Beckoning the Seeker to Search

The church of Jesus Christ is currently undergoing an incredible transition, causing her to shake and shudder like a great ship in a wild and violent sea.

Some prognosticators are prophesying the death of the church.  Others believe that the church already has become irrelevant to the majority of humanity. Still others see no change whatsoever, like the generation Jesus spoke of, they are content to huddle in their spiritual enclaves with the stubborn or naïve perception that all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.

Like so much of life, there is a grain of truth in all of these opinions and beliefs. One thing is certain whether it is realized or not: The church of Jesus is embarked on a course of change so radical that even the word "church" is taking on new meanings and definitions.

In his book The Second Coming of the Church, respected pollster and author George Barna states "Today's Church is incapable of responding to the present moral crisis. It must reinvent itself or face virtual oblivion by mid-21st century. (Italics mine). Dr. Mark Hanby declares in The House That God Built, "The Christian Church...is drowning in a flood of human ideas and programs to bring 'God's dreams' to pass." Mike Regele writes in Death of the Church "The Church has a choice: to die as a result of its resistance to change or to die in order to live."  Dr. C. Peter Wagner's book Churchquake, a treatise on radical Church Change has raised the ire of many traditionalists whose attitude about the Church is encompassed in the current slang expression: "it's all good."    

I believe that God loves the church, guides the church and is in the process not only of restoring the church to a place of spiritual power and significance, but that he is giving her a "course-correction" so drastic in scope that it is nothing short of a revolution of structure. I further believe that the days of "Reformation," so sacred and so essential to the existent church structure, are finished. God is the Architect and the Engineer of this revolution; a revolution that will result in the re-establishing of the true, New Testament Church, filled with power and significance and efficacy; the embodiment of the true glory of God Himself. An impetuous-sounding statement, I know. But sometimes truth must be aggressive; reckless in order to be effective.

Virtually every study examining growth/decline patterns of traditional, Christian churches in America and in Europe corroborate the veracity of my brash-sounding appraisal. Yet I don’t need to appeal to the data-gatherers: The reader knows it by experience or by simple observation.

The modern-traditional-church-system has strayed severely from the course Jesus set for His followers.

Instead of "going" we have gathered. Instead of "giving" we have hoarded. Instead of "whosoever will," the church has become possessively "our church"; "our program"; "our doctrine"; "our faith" to the exclusion of "outsiders", those who Jesus truly sent us to find.

We have developed a culture of "give me" and "feed me" and "entertain me" and "serve me" instead of advancing a culture of "give them" and "feed them" and "minister to them" and "serve others."

We "rate" the worship experience, the sermon, the teaching, the prophecy, the coffee, the children's program, the architectural structure, the carpet and the paint and the restroom decor. We choose our places of worship based on earthly criteria and so miss heavenly atmospheres.

We chase success and disregard "effectiveness." We use the gospel for self-improvement for our families, our businesses, our financial portfolios instead of letting the gospel use us to broadcast good news to dying men.

We applaud and deify our leaders when their slick theatrics wow us and stone them when God's truth through them wounds us.

The church is a sick Body. Like Samson, shorn of his power, blinded to the light, bound by his cuteness and trickery, the church stumbles before a world that rightly recognizes her ineptness, her weakness and her ineffectiveness.

And yet men cry for authenticity. Hearts yearn for what they have not seen, have not heard, have not known while all the while seeing, hearing and knowing something more is out there, awaiting discovery, beckoning the seeker to search.

"There are moments in history when a door for massive change opens. Great revolutions for good or for evil occur in the vacuum created by these openings. It is in these times that key men and women, even in entire generations, risk everything to become the hinge of history, that pivotal point that determines which way the door will swing..." -- Lou Engle

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