Ecclesiology 3 - A New Church - part 2: The Mission

    Let us begin our examination of what this renewed church will look like where Snyder begins The Problem of Wineskins.  In Chapter 1, Snyder advocates giving Western youth of today not a theology to believe, nor a cause to live for nor a catechism to memorize, but an experience to feel.  We need not dive into this concept too deeply to realize that, if we settle on the usual sort of "mountaintop high" emotional experience that typically comes to mind, we need do nothing; the Evangelicals and Pentecostals have that market cornered.  To duplicate that sort of experience would be to simply reinvent the wheel.  However, if one looks at the statistics, such "feel good" experience isn't working too well.  Sure, these churches bring in tens of thousands of young people every year, but the retention levels are abysmally low.  In the late 60's and early 70's, hundreds of thousands of youth worldwide came into the church through the "feel good" movement that Time magazine coined the Jesus Revolution.  Where are they now?  Young people come to church, feel great, and then leave when the feeling wears off.  I call this "Pablum Theology." It's great for babies, but as the child grows, he/she needs more substance.  Christians must grow out of Pablum Theology into "meat and potatoes" and, eventually, "Centrum and Ensure."  The Evangelicals and Pentecostals have no mechanism for spiritual maturity and growth.  Liturgicals can, of course, be rightly seen as offering a more mature type of theology, but, as we have seen, their offerings can and often do lead to boredom and sanctimony.  Still not ideal.

    So, the first hallmark of the renewed church is a shift in emphasis away from the boring or "flash-in-the-pan" worship service to more practical prayer and meditation classes.  Not only can prayer and meditation afford new members an easy entry point, providing an immediate renewal of mind, body and spirit, but the entire process encourages maturation and growth of the individual so that, after a time, he/she is better prepared to engage actively with other mature Christians in the mission of the church.

    This mission is the second hallmark of the renewed church.  And that mission is quite clear: help the poor.

    From Mosaic Law through the gospels of Jesus, the Bible makes it abundantly clear that, while God loves everybody, there is a special place in the heart of God for the poor.  I shan't quote any specific verses here; open your Bible to any page and start reading.  Like Christ himself, the church must seek out the poor, the neglected, the widowed, the orphaned, the convicted, the oppressed.

    In today's Protestantism, we are guilty of seeking out not the poor regardless of race or other distinguishing characteristics, but instead seeking out those most like ourselves, those who think as we think, dress as we dress, etc.  This preference is notable in everything about us from our program choices right down to our architecture.  As Snyder points out, were we to drive a sociologist around one of our urban or suburban neighborhoods pointing out the various church buildings, that specialist could predict the average age, race and income level of the congregants who meet there with near pinpoint accuracy just by studying the buildings' facades.

    Our congregations often do make passing efforts to help the poor in that we typically support local food pantries and homeless shelters with a portion of our tithes and a few volunteer hours of our time.  But these amounts are paltry (how much money does your church give to the poor versus the amount spent on the landscaping of your church campus?), and its a very much "out there" sort of ministry, aimed more at helping the congregation feel good at having done their Christian duty than at any real effort to eradicate poverty in their neighborhoods.

    And none of our efforts are designed or executed for the benefit of the poor's spirituality.  Middle class Christians commune with fellow middle class Christians and poor Christians commune with fellow poor Christians in separate places and usually with very distinct styles.  Middle class Christians can usually be found in Liturgical and Evangelical churches, with poor Christians typically following a more Pentecostal form of worship.  Either group would find itself uncomfortable attending the other's service.

    And that is to both groups' detriment.  The middle class church needs the poor as much as the poor need the middle class.  Not only do we need the poor as an object of our mission work, we need them present and active in our congregations.  Have you ever wondered why, after eighty years and billions of dollars spent on solving the homeless crisis in urban America, the homeless population hasn't diminished, but has in fact grown worse?  It's because middle class America has no idea what homeless people need.  We put all our time and money into providing homeless people with boxed meals and night shelters and half-hearted job training programs, all to no avail.  For years, Jimmy Carter was the only rich Christian in America who understood that the solution to the enigma of homelessness was to provide homeless people with - of all things - homes!  (Fortunately, this tide might be turning as a handful of other well off Christians have begun developing other homes-for-the-homeless programs across the country.)  Guess how Carter figured it out?  He asked them!  If a church truly wishes to help the poor overcome poverty - if we want to take our primary mission seriously - we need the poor in our midst telling us what they actually need.  Every great idea that has ever led to social reform originated with a poor person.  Rich people don't have good social reform ideas; rich people don't need social reformation.  Unfortunately, what we see in Western Protestantism is not so much an effort to seek out the poor, to plan for church growth among the poor, but instead a vision of the poor as a social problem to be analyzed and discussed and dealt with at arm's length. As Snyder has it, "I was hungry and you gave me a press release."

    So, our first priority is among the poor, and the first thing we need to give the poor is the Word.  We cannot overemphasize the need for evangelism among the poor; it is a priority set by Christ himself.  "The Spirit of the Lord...has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." (Luke 4:18)  "The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up and the poor have the good news preached to them." (Matt. 11:5)  In his 1970 Christian Manifesto, Ernest Campbell says "A church so busily at work correcting the massive injustices of society that it cannot or will not make the effort to win men and women to the allegiance of Jesus Christ will soon become sterile and unable to produce after its kind."  Sound familiar?  We are more concerned with poverty than the poor, more concerned with a program than with people.  We need not solve a social problem; we must instead be prepared to attend to personal needs.

    Of course, the needs of the poor do not begin and end with evangelism, nor should our Christian response.  In practice, love does not make a distinction between body and soul.  Since our Christian response to the poor must be one of love, we cannot make rigid prescriptions about what exactly is the Christian responsibility to the poor beyond evangelism.  Here is the first of many areas in which the church must allow for the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit.  Too little structure in our church makes for gullibility, but too much makes for comfort and aloofness.  We must get ourselves out of the way and allow the Holy Spirit to work through us.

    All of this comes with one great caveat: churches planted and watered among the poor rarely stay there.  It is not uncommon for the poor among this or that group, working with their newfound Christian discipline (for that is what "discipleship" means) to develop over time a higher level of social respectability, which tends to put them in a position to acquire new job skills, a better social standing and finally more money and a socially upward movement into the middle class.  They will then ofttimes turn their backs on their more impoverished neighbors, moving out of their ghettos and into the middle class churches which are the backbone of Western Protestantism.  This must be prevented both personally and as part of the church program itself.  Yes, moving people out of poverty is the ultimate goal, but I recall one of the platitudes I used to say to my children; "my granddaddy always used to say, if yer ridin' out in front of the herd, turn around every now and then to make sure its still behind you."  The church must continue to employ the newly upward bound poor as the backbone of its mission to help those still remaining on skid row.

    So, what is the final analysis of our study of the church's responsibility to the poor?

(1) The poor are, by the decree of Christ, the church's top priority, both as our mission and our membership.

(2) The best way to know how to help the poor is by listening to the poor.

(3) To this end, the church must evangelize extensively among the poor and seek out ways to actively gain membership and attendance among them.  If more than 50% of a local congregation's membership lives above the poverty level, that congregation must reconsider its evangelism and outreach programs.

(4) At least 50% of the congregation's budget should be given to the poor, both corporately and directly (later we will look at ways to make this goal a practical reality).

(5) The church's response to the poor must include a mechanism by which the congregation can occasionally review its programs and procedures to ensure that no one - no individual - is left behind.

Until next time,

Pax

Spoiler Alert - As implied above, when we get to the wrap-up of this thing, I'm going to argue that we expand on Snyder's view of the church's responsibility to the poor and include all of our society's oppressed and downtrodden.  Wait for it... ☺