God has gifted us by his Spirit for the benefit of the local church (1 Cor. 12:7). Your local church is the place where God intends those he has rescued from diverse backgrounds to be “baptized into one body” (1 Cor. 12:13). Our friendships with Christians outside the context of the local church are good but cannot accomplish the purposes of God alone.
The blue screen of death. We’ve all experienced it. You’re plugging away on a paper or trying to load a website and whammo, your computer is toast. A few minutes and a hard restart later, you’re back up and running, but not without consequences. You might have lost your train of thought or part of what you wrote. Ironically, I experienced the blue screen of death writing this post!
Covid-19 was a cultural blue screen of death. Work, school, and church rhythms were all disrupted, and as a result everything changed. People’s connection to church shifted or ended completely. Nearly every pastor I’ve spoken with affirms lower church attendance today than eighteen months ago.
The blue screen of Covid, it seems, made everyone re-think just how important church is.
A Replacement for Church?
More than a handful decided that other spiritual practices can take the place of church. Jen Hatmaker recently shared about a conversation she had with her therapist where she came to the realization that “church for me right now feels like my best friends, my porch bed, my children, and my parents and my siblings. It feels like meditations and all these leaves on my 12 pecan trees. It feels like Ben Rector on repeat. It feels like my kitchen, and my table, and my porch. It feels like Jesus who never asked me to meet him anywhere but in my heart.”
Others have decided to cut themselves off from church due to their frustration with what they perceive the church to be. This thread of tweets between Laura Chastain and Andrew Novell captures the spirit of those who feel disappointed by the church.
Whatever the stated reason, at its core this exodus from the church stems from a lack of understanding of the true heart, function, and mission of the church.
The Church: A Means of Exhortation
Chastain and Novell first accuse the church of being less kind and understanding than those in the world. Their charges may be spot on with the churches they’ve attended, and if you too have experienced hurt or disappointment within the church, I am so sorry. I understand how that would turn you off to the church. The church ought not to be known for its judgmentalism nor its selfishness. It’s heartbreaking when she is.
On the other hand, I wonder if Chastain and Novell might misunderstand what they experienced at church. The perceived lack of kindness and understanding Chastain describes might not be a mark against the church. As Christians, we hold the counter-cultural belief that we are sinners in need of both grace and transformation. But gospel transformation requires hard truths be spoken. This, of course, doesn’t excuse churches that forget the “love” half of the invocation to speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). But it does mean as Christians we might have to wrestle with uncomfortable truth.
In Hebrews we are told that part of the purpose of gathering together is to receive exhortation from one another. The author urges, “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened to the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13). We long to be affirmed.
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