Who Needs the Church?

Here are some troubling numbers to digest.

In 2019, only 14% of all US adults said they never went to church. In 2020, that number jumped to 53%. That’s an increase of almost 40 points in less than twelve months. In 2019, 100% of practicing Christians and churched adults had gone to church within the past 6 months. Six months into the pandemic, 22% hadn’t gone to church at all —digital, physical, or reopened. One in five church-goers simply stopped attending all forms of church in 2020. 

Alarming? Yes. Obviously, the pandemic is a major factor in this decline but perhaps that’s so in a way some aren’t considering. What if the pandemic didn’t cause the decline but simply exposed the rot that had already set in? What if the pandemic wasn’t the cause of the decline, but rather its trigger? Yes, one could conclude that people didn’t gather with their congregation because they couldn’t gather - and in many cases that would be true - but when we note that the numbers include online gathering as well, then perhaps we’re looking less at ‘can’t’ as ‘can’t be bothered.’

That’s not at all surprising to me. I’ve had many conversations with people about why they are giving up on the visible church, at least the one that exists in a formal way, with a credal foundation and regulated polity - and that was before the pandemic.

I think the pandemic has simply exposed the tragic loss of faith many people are experiencing. It isn’t just faith in God that’s MIA, but a loss of faith in institutions and leaders in general, and religious leaders and institutions in particular. The pandemic simply accelerated the exodus for many. 

And I get it. Four decades ago, I left too.

Why Go?

I left the historical Church - the Church of Creeds, Hymns, Formal Liturgy, and the Ordained Clergy - for the informal, anti-historical radical zealous groups that just knew the old scene was spiritually dead, could not be resurrected, and was clearly under God’s judgment. How could anyone stay in such a terrible scene? Thankfully, God must’ve been relieved to discover that he had us to sort out the mess and we’d get it right this time. Well, you can guess how that little venture turned out. Mercy, thankfully, brought me home to the House of God. 

Today, however, people young and old have left for very different reasons. This isn’t about a lack of spiritual passion - many of the churches being deserted are paragons of current worship trends and church growth methodology. They’re not exactly historical. They’re often not theologically liberal. They’re often borderline fundamentalist, led by engaging communicators and visionaries, and offer carefully curated experiences on their many campuses. And yet… the decline is there too. 

It turns out that many churches - and this spans every denominational flavor - are home to toxic cultures that denigrate and abuse people rather than equip and edify people. It appears that some have traded in their faith in Jesus for faith in politics and abandoned the priority of Christ’s Kingdom for the pursuit of a Nationalist agenda. As it happens, far from speaking the truth in love, many churches tell people not to ask hard questions or express doubts of any kind. Throw in some heavy doses of misogyny, racism, and fiscal corruption, and it's easy to see why people give up and stay home rather than get up and gather together. 

Back in 2010, Novelist Anne Rice wrote, “Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten …years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. As I said below... I’m out. In the Name of Christ … I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.” 

Many have echoed her words since then. Others have simply gone for alternative forms of Church that are highly personalized. They fashion versions of Church that offer the comfort the church was supposed to give (and didn’t) and which they long to experience (without all the messiness of people). 

Songwriter Maren Morris described her Church in the lyrics of a hit country song. 

I've cussed on a Sunday
I've cheated and I've lied
I've fallen down from grace
A few too many times
But I find holy redemption
When I put this car in drive
Roll the windows down and turn up the dial

Can I get a hallelujah
Can I get an amen
Feels like the Holy Ghost running through ya
When I play the highway FM
I find my soul revival
Singing every single verse
Yeah I guess that's my church

Radical Individualism

That’s why it isn’t just abuse, politics, racism, or hypocrisy that have turned people away from the Church. The influence of radical individualism has reshaped our expectations of being in a community of any kind. It isn’t communities we need but personal fulfillment (or so we imagine).

We now tend to weigh the value of most any institution or organization not so much as a community to which we might possibly pledge our love or for which we might spend our energies, but as a utility from which we might benefit in some way, even if the benefit helps others, easing our troubled conscience. To suggest that there are commitments to others we might make that call for the denial of ourselves and the subordination of our dreams for the good of others is simply unimaginable. We have been baptized into a river of thought that relentlessly tells us to pursue our desires and that anything standing in the way of that objective is an obstacle to our self-actualization and our capacity to express our own truth. 

It is blasphemous in the current culture to make such commitments, and those who do make them are viewed as fools. We live in a time that mock’s President Kennedy’s inaugural exhortation to “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” That’s the quaint communal responsibility ethic of a generation-long past, overtaken by a highly individualized generation that expects all to bend the knee before the assertion of any stated personalized desire or designation. The Church is simply never going to appeal to people who follow this other religion of self-worship because the authentic Church will always challenge that idolatrous position, summoning people to follow a man who forgave the unforgivable, included the excluded, and loved the unlovable at the cost of his life, calling his followers to do the same. 

So Why the Church?

I grew up confessing belief in the Church just like I confessed belief in the Holy Trinity. In other words, I couldn’t imagine the possibility of a Churchless Christian Faith, and that’s actually been the case for two thousand years; I’m in good company on this one. Every Sunday worship service included us saying, ‘I believe in God the Father… one Lord, Jesus Christ… the Holy Spirit… (and) I believe in the Church…’

The Gospels were written in communities of Christians (churches) for communities of Christians (churches). The Apostles wrote their letters to and for the benefit of Christian communities (churches). We believe in the Church because Jesus came to found the Church and - get this - the Church gave us Jesus. That may sound weird, but it’s true. If it weren’t for the Church, I would never have heard of Jesus and we’d have no New Testament record of his life, death, burial, and resurrection. I believe in Jesus because I was baptized into the Church, taught the Faith, and nourished in the Faith by the Church, singing her hymns, confessing her creed, sitting under the faithful preaching of the Scriptures by her ministers, and receiving the Lord’s Supper from their hands. The Spirit took those very ordinary means and made Jesus extraordinarily beautiful and believable to me. 

Jesus said, “I will build My Church…” (Matthew 16). He hasn’t promised to build ours or mine, but he will build his and against it the doors of death give way to freedom for all who were once slaves in its dark borders. That magnificent promise will be brought to pass in all of its resplendent fullness. 

This makes the Church a hard-hat area. We are under construction, and it's always going to be a bit hazardous on the building site. But what is under construction - this glorious house of God - is truly beautiful, rooted in the Gospel, founded on Christ, and filled with the Spirit. It’s God’s family on earth, cheered on by God’s family in heaven.

Who needs the Church? I do. You do. Everyone needs the Church as everyone needs Jesus. We can’t say, “I choose Jesus but not the Church” because to belong to him is to be built into his household, to be a member of his Body, to be part of something visible that isn’t a human invention but a divine creation. Jesus’ saving mission included building a community of people around his cross-shaped throne through the power of his Spirit. It’s his project, not ours. It is his grace that makes us a highly visible, deeply committed community of reconciled former enemies with clear entry and exit points and rituals, all under a proper government that regulates its life and mission. That’s why Spanish River plants churches rather than only doing mercy projects, necessary as these are for the common good. 

An Answer to the Era of Disconnection

We are passing through an era of disconnection and everywhere I look I see something very much like scattered sheep who need to reconnect with their flock, scattered soldiers that need to reconnect with their unit, and scattered dry bones that need to be rattled and rejoined to re-member the body of Christ. When Jesus shed his blood on the cross he did it not to salvage a few isolated individuals from the wreck of the fall, but to cleanse and constitute his Church. Paul told the Ephesian elders that they were ‘to shepherd the Church of God which He purchased with His own blood’ (Acts 20:28).

The Church - not just individuals - is the object of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. When Paul wrote to the members of the Church at Ephesus he reminded them that “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church ]in all her glory…” (Ephesians 5:25). My friends, we can’t give up on the Church for the simple reason that  Jesus gave up his life to redeem her. If the Church was worth his blood and is the object of his eternal affection, then surely the Church is worthy of our commitment and our service. 

It’s time to sing this old hymn again with full-hearted, truth-telling ardor and affectionate zeal while we set to work to forge covenant communities that aren’t toxic and abusive, built on personalities and power structures, cultures that are instead places where grace abounds for sinners, the broken find themselves mended, and the saints discover the joy of faith in Jesus the Savior and Head of the Church. 

The church's one Foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation
By water and the Word:
From heav'n he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.

Elect from ev'ry nation,
Yet one o'er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food.
And to one hope she presses,
With ev'ry grace endued.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, "How long?"
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.

The church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain and cherish
Is with her to the end;
Though there be those that hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against or foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

'Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace for evermore;
Till with the vision glorious
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great church victorious
Shall be the church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With the God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won:
O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we,
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with thee.