The State of the Church

I serve a church that has been losing some regular attendees (I shun the use of the word “member” because it has lost its meaning) over the last few years. Everyone has an opinion and a solution. I hear it all:
We need more stuff for the kids and the parents will come.
We need more contemporary worship.
We need more traditional worship.
We need a more charismatic preacher.
We need more biblically based teaching.
We need a new, more modern building.
We need more entertainment in the services.
We need more services.
We need fewer services that have more impact.

On and on it goes with everyone having a solution to the problem. But it seems that many of these “solutions” are merely temporary fixes that don’t address the real problem and eventually cause more difficulties. And many of these “solutions” are reactions to the competing priorities and detractors from church attendance.

In my estimation, the reason for the decline in many churches is that we have turned attendance into a competition. We are like a self-conscious teenager that constantly feels the need to be the best and prove him or herself. This happens through being accepted, and one is not accepted until they blend and fit in. So, as churches, we look around at the other organizations, groups and activities that vie for people’s time, we see what they are doing, and we copy it. We become little more than an organization of like-minded individuals that are seeking more members so that we can become the biggest group around.

And we do anything we can to grow numerically. We accommodate people’s schedules. We use guilt. We use promises that we really can’t make good on. We sell out the gospel by focusing just on what will bring people in (i.e. “fire insurance”). Though we don’t publicize this message, basically we are saying, “Come to church. We have everything the world has and more. We have salvation! They have death.” We try to one up the world with its pleasures and trappings, doing anything we can to get people to see the church as a better option.

We have all been around people who try to “one up” everyone else.
Someone tells a story about a beautiful sunset, someone else tells of an even better one at a more exotic local.
Someone tells of a great play in a basketball game they saw on TV, and someone else describes being at a game in person and seeing an even better play.
Someone tells of an illness they are struggling with, and someone else pipes in with his tale of woe that is even more gruesome and sad.

Back and forth they go, with that one person always trying to come out on top. Do you know what we call that person? Annoying. Repelling. We don’t want to be around them. And when all the church tries to do is top what the world has to offer, the world sees right through that. They find it annoying, not attractive.

Don’t get me wrong. I think we should use everything at our disposal to communicate the gospel. That is why I encourage video projection, instrumentation, new songs, compelling messages, video clips, etc. I also think we should do it with the highest quality possible because we are offering our sacrifice of praise to God. But when such “presentations” become a means to the end of more members, we are no longer making the Kingdom of God a reality. We are simply copying the world and engaging in a “pissing contest.”

Rob Bell drove this concept home in his book Velvet Elvis (page 165): “The church doesn’t exist for itself; it exists to serve the world. It is not ultimately about the church; its about all the people God wants to bless through the church. When the church loses sight of this, it loses its heart.”

I would add, “When the church loses sight of this, it loses passion and eventually, it loses people.”