PHILOSOPHY OF MINISTRY: Part 1 Pressing Issues For The North American Church

Pressing Issues for the 21st Century North American Church There are three major issues facing the North American Church in the 21st Century. These issues must be thoroughly addressed by churches and denominations alike if they are going to effectively fulfill the mission of making disciples of the nations. Failure to identify and address these three issues is contributing to the North American church becoming irrelevant in fulfilling the mission that Christ has given it. As a result the words of Christ to the Church of Laodicea have become frighteningly accurate for the 21st Century church of North America. “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot, I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth…” Revelation 3:15 (NIV) All three of these issues, though being separate issues, will in one way or another intersect and overlap each other and for that reason they need to be considered together. The Exploding Unchurched Population: The first issue that must be addressed is the fast growing unchurched population within North America. North America is quickly becoming one of the most unchurched areas in the world. Not so long ago that thought would have seemed ridiculous. We would have laughed at it, but missiologist are not laughing today. Church leaders in North America are becoming extremely concerned with this growing trend. Christian churches in America have less influence over their mission fields today than they did twenty years ago. Why? Because while the unchurched population is exploding in growth, an alarming amount of churches in North America are either in a plateau or declining in membership and new churches are not being started fast enough to replace those dying churches nor keeping up with the explosive unchurched population growth. Old methods and strategies of evangelism and church planting have become obsolete and impotent. The number of people identifying with evangelical churches is in no way keeping up with the population growth. According to George Barna a major contributor to this decline is due to the public’s distaste for any form of organized religion. While the populous is still very interested in Jesus they have become disillusioned with organized religion and no longer have any desire to be identified with it. In addition to still maintaining an interest in Jesus and his teachings the public has also found a longing to gather into small intimate groups to discuss and figure out how to live their spiritual lives. It is the relational aspect of spirituality that has hit a positive chord in the hearts of the people. The challenges the church faces when it comes to the growing unchurched population are: • A Biblically illiterate society. People today do not know what the Bible actually teaches, and what little knowledge they do have has been combined with other philosophies and religious beliefs. This Biblical illiteracy leaves the church with the challenge to reestablish a Biblical world view. • Creating a new Biblical church model that does not resemble an organized religion. Instead of trying to recreate a new public image of organized religion, which in my estimation would be futile, the church needs to rethink and theologically consider alternative images of the church that are less corporate and more relational. Spectatorship Christianity: The last half of the 20th Century has seen a North American church life develop that resembles more of a spectator Christianity than a participatory one. A religious consumer mentality has developed leaving the largest resource of the church sitting in the pews being entertained instead of actively and intentionally engaging the mission field around them and leaving the work of the ministry to be done by the few professionals or highly talented personnel. The cry for “more” and “better”, or “I want” and “I need” from the congregations has sent church leaders frantically trying to appease the insatiable appetites of its congregants. As a result the church membership has become useless in being of any kingdom value. The concept of the Priesthood of the Believer has been downgraded from a ministry of reconciliation that happens in the world to bring people to Christ to a program driven ministry that happens in holy buildings, during holy hours and led by a few holy people. This mindset has fueled the church shopping and hopping that has become the norm in American church life. When one church is no longer able or willing to offer what the people desire, they jump ship and seek after a new church that will satisfy their carnal appetites. Even, when relational ties within the church are strong enough to keep the people from completely leaving they still seek out one or two other local churches to also attend. There are three challenges the church must address as a result of Spectator Christianity: • Biblically defining what a disciple of Christ really looks like. What does it truly mean to be a disciple of Jesus and how does a disciple of Jesus live? • How to move its members to be missionally engaged within their community. Knowing that Christ has commissioned all of his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations how does a church raise up, train up and unleash their people to accomplish it? Urbanization of the World: Throughout most of human history the population has lived primarily in rural areas where agriculture and hunting for survival was prominent. Only 3 % of the world’s population lived in urban areas in the 1800’s. That percentage had grown by the 1900’s to 14% and then by the 1950’s it grew to 30%. The decades that followed experienced unprecedented urban growth with 50% of the world’s population currently living in both urban and rural areas. In the United States a much higher percentage live in urban centers. Of the total population in the United States 81% live in urban centers, which include cities and suburbs. Unlike many of the urban centers of the world that are very homogenous the urban centers of North America are very pluralistic. There is not one homogenous group that encompasses the whole region. People from many cultures, languages, races and religions form the fabric of the North American urban centers. This change to a pluralistic urban society has created an attitude of tolerance for diversity in lifestyles, religions and philosophies. A post-modern philosophy of relativism has saturated the very fabric of the North American western urban centers. This urbanization has led to a shortage of land for development and has caused the cost for rent and construction to escalate. This pluralistic urbanization of North America has left three challenges for the church of North America: • Rethinking the use of land and buildings for doing church life. Because of the limited amount of available land with its rising cost to purchase and the escalating cost of rent, the church needs to reevaluate the wisdom and need for ever owning or renting any permanent facility as an expression of church life. Exploring Biblical alternatives to expressing church life without land and building is going to become essential for the future church of North America. • Establishing a church model that allows for multiple cultures, races and languages. Because the urban centers of North America are pluralistic the North American Church must devise a church strategy that allows diverse people to enter into the family of God through their homogeneous networks while at the same time maintain a heterogeneous overall church expression. It is the aim of MY FATHER’S HOUSE to address these issues with a new church structure that can be easily and rapidly reproduced from urban center to urban center by ordinary believers. What follows are the Mission Statement, Core Values Statement, Vision Statement and Strategy Statement that will serve as the North Star for the life of this new church as it attempts to maneuver through these challenges.