There is an incredible article in the Washington Post this morning. The author, a black man from Chicago, shares why he feels disconnected from church. I challenge you to read the entire article, but here are some excerpts:
I love God and I love the church. I know church-speak and feel as comfortable shouting hallelujahs and amens and lifting my hands in the sanctuary as I do putting on my socks. I have danced in the spirit, spoken in tongues, and proclaimed Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior.
Yet, I now feel disconnected. I am disconnected. Not necessarily from God, but from the church.
The church seems to have turned inward. It seems to exist for the perpetuation of itself — for the erecting of grandiose temples of brick and mortar and for the care of pastors and the salaried administrative staff. Not long ago, a preacher friend confided: “The black church is in a struggle for its collective soul — to find itself in an age when it is consumed by the God of materialism.”
But even in an age of preacher as celebrity, it is not the evolution of a Bling Bling Gospel that most disheartens me. It is the loss of the church’s heart and soul: the mission to seek and to save lost souls through the power of the Gospel and a risen savior. As the homicide toll in black neighborhoods has swelled, I’ve wondered why churches or pastors have seldom taken a stand or ventured beyond the doors of their sanctuaries to bring healing and hope to the community — whether to stem the tide of violence and drugs, or to help cure poverty and homelessness or any number of issues that envelop ailing black communities.
I’m pretty sure that if the author crossed out “black” and replaced it with “white”, “hispanic” or “asian” he would be just as accurate.
Update – Monday 7:00 am: As of this morning, this article was the second most emailed article from yesterday’s Sunday Post. Makes me think we’re not alone in our beliefs.
Excellent article, it is worth reading and passing around. I felt his pain when he talked about how much he missed the church. I miss so much about the church, and yet and grieved to my inner depths when I try to sit through a service. What to do, what to do?
Wow. This article definitely articulates many of my feelings, as well. I love the Lord. I love church…but struggle continually with having hope for the church to truly function as the Lord wants us to, in truly loving God, reaching the lost and “agape-”ing each other.
Part of MLK Jr’s quote, “There can be no deep disappointment where there is no love,” speaks to this blog, I think. We are deeply disappointed in CBC because we all once loved it intensely, once invested ourselves there. Because of its hyporisy, mind-set and theology, our love for it turned into disillusionment and then, the longer we’ve been away from that sub-culture, into righteous indignation. Can I get an “amen?” From the general tone here, I believe we all love the church, the Body of Christ, and that we’re honestly wrestling with addressing its failures and weaknesses, including our own, so that we can help to build the Kingdom of God.
Thanks for posting this article.
FFTM
great article. I couldn’t believe the guys pastor finally getting back to the guy and saying ” do you have a cell phone” yeah “if you had a problem your phone and called SBC would you expect to talk with the CEO?” That is so indictative of the christian cult of celebrity, pastors with bodyguards, and all the baggage that comes with mega church businesses. P.S. to any cbcer if the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. what, pray tell, is the main thing? this should be an easy question to answer if you have been at cbc for any length of time.
I just stubbled upon this cbc’s web site for new visitors
“What should I expect when I come?
Church should be a fun, inspirational place where you can meet with God. At City Bible Church you’ll experience friendly people, great music, encouraging messages and an inspirational atmosphere where life happens.”
What great marketing, glad that life happens in a one and half hour pep rally, after all church is about what YOU experience. This bs is just what the man writting the article was talking about. Doing church becomes producing a product that is appealing to a consumer. by the way if you check out cbc’main web page tell me if reuben is a man or woman.
“In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church,” he lamented. “But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church.”
Martin Luther King
This article has captured the essence of my experience at CBC. I feel there is abject neglect of hurting people that have given heart and soul to the place for years and years. That have sacrificed so much, with nothing there for them when hard times come upon them. If you have something to give, then you’re embraced, but when you need, there is no place for you. You sit in the pew hurting, hearing irrelevant messages that are so trite in light of the tragedy that has come upon you or your loved ones. The whole tithing thing is meaningless when you have found out your child or wife or father has cancer. I could no longer in good conscience be a party to the neglect.
So I come to this blog because I appreciate how you young people can put into words what has gone on. It helps me make sense of what it was that I experienced. To see things in a new way. It validates some things I thought were true, but was too scared to admit.
It’s not just the Black Church.
I thank you for creating this forum. Keep up the banter.
Enough already of people and their “excuses” for not going to church. If you call yourself a Christian, find a church that does ministry according to the New Testament, commit yourself there, and serve with all your heart unto God. John W. Fountain sounds like a man who has gotten bored with his faith…maybe it was a spurious faith to begin with?
You’re either new to this blog or you’re simply not listening. People are in real pain, Christians and non-Christians alike. And if you’ve gone to CBC for any amount of time, there is an incredible guilt that comes with any feelings of disappointment or wanting to go to another church. You hear people talk about others that have left the church as if they’ve left the faith altogether. As far as this man’s faith being spurious, if that was so then he wouldn’t really care, now would he? There is a massive difference between the wishy-washies and those who are genuinely concerned or dealing with deep hurts. By the way, I’ve found another amazing church where I finally and instantly felt at home. But that doesn’t mean that I still don’t feel very strongly about what’s going on at CBC. It’s actually quite the opposite. I feel an intense sadness for the years I wasted there, feeling like a complete failure no matter how hard I tried. I feel sadness for others that came to CBC full of hope and left in despair. Most of all, I feel sadness for people, friends and family, that are still there and trying so hard in a church without grace, without trust, and without love for anything besides its big ideas. I hope these are things you never have to feel, but if you do, I really, really hope there’s no one telling you to quit making excuses and just go find another church. Maybe you’re the one who’s bored.
I still love methamphetamine, but I’ve lost faith in the black market.
To the last anonymous, could you please stop tearing up the bridge by my house for scrap metal? Some of us have to get to work in the morning.
To everybody else, I just wanted to say that I just got called bitter AND I was told that I should stop talking about CBC because the church isn’t perfect, you know… And this was in consecutive sentences.
What do I have to do to get through the brain-washing? Please, people, hit me with a couple of new arguments. I promise I’ll be nice…
Here’s a point which seems apropos, or at least tangential but related: has anybody been keeping up with Joel Osteen lately?
I was channel-flipping at work last night and saw a few minutes of the grand opening of the Lakewood Praise ‘n’ Worship Stadium.
To say I was gobstopped would be to understate things.
Speak of “pastor as celebrity” and I will forever think of Joel Osteen in the bowl of Lakewood with two huge video screens above him.
I’m serious…the inside of that looked like the Super Bowl. There must have been between 10 and 20,000 people in there. It creeped me out.
Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but the small parish church, the small-town church were I first sensed God, seems as though it ought to be the point. I look at this, and I don’t see any community, any ecclesia, going on…just someone who wants to be The Biggest And The Bestest.
It’s like greed, but with people instead of money.
Someone tell Jentzen Franklin that his brand, spankin’ new church has just been obsoleted.
Someone tell Rod Parsley that it don’t matter how hard he yells and how many books he writes or how many photos of him in front of the U.S.Capitol he gets.
There is a new King[tm]. Pastor Osteen.
I’d like to use a big word. That word is “anachronistic”. Anachronistic essentially means that someone is taking a context that applies to a particular time period and inappropriately connecting it to another time period.
In our time period, we refer to “going to church” and everyone knows what we mean. It’s a cultural thing, specific to us, but so pervasive that we don’t notice anymore. In the period of what we call the “early church”, there was no such thing as “going to church”. The concept simply didn’t exist, so there is no direct Biblical mandate for church attendance, because the very idea is anachronistic. Church as we now know it was a logistical impossibility. Church for them was just a gathering of like-minded people…and I believe the Biblical passage that’s often cited to encourage church attendance reflects this notion.
So, let’s put that in our pipes and smoke it….”church” is a way, but it certainly isn’t the only way to gather with other believers. Technically, this blog is a church of sorts…like-minded folks gleaning truth from one another and supporting each other in our respective journeys of faith.
I am the church.
You are the church.
We are the church together.
I’ve recently taken a (gasp!) break from going to church. Not just for the hec of it, but because I realized I was going for all the wrong reasons. It’s caused me to step back and ask myself the questions, “What does church really mean to me? What is it really supposed to be about?” (aside from the obvious “It’s about God” answer) and “Why go?”
So often, our salvation is defined by our church attendance, how many times we pray and how often we read our bible. All of this has caused me to even ask the question, “What does being a ‘christian’ really mean?” Because doing all of the ‘right’ things you think you’re supposed to do isn’t salvation. It just doesn’t cut it anymore. I appreciate the openness and discussion on this blog. I think all too often, christians are no longer provoked to think about even what the cliches truly mean before saying them. I’ve used the ‘Faith can move moutains’ line all of my life. One day recently, somebody asked me what that really meant. Guess what? I didn’t have a clear answer I could give them. Pretty dang retarded, if you ask me. Made me think. (who woulda thought?)
Keep up with the great discussions…whether people agree or not.
Jiminy, church is both an organism and a institution. An organism in that ther is comunity and life shared with the bond that believers share in Christ thoughout the catholic or universal church. And an institution in that the church is to proclaim the apostolic word of God, administer church government, leaders are to administer church discipline, lead the church as shepherds and not dictators, not ruling over. the church as an institution will be done away with at Christ coming, for there will be no need any longer of that functional aspect . But the organism of the church is eternal. I think that far to often people experience church as an unhealthy lopsided bent to either aspect of the church and either run to the other side or are convinced that their aspect is all that there is. So this blog may ,at the best, have an aspect of church, but it is not truly church.
Anonymous,
You’ve accurately described the state of things: there is the church as organism and the church as institution. I agree with you. However, I don’t think that the institutional aspect of church is something that is scripturally mandated, or even set as a precedent. I think it’s something that we’ve come up with on our own and have come to rely upon excessively. There is now an edifice that is supposed to provide all the good feelings for us on a weekly basis, and we’re used to that after a thousand years or so. That’s all. I don’t expect an “anarchy” model to work, either. I’m just saying that it’s not necessary to affiliate with a “church” per se in order to be lined up doctrinally. It’s a tradition, not a mandate…like many things that Christendom has stopped questioning altogether. We’ve got a lot more wiggle-room than we usually care to look at. The reformers (such as the “Black Church” article’s author) are merely exploring these ideas…and we often wind up accusing them of peeing in the holy water, while all the while they’re saying, “I’m not sure this water was ever holy to begin with…”
“peeing in the holy water” hahahaha
In all seriousness, it is my belief that our generation (X&Y, more?) in general has not given up on God or even Christianity. Heck, I’d say that most would actually like it in it’s purest form. What they don’t like is the current incarnation of the institutional church. It is neither relevant or meaningful, so why should they go?
Blanket statements aside, there are good, relevant, meaningful churches out there, including in Portland. It is my hope that CBC will return to being one of them again.
jiminy,” However, I don’t think that the institutional aspect of church is something that is scripturally mandated, or even set as a precedent.”
What about the new testament model of elders, deacons, church discipline, continuation in the apostles preaching, ect.? This is the problem with people today, “leaving” the church to gather with other like minded who have been put off by “organized church” for either justified reasons or not. The institutional aspects of church, for the most part, cannot be practiced in such gatherings.
That’s fine with me.
Anonymous, I think you’re mistaking a Biblical Church organizational suggestion for a requirement. First of all, I think we can all agree that the Church is the people. Knowing that, what’s the difference whether they meet at Rocky Butte, someone’s house, or a 7/11? Wouldn’t any of those places become church when members of the church gather there?
Also, why do we need to explicitly assign jobs within the church? For example, let’s say I have a prophetic gift. Does that gift change if I don’t wear my prophet name tag? My experience has always been that when groups of believers gather, they naturally tend towards their God-given gifts without being told what to do. That doesn’t mean having some structure is helpful, but I seriously doubt that it’s a requirement for a church.
Finally, if we assume that the institutional aspects of church are a requirement then who makes the decisions? How to does the church body ensure that the decision maker is keeping the church’s and God’s interests first and not merely promoting those who suit his own vision?
Now I’m not saying that a more structured approach cannot ever work. However, if you look back over history you will see what kinds of things can happen when Church leadership gets too large and too powerful. I think many modern day Churches have patterned themselves too closely to inefficient political bureaucracies and that we as believers need to reassess our churches and get back to our foundation in Christ.
BRAVO Fezzik
I agree with every word.
“To EXALT the Lord Jesus Christ as high as possible, to CAST DOWN man’s pride, to EXPOSE the sinfulness of sin, to SPREAD OUT broadly and fully the remedy of the Gospel, to AWAKEN the unconverted sinner and ALARM him, to BUILD UP the true Christian and comfort him…these are the objects we need in our sermons. Well would it be for the Churches if we had more preachers that do this.”
J.C. Ryle
Liverpool, 1900
Oh! for the day when preachers develop biblical courage within the institutional church to preach in the above manner to their congregations!
Hey, you have a great blog here! I’m definitely going to bookmark you!
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Come and check it out if you get time
I think you’re right on track and not many people are willing to admit that they share your views. garcia jorge myspace.com site is an AWESOME place to discuss LOST.
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Would you be saying the same thing about a football arena that seated 30,000 or more? Why are you so worred about this?
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I stumblled upon your blog whilst surfing the net. I live in the UK and attend one of CBC’s affiliates here, pastored by Rick and merilee Johnston who are in essence very nice people. However, there is this drive towards a £6million building project that I’m very uncomfortable with. The whole church is now suddenly awash with word of faith and prosperity theology. it is also a rather strong advocate of tithing. The congregation was publicly rebuked for a fall in tithes & offerings. I was appalled at this but having come from a legalistic church before this was easy to deal with. I have been approached to teach bible classes following a book called the principles of church life. I don’t agree with tithing but give as the lord leads add this manual encourages it. What do you think is the best course of action?
Don’t let them control you and your life, God has given you a mind of your own and the Holy Spirit to help guide you. If you feel like its wrong it probably is.
Of course it also won’t help if you just ignore or run away from the issue. Talk to your pastors about your concerns. Research what the Bible says, go prepared and state your case. If you can’t come to an agreement ask yourself how important of an issue it is.
Every church you go to will have something that you don’t like. You may want to leave the church or you may want to stay and try to create change. Ultimately, it’s up to you.
For what it’s worth, I believe the Prosperity Doctrine is un-Biblical. There are far too many scriptures warning of the dangers of money; I just don’t see how you can teach that God wants EVERYONE to be wealthy.
RP – there’s a web site run by Clay Sikes who has written a lot on the ‘prosperity doctrine’. Here’s an excerpt from “An Open Letter to Prosperity Pastors and Teachers” to whet your whistle:
I can relate to this statement, and I wish more Christians would recognize the truth of it.