Walking in Ancient Paths

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Two friends of ours—Millennials—don’t know each other. Yet in separate conversations I heard them use exactly the same word about a church in our community. The church meets in a building that, until a few years ago, had been a movie theater. Our friends, a man and a woman, at different times had each attended this church briefly, then left. She and days later he described the Sunday meeting as a “show.” Apparently the former theater building still draws an audience of watchers.

Participatory Path in Passover

Although young, these two are seeking an old way of gathering with other believers. A way that includes relationships, interactive body life, shared church. Two-way communication in church meetings is not a new idea. Christ-followers practiced it when they gathered back in the first century. During their last Passover meal, Jesus and his disciples engaged in a lot of back-and-forth conversation. Check it out. Count the “asked” and “answered” words in just John 13.

Paul called for the Corinthian believers to practice shared church: “So here’s what I want you to do. When you gather for worship, each one of you be prepared with something that will be useful for all: sing a hymn, teach a lesson, tell a story, lead a prayer, provide an insight” (I Cor. 14:26, The Message).

Monologue: One-Way Street

In his 1963 book, The Miracle of Dialogue, Reuel L. Howe says, “Monologue is not effective communication.” He based his statement on research done by the Institute for Advanced Pastoral Studies and other experts in communication. “Young ministers,” he says, “are disillusioned about the effectiveness of preaching and suspect that ‘telling’ is not a sure means of communication, but because they know of no alternative, they are caught in the one-way street of monologue.”

Less than a decade later Ray Stedman, in Body Life, lamented that “Christian meetings have turned into dull, stodgy rituals where many Christians gather to go through completely predictable performances, all conducted in an atmosphere of ‘reverence’ which permits no interchange with one another, no exchange of thought, no discussion of truth, and no opportunity to display Christian love in any but the most superficial of ways.”

Soul Rest in Old Paths

So the roots of shared-church reach far back in time. Jeremiah the prophet quoted what the Lord said to the Israelites: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16). But today, far too many churches have not learned the power of walking in those “ancient paths” when they gather.

Millennials and others may not be able to articulate it. But they are looking for the kind of relational, church-body life seen in the New Testament. The Barna Research Group reports that, “The first factor that will engage Millennials at church is as simple as it is integral: relationships.” Barna President David Kinnaman says, “. . . the most positive church experiences among Millennials are relational. . . . huge proportions of churchgoing teenagers do not feel relationally accepted in church.”

Much of the one-anothering seen in the New Testament can be recovered in our main congregational meetings. In Curing Sunday Spectatoritis, 25 church leaders explain the paths they are exploring as they pursue that goal.

Reports from the Front

On Sunday, we Christians rightly hear what we are to believe and do. We also hear what God did back in Bible times. But how often do we hear what God is doing today in our neighborhoods, workplaces, families, and other arenas of our scattered-church lives?

A few churches regularly include what Alan and Eleanor Kreider call “reports from the front.” That can mean reports from the “front lines” where we live out our daily lives. Or it can also mean reports we hear “from the front” of the meeting room.

Evidence of God at Work

As the Kreiders say in Worship and Mission after Christendom, “If we receive no reports from the front in our congregations, we are in trouble. . . . God seems powerless and inactive. And Christians who do see evidence of the missional activities of God in our time may only whisper about it in the church’s hallways or discuss it during the week in house groups or on the telephone—but not in worship services.”

Such reports were once called “testimonies.” Why have they fallen out of fashion in our church meetings? The Kreiders explain: “Testimony is a term that bores some people and alarms others. It bores people because at times testimonies are oft-repeated stories about long-ago conversion experiences. . . . Testimony in worship alarms people when the stories become embarrassingly personal.”

The faculty member of a seminary told me, “When I have been in a church where there is an ‘open mic’ time, the sharing is seldom about anything except sickness and personal problems.” Sadly, many believers have suffered through similar experiences.

Pastoral Coaching

But rightly done reports from the front will neither bore nor alarm. In some churches, leaders resist spectatoritis by coaching believers in how to put into words what God is doing in their daily lives. (My book, Curing Sunday Spectatoritis, includes guidelines the pastors in one church use in coaching those who will present reports from the front.) While conversion stories have a place, reports from the front should cover a much wider range. For example:

  • This week I saw God at work in my workplace when he . . .

  • Would you please pray for me about . . .

  • Do you ever struggle with the temptation to . . . ? Let me tell you my story . . .

  • We just saw God open a whole new opportunity in our neighborhood by . . .

  • Here is how God has answered a long-term prayer. . .

  • Yesterday God used [name] to encourage me when she . . .

  • As I was reading [Bible passage], the Holy Spirit moved my heart with . . .

Hebrews 10:24-25 explains the importance of shared church, our gathering with other believers: “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Most encouraging and spurring on involves speaking to and hearing each other—the very activities involved in reports from the front. 

People gave reports like this even in the Old Testament. For example, the Psalmist encouraged telling stories of God acting in the workplace: “Let them [merchants God had delivered from perils at sea] exalt him in the assembly of the people” (Ps. 107:32). How much more are such reports possible now that each believer has received the gift of God’s outpoured Spirit!

What do you think? How would giving and hearing reports from the front encourage you in your faith and spur you on to act it out?

The Faith-Voice Divide

A friend phoned this morning to say that someone close to him, a believer, had died a few days ago. My friend had been called on to offer some words of comfort at the memorial. “Could you,” he asked me, “help me find some Bible verses that would be appropriate for the occasion?”

Of course I was happy to do so and responded with three different passages he might want to consider. When I did so, he made a comment that left me sad and pondering. This man, probably around 60 years old, said, “I’ve attended church all my life, but still can’t find Scriptures when I need them.”

My friend is a Christian, but when a moment of opportunity comes, he is unable to locate or vocalize Scripture. His faith and his voice remain disconnected. This is one of the disabling symptoms of Sunday spectatoritis. In his decades of church attendance, no one has expected him to become an apprentice or student of Jesus and his words—in other words, a disciple.

In his book, Preaching as Dialogue, Jeremy Thomson says, “it is as people have the opportunity to put their own words together that they become conscious of their thoughts and realize new paths of behavior.”

Paul noted that the disciples in the Roman church were “competent to instruct one another” (Rom. 15:14). He wrote that the Colossian believers were to “teach and admonish one another” (Col. 3:16). Instructing, teaching, admonishing—those all require a linkage of faith with voice. And if the meeting formats in those churches followed the pattern of the church at Corinth (I Cor. 14:26), everyone had opportunities to develop and practice using that faith-voice connection when they gathered.

 What do you think? How might the meeting format of your church be modified so that Christians like my friend could practice connecting their faith with their voices?

How Would Jesus Teach in Church?

Monologue or Dialogue?

Think back to the church meetings you’ve attended in the past year. How did the usual method of teaching compare with the way Jesus taught? “Jesus seldom, if ever, monologued,” says Charles H. Kraft, a Fuller Seminary Professor. Instead, “He interacted.”

In his book, Communicating the Gospel God’s Way, Kraft writes, “The word ‘preach’ that is ordinarily used in English translations of [Mark 16:15] is only one way of communicating. Indeed, it is a form of communication that Jesus used very seldom.” 

I checked that out. What we call the “Sermon on the Mount,” as Matthew records it, is monologue. Jesus does most of the talking in John 13-16. But his teaching in those chapters is full of dialogue, conversational back-and-forth. Nearly 60 times the gospels say “Jesus [or he] asked.” Just about the same number of times gospel writers report that “Jesus [or he] answered.” His exchanges included both groups and individuals. Among others, Jesus interacted with John the Baptist, the twelve disciples, women, men, Jewish religious leaders, and foreigners.

Before coming as one of the pastors to Jacob’s Well Church in Chicago, Mark Brouwer, had traveled to coach other pastors. “As I visited churches during that period,” he says, “I discovered how strange it was to sit through a service as a passive observer. I came to believe including discussion times is more biblical and helpful to spiritual growth.”

What do you think? Why did Jesus mainly rely on teaching with dialogue rather than monologue? Why is his method so rarely used in the teaching/preaching that takes place on Sunday mornings today?

Should Questions Be Asked in Church?

"I've always had questions for the church, but . . ."

Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope interviewed hundreds of Christians they call the “dechurched” and report the results in their book, Church Refugees. In one conversation, Emily told them, “I’ve always had questions for the church, but there isn’t much room in Christian churches and denominations to question.”

 She is not alone in her concern. Researchers in the Barna Group report that 36 percent of Millennials tell them they are not able to ask "my most pressing life questions in church.” Sunday’s sermon and text may connect to an issue they are currently facing, but they have no opportunity to interact or to clarify.

Dan White, who serves as one of the pastors in Axiom Church, Syracuse, NY, has found a way around that. He has developed a method of dialogical preaching/teaching. He still prepares and delivers a message, but he does so in a way that invites the congregation to discuss it with him and each other. On the one hand, it preserves trustworthy proclamation by qualified teachers.  And on the other hand, it avoids the dangers of a meandering talk-fest.

What do you think?  In the context of the main meeting of the congregation, would you welcome the opportunity to respond to biblical messages, to ask questions, and to hear responses from others? Please explain your answer.