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Upgrading the Church to the 21st Century

Time for a Facelift?

If you take a look at a church service or a preacher on television, you might say that the way we do church looks a little, well, dated. The same probably can be said in general about our efforts to spread the Good News to our friends, family and, if we're that daring, our coworkers. For all our best intentions, we're not producing the kinds of results we desire. It's no secret that church attendance is in decline and, more than ever, churches are merely attracting "church hoppers," not necessarily new believers.

It's an especially startling situation when we look to the current generation of young people, who are turning away from the Church and toward the Internet. Not only are they showing an increasing dependency on technology for relationships, they're expected to continue demonstrating cynicism toward organized religion.¹

One might argue that believers are merely trying to fulfill the Great Commission the best way they know how. Sure, the message about Jesus is getting out there. But in a culture increasingly focused on flawless appearance, tantalizing entertainment and rapid assimilation of information, the message is getting drowned out by the noise.

When it comes to ministering in the 21st century, it appears that we who are supposed to be in the light are primarily in the dark. So, where has the Church — which is to say, the Body of Christ on earth — gone wrong, and how do we need to update our approach to fulfilling the Great Commission?

Humanness and Progress

We Christians are very much like other people. We settle on ideas and opinions, which we may tweak but probably rarely overhaul. In addition, we like doing things a certain way, holding onto our "tried and true" methods and approaches to solving problems. We also like to have friends, to fit in, to get comfortable within a group of people, to have a sense of belonging.

To put it succinctly, we Christians are very human. Yet, it’s our humanness that undermines our ability to fulfill the Christian mission. In order to do that, and do it well, we as the Body of Christ must engage new ideas, new methods and new people.

Encouraging New Ideas

It seems to me that the Church, as a whole, is anti-intellectual. Beyond subtle theological arguments, we just don't embrace new ideas easily and we rarely discuss them, except perhaps to cast them aside. For instance, though many Christians are interested in the evolution-intelligent design debate, many don't seem to be all that interested in actually learning what the theory of evolution is about, except the aspects of the theory that are easily whittled down to serve as a straw man in a debate. The Internet is teeming with blogs, forums and chat rooms where people are conversing about politics, science, education and many other topics, but it seems that many Christians either play the role of the skeptic toward new ideas or hover within Christian approved sites only.

The Word of God does not promote this kind of closed-mindedness. In fact, God tends to rattle people's preconceived notions (just look at the end of the book of Job or Christ’s parables). This intellectual isolationism has cost the Church relevancy in 21st-century discussion.

The ability to engage a world full of drastically different concepts stems from a willingness to wrestle with the ideas of our own faith. To do this, we can look to the Apostle Paul as a role model. Through his letters, Paul engaged the belief systems of the communities with whom he was communicating, demonstrating how to take the core principles of our faith and customize them to different cultures. He didn't fear engaging everyone in the synagogues in Damascus after his conversion or even the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill about their "unknown God." Paul embraced new ideas, reasoned through them using Scripture as a guide and remained progressive throughout his life.

Exploring New Methods

Put frankly, the methods we use to fulfill the Great Commission are overused and outdated.

The primary means by which believers are taught and discipled in the church today is through an educational format that has been around since medieval education: the lecture. Standing on stage delivering a message for 30-45 minutes, a pastor or speaker delivers an oral presentation — a speech, really — that requires little, if any, involvement of the audience.

Now, Jesus used this style of speech — at the Sermon on the Mount, for instance. However, He also taught and discpled His followers through one-on-one conversations, small group discussions, storytelling through parables and even through debate.

The fact is that there is not a universal or absolute method to presenting universal or absolute truths. Unfortunately, our acceptance of primarily learning through a lecture format has stifled our growth as a community of believers and prohibits those with different learning styles from easily entering the fold. At fault is a classic pyramidal structure of authority that we have accepted concerning understanding of the Christian faith.

To get beyond this, we must be willing to adapt our methods for delivering instruction and discipleship. Because of the enormous technological change we are witnessing in our culture, we have a seemingly limitless number of ways we can fulfill our calling. For instance, we should consider social networks, blogging and video sharing as a means of creating community. We as the Church should be at the forefront of innovation — not at the tail end of it — when it comes to engaging others about matters related to God.

Embracing New People

It's only human for us to desire to be in a community with like-minded people. If these are the only communities we involved ourselves in, however, we can also fall into “group think” and peer pressure-induced conformity. Some church cultures can even degrade into a high school-like environment, with cliques abounding and new people either being excluded or actively recruited into the various social segments.

Clearly, this isn't what Jesus modeled to His disciples. Remember that during His three years of ministry, Jesus was constantly traveling and spending time with new people. He didn’t nest or take root in a group for long periods of time.

This isn't to say that being part of stable and secure communities is a bad thing. But we would do well to remember that the lost are doing the same thing as we are — staying connected to groups that reflect their values, which generally does not include anything to do with the church. More and more, people are not looking to church for meaningful relationships.

To resolve this, we must be willing to adapt our relationships and communities. This doesn't mean we should abandon our friendships, nor does it mean we should avoid putting our own roots down in a church. It does mean, however, that we should expand our communities to ensure that new people do not feel they have to join our church on our terms. We should also seek out communities where we are the newcomer, so that we learn to empathize with others who are just coming into the fold.

Putting the Progress Back into Progressive

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What will it take to effectively reach people with gospel in the 21st century?

Join the discussion!

As I said earlier, we as the Body of Christ must engage new ideas, new methods and new people. Each of these requires us to build and continually strengthen our biblical worldview toward the fulfillment of the Great Commission. It isn’t enough for us to merely recycle what we were taught in church in the past. We must engage ourselves and others in new ways by adapting how we communicate our faith in this global Internet age.

Fortunately, we live in an era when the technological framework for communication has erased geographical and cultural lines that divided people in the past. To use these means for teaching and discipleship is, I think, in complete harmony with the Great Commission. It's time to show the world how relevant Christ is to the 21st century.