A New Kind of Church is Coming

Sam Hamstra | Feb 17, 2009

During the last half of the 20th century in America, the evangelical church became big business and its congregations became supermarkets dispensing religious goods to hungry consumers. Local congregations opened their doors seven days a week, inviting members and guests to participate in any number of programs, from Bible studies to aerobics. The increase in programs required more staff; more staff required more money for salaries; more money for salaries required higher offerings; higher offerings required more people in the pews; more people in the pews spurred talk of church growth. In the end, then, the impetus for church growth was not the salvation of souls, but the need for more people for higher offerings for more money for higher salaries for more staff to handle more programs. 

The increase in programs created a new challenge: the need for more volunteers to maintain the programs designed to meet the spiritual needs of religious consumers. In response, the evangelical church borrowed the Pauline teaching of spiritual gifts as a tool to encourage and enlist volunteers to maintain their programs. Devoted church members submitted to their spiritual leaders, enlisted in small group studies, discovered their "spiritual gifts," and volunteered to maintain the menu of programs sponsored by every "successful" congregation. In the end, however, the need for more volunteers not only turned the biblical concept of spiritual gifts into a tool for human resource offices, it also encouraged Christians to spend more time at church, thereby minimizing their influence in the community as salt and light.  

But a new kind of church is coming as American evangelicals wake up to the mistakes of the late 20th century. This new church comes by many names, including missional  and emergent, but its fundamental conviction is a repudiation of consumeristic religion of the past. In its place, this new church seeks to develop worshipers, not spectators. It longs for relationships, not programs. It encourages worshipers to get more involved in their communities and less involved in the church. It is rejects the American doctrine that "bigger is better." (more to come)   

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Comments

Rich and Effie said:

Very nicely stated.  Couldn’t have done better myself

Dan Lugo said:

I’m a big fan of “church light.” The downside of less programs is that it requires much more time to see people one-on-one rather than in scheduled groups. But the plus is that the time spent together is much more useful since it can be tailored to the ones meeting.

Darryl Petty said:

New Church is a coming together of all races.
To worship together in the spirit of love and truth based on the Bible.
One Lord, one faith. one baptism.

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