I wrote a 2-part post on church (part 1; part 2) and then my friend Mason emailed me his Rickenbacker Story, which had a lot to say on this whole "church subject." These three pieces were well-read, and the discussions around them were so very good and fruitful. If nothing else, I think the posts shed light on how many of us disillusioned Christians feel, and so we started to feel like maybe we aren't so alone. In the midst of the discussion, my friend/big brother/mentor Garrett told me I needed to read The Prodigal Church, by Jared Wilson. It was on my doorstep two days later, and I've been reading it ever since. If I could recommend one single book to help us navigate through the waters of the Attractional and Mega Church models of our time, it would be that book. And then I received an email from another friend/big brother/mentor who pastors VAST Church, in the small town where I was raised. He asked if I might allow him the space of a guest post on my blog, to which I replied "A GUEST POST?!? On MY little inky-dinky blog?!? My blog is good enough to host a GUEST POST!? YES. YES YES." to which he replied with some comment on how passionate/easily excitable I am and then said he had "more to say than would fit in one post" so would it be okay if he sent it to me in parts? A MULTIPLE-PART guest post?!? Yes, Ryan, I told him. You can have all the space you need. Today, Jen Hatmaker published an article on the Washington Post, and it brought back All the Thoughts and Disillusionment, and I thought well, it's time to start Ryan's series. The dear man is just one of my favorites, and I really truly trust his word and his heart because I've watched his life and actions match up with what he claims to believe. He's part of The Village that helped raise me, and I've held half his kids as infants for entire church services every Sunday because I took it upon myself to make "Baby Holder" my job all through middle and high school. He's the best friend of the man who baptized me, and he's been a sounding board and wisdom-giver through breakups and relationships; college and church splits; friendships and school. I have a handful of "big brothers" I've claimed as my own, and he's among them, which is one of the highest compliments I can give. {note: the "Jordan" in the story that follows is not me.} Without further ado, Ryan Moffat: Coffee is an acquired taste…
15 years ago when the “Starbucks Revolution” caught steam I made the mistake of believing a white chocolate mocha was coffee. It's not. It’s sugar and milk posing as coffee. A white chocolate mocha is to coffee what ice cream is to protein. Yes, you can find it in there but you won’t see any CrossFit champions starting there day with two scoops of Ben and Jerry’s. But here’s what Starbucks understood: there must be an intro drink to help people acquire a taste. What's interesting is that it took the sugar and the milk to help me acquire a taste for what Starbucks is really all about: coffee. Mochas turned to lattes, lattes to Americanos with cream and sugar, Americano’s are now consumed occasionally but what I really prefer is single origin, hario pour over (how’s that for Christian hipster??). A couple weeks ago I decided to take a sip of my buddy’s white chocolate mocha. I literally almost gagged in response to the sugar explosion that hit my taste buds. “Who drinks this?” I self-righteously asked my friend. “You did 15 years ago.” Touche… What does this have to do with attractional Church? I think: a lot. We use “sugar” like Starbucks does: to “sweeten the deal” or make it (the bitter stuff of life) more palatable. My college pastor, Jeff Olson, always use to say “Whatever you win them with is what you keep them with. If you need pizza to win them, you’ll need pizza to grow them. If you need kites and lights to win them, you’ll need kites and lights to grow them.” I use to sort of think, “Geez Jeff, you’re so negative." But then “Jordan” happened. Who’s Jordan, you ask? Jordan is a girl who was in my youth group and had a conversion experience and oriented her life toward Jesus back in the mid 2000’s when I was a youth pastor at a big church doing “big youth group” stuff. She came to the retreats, led student bible studies; she was a real champion for Jesus in her high school days. But then when she came home from college something changed. Her countenance dropped, her joy seemed demolished and instead of a “happy-go-lucky” young woman, she became an abrasive, depressed, sarcastic, narcissistic, crabby college freshman. What happened in the following weeks was an exchange of communication between Jordan and I in which she lamented to me that she couldn’t connect with God without the big Wednesday programs, cool worship band, great motivational/funny teaching, etc. God used that conversation with Jordan to convict me, reform some of the broken ways in which I was leading and put my “life mission” on a different track. Soon I found my self as a pastor disillusioned with the Church, especially the one that I was helping lead. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but it’s not a real fun place to be (questioning the very core ideologies and activities that have consumed your entire life). It’s actually an identity crisis of sorts. I started asking lots of questions, some of which certain folks found quite troubling. Questions like:
All these questions and many more absolutely crushed so much of what I thought to be true. The even more troubling piece of all of this was coming to grips with the fact that, though much of what I knew to be true about Church leadership was being unraveled, God, in His grace, used the attractional Church model to grab my heart (and many of my friends hearts) as punk high school students. This was (is) such a difficult realization to reconcile. All of this (and much more) launched me waist-deep into the pursuit of some of the most important questions I’ve ever asked. To some of them, I've found answers. Those still unreconciled and in question I continually ponder, discuss, and attempt to find clarity about in God's Word. So, pastor/leader/minister/evangelist/churchmen/churchwomen…what are you "winning" them with? Doesn’t matter if you’re a paid ministry leader or a volunteer or a normal everyday Christian on mission in every aspect of your life. How are you creating a Biblical culture of Church in your local context? Have you created a spiritual “white mocha” that covers up all the brilliant complexities in the single-origin wonder of the gospel? Do you care more about how “cool" your church (or Pastor is,) more than how saturated in Scripture they are and how powerfully the Holy Spirit empowers your community? By God’s grace, may we see a movement in the local Church away from the “attractional” model and toward the most attractive model of all: Jesus Christ Himself. {Part 2 Coming….Small Town Pastor: Attractional Chrurch. Stay tuned.}
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hey, i'm jordan.wife to one, mama to four, bible-believing christian. Archives
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