2000, and What Ever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? was published after his death, in 2001. Boice is well-known as a Reformed (i.e. Calvinist) theologian, author of more than 50 books, and pastor of Tenth Street Presbyterian, Philadelphia, for more than 30 years. I remember him as one of the speakers on a promotional video for the Navigator’s “2:7 Series” Bible studies, a video I screened numerous times when Norma and I led several 2:7 groups during the 1990s.

Guess I’ll have to add What Ever Happened… to my Amazon wishlist.