It is time to seize the moment and give people good reasons for coming back to church. It is time to offer real worship experiences in the dynamic, life-altering package of spirit and truth. It is time to get out of the way and allow people to make whole-person contact with the God behind all the wonder and mystery. Third-millennial America is hungry for what the church has to offer; we just need to make sure we are offering it.
It somehow seemed appropriate to begin the summary of this chapter with her final paragraph which challenges us to reflect on: What is the purpose of the church and worship? What are the needs of Third-millennial America? How can we both address these needs and get out of the way? What constitutes a "dynamic, life-altering package of spirit and truth"?
This chapter begins by challenging our assumptions about the un-churched. In the early days of seeker services, the assumption was that people weren't interested in God, or mystery, or symbols, or tradition. And while that may have been true in the 80s (and I think she maintains it never was true), it is not true today. So in response to that assumption, she makes the following points:
1. People today are very interested in "spirituality" but this tends to be an individualized pursuit disconnected from what they consider "religion." (Tony Akers has a wonderful description of the difference between spirituality and discipleship on his blog -- Check it out!)
2. The un-churched are skeptical of the church -- especially the evangelical church.
3. As the title of a recent book reminds us: "They like Jesus but not the Church." They like Christ but not Christians. Actually this isn't quite right. They like the idea of Jesus and they like his teachings, but they aren't too sure we (Christians) live as Jesus taught.
[George] Barna asserts, "The unchurched don't have a problem with God so much as they have a problem with God's religious franchises--the church." In other words, it is us, God's representatives, who are the main barriers to seekers' church attendance. We are the problem, not God or even the idea of God.
Most [unchurched], however want to do more than just "investigate the claims of Christ"; they want to meet Christ in us and the Christ in our services.
4. Atheism is out. (Now she wrote this before the recent onslaught of books by atheists or the filming of the Golden Compass, but honestly I still think they are hollering so loudly because they are losing the battle.) One of the reasons, atheism is losing ground is that whenever times are risky and anxious, people discover they NEED to believe in something beyond them.
In the book Megatrends 2000, (written obviously before the year 2000!) the authors predicted, "When people are buffeted by change,the need for spiritual belief intensifies . . . .The worship of science and the rational to a great extent has been thrown over for a religious revival that specifically values the emotional and the nonrational. We have watched the ideal of progress give way to the return of faith. As the symbolic year 2000 approaches humanity is not abandoning science, but through religious revival, we are reaffirming the spiritual in what is now a more balanced quest to better our lives and those of our neighbor."
5. Spirituality in the 90s (and now in the new millennium) is somewhat of a all you can eat cafeteria affair. People read books, surf the internet, and talk to their friends, then they pick and choose what they want to believe.
Jim Peterson notes this kind of feast is "especially attractive to America's unchurched generation." He claims, "Many are finding they cannot live on secularization and have begun to search for a religious experience that neither established religions nor science has been able to provide."
6. They want to EXPERIENCE God--not just talk about God!
If you talk religion to us, we expect to receive a spiritual experience of the living God. We want, as a generation, to move beyond philosophical discussions of religions to the actual experience of God in our lives.
What is interesting about the quote above is that it comes from a Baby Boomer!
7. We are dealing with a new world view. The assumptions of the Enlightenment are being questioned and found lacking. Science no longer seems to hold the answer to our problems. We are distrustful of institutions to solve our problems. And maybe we are finally coming to realize that we can't save ourselves let alone our world. And even what we know from science has changed and opens up the possibility that there is something else at work in the world.
The old idea of an unchanged and static universe has been replaced by the notion of a dynamic and expanding universe, a universe that had to have a beginning, will have an ending, and more than likely has a creator. Robert Webber
For science may never answer why the generative laws are what they are--nor how they were created. Newsweek
8. Have I mentioned that the unchurch want an experience of God not just talk of God?! George Barna again! says:
Countless Americans have rejected Christianity because they wanted to grow in spirituality, but were taught about spirituality.
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