one
Premises
I
have an assumption about you.
And
yes, I know what they say about assuming, but something as serious as this
issue is worth the risk. And I confidently say that because I think the
fate of the modern day American church is riding on some of the things I'm
going to challenge you to consider in this book. But I'm getting ahead of
myself.
So
back to my assumption, and this will help with identifying my audience. I am assuming that you have some working
knowledge of Christianity, whether it is from church experiences, television,
movies, family events, that devoted grandmother, or folklore type stories. And with this working knowledge, you can
probably correct a Christian who isn’t behaving accordingly. Am I right?
Or maybe you know enough to protest something. Or perhaps you know enough to say something
like, “everything happens for a reason”, or “let go and let God”, and actually
feel better about whatever you’re going through. Or perhaps you know enough to satisfy the
void that we all feel the need to believe in a religion, so you’ve chosen
Christianity as your choice of religion as if it was simply a preferential
decision, like choosing Publix over Wal-Mart.
And
with this working knowledge comes the title of this book, the Functional
Gospel. Now if you’re passionate about
sound doctrine, let me comfort you. I am
in no way saying that there is another Gospel besides the good news of the
scriptures. I stand firm on Galatians
1:8 where Paul curses any person who should choose to preach any other
Gospel. Another Gospel does not exist. I know that and I agree. The title of the book, however, is me
challenging the huge amount of us that only have a working or functional
understanding of Christianity and therefore is able to make it work for
us. Because hey, our grandparents would
not let us just denounce the God of the Bible, even though we live as if He
doesn’t exist. Because if we actually
admitted how we really felt about God, that’d be enough to get us
excommunicated from our families, and the family church in which we were raised.
Therefore
I can say that the Bible Belt South is an interesting place to grow up, with its
rich culture of Sunday morning church suits, college football Saturdays, sweet
tea, and southern hospitality, but its blurred lines between morality and
Christ’s teaching. Where in the same
conversation you could hear someone curse out the person next to them, drop a
scripture to prove their point, and close the conversation with a “God bless
you”. A place where faithful church attenders will judge a person that chooses
to sleep in on Easter Sunday, just like he or she does every other Sunday.
Know
people like that? And I want to be clear
about this book, it’s specific to but not limited to the Bible Belt South. Because
you would think, with the South having churches sprinkled around like Starbucks
coffee shops in Seattle, that the level of faith would be extremely high
here---or rather you'd think the church would be at its strongest here. Well,
I’d challenge you to think again.
And
I have been convicted of ever saying anything is dead as long as Jesus, the
author of life, is reigning as King. So upon observation of the churched
culture I have been raised in and have loved for many years, I think it's
accurate to say that the church in the South is looking thinner from
malnourishment.
But
who am I to say this? At the time of writing this book I have no degree
from any seminary. I only have three years of church ministry experience
under my belt, so no thriving ministry at all to compare your churches to and
say, “Look, this is how we should be doing it.”
So you can read this, aware of my naivety in my youth, but this is all
that I’m asking. Since I am admitting
that I am an imperfect young man with flawed and limited perspective, all I’m
asking you to do is to consider the things I am saying. Many of the observed opinions I am going to
share in this book are simply that, my observed opinions. I’ll tell you when I think scripture is
extremely clear on a matter, but most of the chapters in this book are my
opinions of a glance into certain situations.
And all I have done was wrestle with these questions, so I’m tagging you
to get in the ring and wrestle too. This
I can promise, your faith will grow by the end of the wrestling match, because I’ve
noticed my faith has strengthened to insurmountable places because of these wrestling
bouts.
In
the next chapter I’ll get into the depths of why I’m writing this book. But the root of this burning desire to
understand the hardships of the church started when I started to hear the startling
statistics of the growing decline of people professing Christianity as their
faith. And honestly, I'm a little happy about it. Not because
people are falling away from the faith, but the fact that people are seriously
noticing the inconsistencies in the church and the people professing to be
Christians. In a world jaded by the veneer of temporary satisfaction and
fleeting interests, it makes sense to me how a culture that floods churches on
Easter and Christmas is also tagging Christianity as something we just
do. It's not a relationship with a saving King, but it's something we do
only on certain holy days, which are the holidays in the remembrance of Jesus, and
Sundays. So as with anything else, we’re
interested in it long enough to flick our thumbs and move on to the next
thing. It’s almost as bad as registering
for a website and consistently getting their nagging emails about reminders
that you’ll eventually just unsubscribe from.
So
the premises of this book are simple. First I want to be sure you are
hearing my tone correctly. I am in no way insulting the bride of Jesus at
all through this book. In fact, I am rejoicing in her potential. And
with the obvious decline of people professing Christianity as their religion,
we must agree that there is a problem. The
message of Christ is too beautiful to be handled poorly and neglected because
of the failure to recognize the problem and being to pray and work to find the
solution. So that is my hope. Is
that you would do what I have done and walk with me through these different
perspectives and allow them to clash with your faith in hopes of strengthening
it. Many of you may nod in agreement with everything in this book.
And many of you may disagree with nearly everything in this book. But, let us be sure that we agree on
something before we start agreeing or disagreeing. Before we have this discussion, I’m presuming
that you agree that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and used for
teaching, reproofing, correction, and training in righteousness. (2 Tim 3:16) And I’m not talking about
handpicked out of context scriptures to prove your point, that’s too easy. If we do that, then we could say that Jesus
commanded us to eat breakfast (John 21:12).
So I’m talking about let’s look at the Bible with a full understanding
of how the Bible works and reads and we can continue in this discussion.
So
I'm nominating myself as one of the voices of this generation that is appearing
to be disinterested in the church, and my first proclamation is, “Maybe something
is off.” Maybe we are doing some things wrong, however good the
intentions are. Maybe what’s happening is for too long we have just shoved
Bibles into our children’s hands, told them Jesus died for the sins that
they’ll start committing at around 13, and that Hell is 7 times hotter than
fire here. And then we accept our
child’s performance obedience as actual salvation when really it was just their
reasoning hadn’t kicked in yet. It’s
easy to have faith as a child before the realities of life kick in. I mean, we actually believed Santa Claus can
travel around the world in a night. And
the Power Rangers were just as real to me as my mom and teachers, I secretly
hoped they were disguised super heroes.
But when adult problems run smack into our child faith, what
happens? I’ll tell you. It’s quite simple. We start to doubt the validity of what we
believed in and we start to ask questions, in which most parents struggle with
answering. Like, if Jesus is for my good
then why did that bad thing happen? Well
I prayed and prayed and it still happened.
If Rita really wants to take over the world, why won’t she just attack
somewhere differently than Angel Grove? (If you missed that reference, I’m
sorry. You really missed out on having a
cool childhood) Mom? We don’t have a chimney, how does Santa get into our
home?
Questions like these slowly breaks
down our faith because no one continues to develop it. Our childhood faith disappears when our innocence
disappears as well. So you figure out
Santa is not real, and that the Power Rangers are not really in their morphed
suits but in fact trained martial artists and they are using voice overs (still
grieve that), and that God is only good when he wants to be. So we grow up with
a half enthused Christian faith that we still claim, but are not really living
in it. It's easy to abstain from sexual temptation when girls have
cooties. But what about when those girls start to develop into
women? And ladies, what about when those
boys begin to compliment you and it has an effect on you? I’ll answer it, a
moralistic salvation becomes harder to maintain.
So in a culture where teen pregnancy
is probably a bigger sin that adultery, where do we even begin. I’ll give the older generation some credit,
they are seeing there’s a problem with us.
Many of them are worried when they watch the news and see us, people
under 28, are just unfocused about everything.
And they’ve tried to fix it, bless their hearts, but without asking us. They’ve instead tried to engage with our
culture from the outside and tried turning youth ministry into huge gimmicks
and rap concerts to try to keep us entertained, but that’s not what we
want. We want to believe again. We want to know these things are really real. Why hasn’t anyone proven to me that Jesus is
worth believing in? Because hey, mommy
and daddy only are Christians when we’re walking into the church on Sundays. And they’re not tempted with sexual
temptations because old people don’t even do that, do they?
I really hope you’re hearing my
heart. Again, if it sounds like I’m
being snarky I am not trying to sound that way.
I am only tossing out some things for you to consider. And as we walk through this book, some of
these things may be hard for you to really think about because it may shake the
foundation of your faith a little bit.
But here’s what I can promise you, if it’s founded on the right things---you’ll
be fine. If it’s not founded on the
right things---I pray the saving grace of Jesus will bring you into knowledge
of Him as you’re reading. Don’t be
afraid to wrestle with something that may prove something you’ve always
believed in is probably not true. But
let me encourage you though, if you look one step pass that, you’ll be able to
rejoice in the coming understanding of truth which will only increase your joy
in Him.
I hope you’re ready to be
challenged. I promise you it will be
worth it. Thanks for choosing to read
this book. I hope and pray it’s a
blessing to you as it was for me in drawing me nearer to Jesus.
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