Trends In The Modern American Church

I posted a link to a news article about "cults of personality" in big evangelical churches a couple weeks ago and asked for responses. No one had any comments, until this weekend when Jason Ramage spoke up. He raises some interesting points so I thought, since the original post is buried beneath more recent topics and thus few of you would have seen his comment, that I'd reprint it here and give another try to having a serious discussion about some of these issues:

I'm surprised nobody commented about this. I had to jump in the Wayback Machine to find it, thanks to Bobby's incessant posting activity... he puts me to shame :)

I was thinking about this while reading the thread on the Sojourn site about peoples' memories of the old building. A lot of people are very passionate about Sojourn and something about that has never sat right with me. When I hear people talk about Sojourn, they talk about the music, art, their friends, community groups, Daniel's sermons... but I rarely hear about how those things helped them grow in Christ. I'm sure it has, but after every testimony I'm left with the impression that Sojourn is a great church where you don't have to sacrifice coolness.

Maybe that's not a bad thing. Without a doubt, Daniel Montgomery is the reason Sojourn is growing. I know God is using him, and God uses many other servants to preach the Gospel, but it's almost like the elephant in the room... the day Daniel hands the head pastor position to someone else will be the day Sojourn jumps the shark.

But maybe I'm wrong... this is simply the way I've felt about it and I've never bothered to express it before. But since you were asking the question, it seemed like a good opportunity to find out if other agree/disagree and why.

So Jason raises some good points here. I've been going to Sojourn for two years. And, admittedly, I checked out its online site and listened to five sermons before ever setting foot in the place. Bottom line, if I hadn't liked the preaching, I wouldn't have ever visited. Now, I honestly think that MOST of what I mean by that is, "If the preaching wasn't correct, Christ-focused, gospel-centered, then I wouldn't have visited." But there is no doubt that Daniel speaks well, he sounds good, and he makes it interesting.

Is this bad? No. And I want to issue a disclaimer here and say that, in no way, does Daniel or Sojourn Community do anything to cultivate a cult of personality -- you won't find any billboards with our pastor's face smiling down on you, nor any other such thing. In fact, he's told me personally and he's mentioned from the pulpit that he doesn't want to be the focus -- that he isn't even comfortable when people praise his sermons. He's trying to point people to Christ. So none of this should be seen as a shot at him or the church.

Human nature being what it is, though, whenever you have a good preacher, the possibility stands that people, even good, intelligent, sincere people, will make an idol of him. Or an idol of the hot band, the cool worship leader (we've talked about that in this blog before -- worship leaders are the new sex symbols of the modern American church) the fancy programs and top-notch children's play facilities, etc.

In fact, HERE is a link to the front page story of Sunday's Louisville Courier Journal, a story about the growth of mega churches in this region.

Is it bad that evangelical churches are growing? No. Of course, statistics do tell us that most new members to churches are not new converts, but rather transfers from other churches. Indeed, what seems to be fueling much of the growth is a Christian "Walmart" effect, where Christians have allowed themselves to become consumers, searching out those churches that have the coolest facilities, best worship music, most programs -- the little local church family thus has become analogous to a mom-n-pop store that simply can't compete with the big national chain that sells everything from groceries to haircuts to stereos under one roof.

Indeed, sometimes I wonder if the only thing left for modern cool churches to do is to have servers with trays walking around the sanctuary while the service is going on, shouting "Peanuts! Popcorn! Crackerjacks!"

The story I have linked to is not the full version that was available in the local paper -- that version went in greater depth to explore some of the problems and concerns that people have with cool, "relevant" churches, and even with the latest trend: satellites. It seems that rather than do "church planting," churches now want to simply start up different campuses under the authority of the original church.

This is part of a larger trend that sees churches seeking to become more self-sufficient, less accountable to anyone else, less willing to work with an ecumenical spirit of cooperation

I am not speaking against autonomy. I believe local churches should be autonomous. But does this mean we develop a "we can do everything in-house" attitude that, despite our original intentions, does have the effect of creating a mindset that sees Christ's universal body, the Church, as one small church family and it's official, immediate satellites and officially sponsored missionaries.

This is why I salute Jay Eubanks, a Sojourn deacon in charge of our mercy ministries. His work to partner Sojourn with the Jefferson Street Baptist Center, a homeless shelter in the heart of Louisville, is a model we should all follow. Jay isn't a Lone Ranger -- he's all to aware of the dangers inherent with that thinking.

But we aren't all leaders, and we aren't all in a position to decide the position and direction of our local churches. Here is a checklist for each of us:

Do all of your ministerial, charitable actions take place in or under the auspices of one particular church?

Is your first and only thought, when you have a good idea for how to advance the kingdom of God, "I need to convince my church to get behind this idea of mine and start up a new program for it"?

Do you fellowship with believers from other churches?

Do you have friends who don't go to your church, and are these friends a part of your life -- do you eat with them, go to movies with them, play board games or go hiking with them? Or is your every thought, come time for the weekend, "I wonder what cool parties, activities, etc. are going on with my church friends"?

Do you make time for your family -- the ones that God, in his sovereignty, ordained that you should be linked with from your infancy?

If your answer to every question proves that, apart from very rare occasions, all of your fun time, social activities, services to God and mankind, and life-sharing takes place within the context of your immediate church family, then I would suggest that you examine that. Is it really what Jesus wants? Is that really a New Testament model?

Is the Church of the Living God a building?
Is the fellowship of believers confined to a local assembly?
Does God call us all to work for Him only within the context of our local church?
Are we putting church ministries ahead of our significant others and children?
Can we only worship or learn when a certain person preaches or a certain kind of music is played?
On the occasions when we DO fellowship with friends and family outside of our local church, are we thinking, "I'd really rather be hanging with my church clique, but I have to go through the motions here"?

Now, of course the pendulum can swing too far in the other direction. We ARE all called to a local asssembly. We SHOULD model, to the world, real community. Within the context of my local church, I definitely want Louisvillians to say, "Wow, those Sojourners really have a wonderful sense of community." Still, these questions I have proposed should be examined and should weigh heavily on our hearts. Particularly those of us who aren't called to the pastorate of a particular church -- the vast majority of us -- no matter how many evangelistic techniques we learn, no matter how much we pray "for the city", no matter how much we ostensibly say that our goal is to advance the cause of Christ everywhere, when all of our actions, the actual, real things we do, suggest that we only want to work with certain people, we only want to fellowship with certain people ... God, forgive us.

So here it is, Mr. Ramage -- another try at this topic. If no one else is interested, perhaps you and I will discuss things somewhere. Maybe even invite someone from outside of Sojourn to go out and talk shop with us, too. 8-)