(a blog from Kevin DeYoung- He is an American Reformed
Evangelical theologian and author,
currently the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church.)
currently the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church.)
It’s sexy among young people—my generation—to talk about
ditching institutional religion and starting a revolution of real
Christ-followers living in real community without the confines of church.
Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churchless Christianity are
unrealistic. It’s immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think
romance preserves the marriage, when the couple celebrating their golden
anniversary know it’s the institution of marriage that preserves the romance.
Without the God-given habit of corporate worship and the God-given mandate of
corporate accountability, we will not prove faithful over the long haul.
What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more
plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church—a multitude of
faithful, risk-taking plodders. The best churches are full of
gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and
God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often
unnoticed, plodding consistency.
My generation in particular is prone to radicalism without
follow through. We have dreams of changing the world, and the world should take
notice accordingly. But we’ve not proved faithful in much of anything yet. We
haven’t held a steady job or raised godly kids or done our time in VBS or, in
some cases, even moved off the parental dole. We want global change and expect
a few more dollars to the ONE campaign or Habitat for Humanity chapter to just
about wrap things up. What the church and the world needs, we imagine, is for
us to be another Bono—Christian, but more spiritual than religious and more
into social justice than the church. As great as it is that Bono is using his
fame for some noble purpose, I just don’t believe that the happy future of the
church, or the world for that matter, rests on our ability to raise up a
million more Bonos (as at least one author suggests).
With all due respect,
what’s harder: to be an idolized rock star who travels around the world touting
good causes and chiding governments for their lack of foreign aid, or to be a
line worker at GM with four kids and a mortgage, who tithes to his church,
sings in the choir every week, serves on the school board, and supports a
Christian relief agency and a few missionaries from his disposable income?
Until we are content with being one of the million nameless,
faceless church members and not the next globe-trotting rock star, we aren’t
ready to be a part of the church. In the grand scheme of things, most of us are
going to be more of an Ampliatus (Rom. 16:8) or Phlegon (v. 14) than an apostle
Paul. And maybe that’s why so many Christians are getting tired of the church.
We haven’t learned how to be part of the crowd.
We haven’t learned to be
ordinary. Our jobs are often mundane. Our devotional times often seem like
a waste. Church services are often forgettable. That’s life. We drive to the
same places, go through the same routines with the kids, buy the same groceries
at the store, and share a bed with the same person every night. Church is often
the same too—same doctrines, same basic order of worship, same preacher, same
people. But in all the smallness and sameness, God works—like the smallest seed
in the garden growing to unbelievable heights, like beloved Tychicus, that
faithful minister, delivering the mail and apostolic greetings (Eph. 6:21).
Life is usually pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days.
Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.
Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.
It’s possible the church needs to change. Certainly in some
areas it does. But it’s also possible we’ve changed—and not for the better.
It’s possible we no longer find joy in so great a salvation. It’s possible that
our boredom has less to do with the church, its doctrines, or its poor
leadership and more to do with our unwillingness to tolerate imperfection in
others and our own coldness to the same old message about Christ’s death and
resurrection. It’s possible we talk a lot about authentic community but we
aren’t willing to live in it. The church is not an incidental part of God’s plan.
Jesus didn’t invite people to join an anti-religion, anti-doctrine,
anti-institutional bandwagon of love, harmony, and re-integration. He showed
people how to live, to be sure. But He also called them to repent, called them
to faith, called them out of the world, and called them into the church. The
Lord “didn’t add them to the church without saving them, and he didn’t save
them without adding them to the church” (John Stott).
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). If we truly love the church, we
will bear with her in her failings, endure her struggles, believe her to be the
beloved bride of Christ, and hope for her final glorification. The church is
the hope of the world—not because she gets it all right, but because she is a
body with Christ for her Head.
Don’t give up on the church. The New Testament knows nothing
of churchless Christianity. The invisible church is for invisible Christians.
The visible church is for you and me. Put away the Che Guevara t-shirts, stop
the revolution, and join the rest of the plodders. Fifty years from now you’ll
be glad you did.
___________
Kevin, I thank you!
Lord, make us steady, faithful, holy people in Your service.
Lord, make us steady, faithful, holy people in Your service.
Amen
