The Church in a Post-Christian World

"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God" (Acts 15:19).

I wonder if there are things that the modern day church is doing that make it difficult for today's Gentiles from turning to God. As the first Christians were trying to establish the church in a non-Christian majority world, today's church finds itself in a world that is far from being Christian. Particularly in an area like The Little Church in the Pacific Northwest, Christians are in the minority as we only represent a single digit portion of the population.

In a setting like this, what is it that the church must be about that paves the way for folks to turn to God? What are the things that we must destroy and uproot in order so that the church doesn't make it difficult for people to turn to God?

Here are some things that come to mind:

• Be all about the love and the grace of Jesus Christ. When most people think about the church, one of the first things they think about are the commands, the rules of the church. But what is amazing about this is that less than 10% of the Bible is commands. Most of the bible is narrative. Most of the Bible is stories, poems, and illustrations of how much God loves a fallen and broken world and how this God pursues this world with absolute abandon. That's the story of the Bible. 

          The travesty is that the church somehow has taken the incredible grace and love of Jesus Christ and turned it into a bunch of rules. So much so, that when people think about the church today, they first think of rules rather than experiencing the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

• Stop with the infighting amongst Christians within the local church, and amongst denominations. How can we talk about the peace and the love of God when such peace and love is so absent in our churches? This doesn't mean that we just get all lovey dovey with one another and water down everything so we don't offend one another. By no means. In fact, in order for love and peace to be present, it means that the church has to get absolutely clear about why she exists - to grow new Christians and to grow faithful disciples - and be ruthless about rejecting practices and habits that prevent the church from accomplishing its main objective.

• We've got to be a church that is impacting the community as we are committed to maintaining orthodoxy - Our orthopraxi must be consistent with our orthodoxy. The people around us don't care about what we believe. What they want to know is, "Is God for real? Can God really make a difference in my life? Can God really bring change and transformation to our world to make it a better place?" These are the questions people are asking. And these are the questions that the church must be able to answer through our deeds in order for us to be heard about what we believe. We live in an age where the church has to earn the right to be heard. And the way we earn that right is through our good deeds. Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before others so that when they see your good works they will glorify the Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).

There are many more that I could mention. But I think these are a good start. The modern day church has no choice but to get better at being the church. Our other option is an unacceptable option - death.