Seeing the Church with New Eyes – “Getting Over Ourselves”

Part Two of “Roads to Revival and Awakening.”

If you have not read it, you can here.

What does a revived church look like? What would be different if she became the kind of church the Chief Shepherd desires? What if we dropped from our vocabulary words like “my church” or “our church” and together embraced and spoke well of “His Church” in our cities? What if pastors encouraged and trained those in their congregations to work together with those from other congregations for the common cause of the gospel in neighborhoods, where we work, and play and showed the world that we love one another as Jesus prayed? Consider what might happen if pastors and those in their congregations began seeing the Church in their city in this fresh new way?

    I am not a theorist, but a practitioner. I love the Lord’s Church; I believe it has a promising future, because Jesus said it would. But because of what I see in the Scriptures, I believe there is a better way for the Church to operate than what we now experience, and I would call that better way the “Jesus model.”

    Having willingly set aside His divinity, Jesus modeled an incarnational life for His disciples to follow. As the ministry of the disciples grew, they modeled the same incarnational life to those who followed them. And when all the followers of Jesus live in this manner, it becomes “the whole church taking the whole Gospel to the whole city one neighborhood and beyond.” It becomes Jesus-followers from different congregations working together in every city to bring the love of God to every neighbor, whether that neighbor lives close by or is simply encountered naturally during the course of one’s daily activities.

    Many of us Christians here in the U.S. have great concerns about the state of our nation, but why is there seemingly no serious alarm or outcry among Christians about the condition of the church in our country?

    According to the post-pandemic research, a majority of Americans—56%—now attend church infrequently or not at all. Prior to the pandemic, that number was only 41%. Weekly church attendance dropped overall during the pandemic, with the youngest generations—Millennials and Gen Xers—being least likely to attend church after the pandemic.

But those aren’t the only indicators of the effects of the pandemic on faith in America. According to the report:

• The number of Americans who self-identify as Christians continued to fall—from 77% in 2017 to a new post-pandemic low of 68%.
• During the pandemic, the biblical worldview, a measure of basic biblical beliefs and behaviors, decreased among all Americans and across all major church groups—including by one-third among evangelicals.
• The group that grew the mostas Christianity faltered? The “Don’ts”—people who don’t believe in God, don’t know if there is a God, or don’t care one way or the other—growing from 15% in 2020 to a whopping 22% post-pandemic.
• Perhaps most shocking was the rapid erosion of foundational beliefs among evangelicals, including in areas as basic as the existence of moral absolutes based on God’s word and belief in the sanctity of human life. ₍₁₎

    There are those who are happy with the growth of their own local congregation even though the church in America is in major decline. Are we only concerned about our own congregation, or are we going to take into consideration the Whole Church and work together for the cause of Christ? We have for far too long isolated ourselves from one another. Jesus would be so pleased with His Church if it became the embodiment of what He prayed for in His High Priestly Prayer in John 17: “[May they] be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23 niv).

    The mark of true biblical success is the whole Church working together so that the world comes to know that God the Father sent His Son to earth. How are we doing with that? I am not asking how your congregation is doing. I am asking, “How is the Whole Church doing in each of our cities?” This is the mind-set and concern that pastors and leaders in cities should have. Are we all looking out for one another, or are we so busy that we don’t have time for one another and the advance of God’s kingdom in our cities? This is the very reason why the apostle Paul said to the Philippians, “Not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:4 niv). He was encouraging them to overcome any self-centeredness in the church in their city, knowing that it would only bring division and further hinder the flow of the Gospel in their city.

    Dallas Willard addressed this profound divide among congregations in his book, Living in Christ’s Presence:

“Once you back up and look at it, it’s obvious that the separation between the churches in our communities is one of the hardest things to get past to appreciate what Christ is doing in the world. I have tried to approach this by saying to ministers that the most important part of your ministry is that to other ministers. Come to know them, and begin to get over the idea of separation and competition.

    “Now, again this is for spokespersons for Christ. Of course, ministers are central to this in many ways, but it isn’t just the ministers; it’s all Christians. The church in a community is not one of the churches. There are groups we can call churches if we wish. I think this turns out to be very harmful, and you have to come to grips with usage and reality; it’s hard to do anything about it, though people have tried to do that. They have given their church a different name—and usually they wind up being another denomination.

    “Individually we can do something. Individually we can know our fellow spokespersons, and we can make a point of making sure that there are some of them that are not like us. We can then begin to support them and pull for their success. Wanting other churches to succeed is one of the most important things we can do. Someone might say, well, but there’s so-and-so, and give a name. But that doesn’t matter. We are disciples or we are nothing. As disciples, we love one another, and we care for one another, and we recognize the situation that we are in a local community. We claim one another. It may scare the others to death until they get used to it, and they will want to know what you are up to supporting them and pulling for them to succeed in God’s terms. We can, I believe, make a start.” ₍₂₎  

    I have worked in the trenches of local congregations for over forty years. I have served in small, medium, and large churches during those years. I also spent four years in a “house church.” It is my hope and desire, for as long as I am able, to participate with the Lord and other leaders in moving local congregations forward in becoming one body that loves the Whole Church and its neighbors. As you might imagine, it hasn’t always been easy. There have been times that it seemed impossible, but I am seeing in our day a movement toward a model that Jesus wants for His Church. It is an incarnational model, the Whole Church being the embodiment of Jesus in the world. That is, carrying on the work that Jesus did while He was here on earth, but now as one collective body in the world. With this kind of oneness, coupled with the empowering of the Holy Spirit, we will see revival in our churches and awakening in our cities.

1. Tracy Munsil, New Post-Pandemic Research Shows How COVID Rocked America’s Faith| Jun 14, 2023 | American Worldview Inventory, Biblical Worldview, CRC, George Barna
2. Dallas Willard and John Ortberg, Living in Christ Presence, (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press 2014, 111-112.