Raise the Roof!

Our final step in “building the church” methapor is the roof.  We’ve laid our foundations and built up the structure (previous two blog entries).  Now we have to remember to finally  “raise the roof.”  The “roof” for us is the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is what holds us together as a church and without Jesus the whole thing crumbles.

We are now sliding into the end of Lent and soon will be entering Holy Week.  This Sunday is the final Sunday before Palm Sunday.  Our goal as we make these final preparations is to make sure we understand that Jesus is Lord and he is Lord of our lives.

Christians can differ on many things.  We might disagree on a host of issues but this one thing is core.  “Jesus is risen!”  “He is risen indeed!”

I encourage you to remember this and to stay focused on what is important and vital.  While I’m proud of my ‘tribe’ of faith (and sometimes embarrassed as well) being Baptist is not core.  Baptist is the ‘way’ I do church and plays into the way my faith is practiced but more than Baptist or Protestant I am Christian.  I am in ‘the way’ (the first term used for us before our critics called us ‘Christian’).

As we head to Easter why not read the Gospels?  Take some time to look at each holy week account in the four gospels.  Reflect and make notes on your readings.   What do you notice?  What speaks to you most?  What does this story really say to you? To life? To our world?

Blessings,

Derik

Building It Up

The problem today is that many churches are simply dying.  One of the latest reports out shows that the number of people in the US that declare themselves Christian has fallen by 11 percent since 1990.  It was 86 percent but is now at 75 percent.  This despite the fact that the US population has grown by 50 million.  The number of people not connected to any religion has doubled since 1990.    That number has grown from 7 to 15 percent!  They do not declare themselves ‘atheist’ but are not connected to any organized religion.  The survey shows that evangelical Christianity is on the rise.  Mainline congregations (Episcopal, Lutheran, etc) are continuing to decline.  1 in 3 Americans are Evangelical and more are choosing mega churches rather than smaller churches.  In 1990 less than 200,000 went to a mega church and now it is at 8 million.

In the survey, one in five Americans said they have no religious identity or did not answer the question, and more than one in four said they do not expect to have a religious funeral.

The percentage of Catholics in the United States has remained steady at about one in four since 1990, while the percentage of other Christians has plummeted from 60 percent to 50 percent.  While Muslims in the US are still a small number they have doubled since 1990 (from .3 to .6).  Mormons remain steady as the population grows.   Those who follow the Jewish religion rather than declaring themselves Jews as ethnicity is falling.

As a Baptist it is interesting to also notice the number of people saying they are Baptist has dropped and the South is no longer as strong as a Baptist Bible belt!  From 19.3 percent to 15.8 declared themselves Baptists.  The largest Baptist denomination is the Southern Baptist Convention and while being second largest Christian group in the US the SBC membership has dropped rather than grown.  In fact baptism rates in the SBC are not growing and may be worse when you consider those who rebaptize members who are already baptized in a Baptist church but have been rebaptized due to a religious experience (this is not uncommon in some of the ultra-conservative Baptist churches).

Wow!

Now consider that the Christian church in Africa, South America, and other new growth areas is exploding.  70 percent of Evangelicals live outside of the West.   In the US there are just over 2 million Episcopalians (US Anglicans) but in Uganda alone there are 8 million!!

Europe was once a Christian going place but it and England have fallen to very low numbers (as low as 4 percent in some European countries) and so the question is, “Is the US next?”

I can’t answer that but as one commentator said, “God goes where he is wanted.”

The Christian church has lots of work to do.   As a Baptist I wrote about the ‘foundation’ of Baptists last time.  But if all we do is know what we believe and have good ideas but do nothing we too will be museums and parking lots.  We have to put feet to our words.  If we are building a building we need to put up the walls, windows and doors.

The door for a healthy church is outreach/evangelism.  If a church doesn’t read out then we are doomed to die.  We can do this without being in your face and annoying.  We need to provide opportunities for people to explore their questions and spiritual concerns.  And the basic reality is that each church member knows dozens of people who are unchurched.  We really need to do a better job of this.

The windows that make a church healthy are mission/service, education and worship.

Mission/service is essential and is more than simple ‘soul winning’ or evangelism.  This is about meeting the needs of the poor, hurting and needy.  Part of what we do is to speak for those who have no voice and to help those who are hurting.  We are called to do this for those within our church and on the outside.

Another window is education.  A learning church is a strong church.  Currently there is a basic Biblical illiteracy that is growing.  People might fight about the Bible but the really don’t know the Bible or even read it.  We have to do better.  Sunday School was created to help children learn basic skills in England and this grew into a strong Bible study program.  Baptists have had elaborate education systems within their Sunday Schools.  This worked for a long time but has been waning in many places.  In churches that have Sunday School there is more studies on how to have a good marriage, parenting, and other life skills than solid Biblical education.   Those life skills classes and programs have been successful in doing good work but in reality have led to more Biblical ignorance.  We need to do better.  The original idea of a seminary was for the minister to learn then to come back and take that theological training to the pew.  Church members need to know the Bible, theology, church history, and deal with tough issues.

And of course the window of worship!  Worship is communication with God.  We speak to God and God speaks to us.  It is a time of transformation and commitment.  Worship is giving God praise and love and is a time for God to renew us.

The church has a long history and once we are reminded of who we are and our purpose (our foundation) we need to then get busy and do what we are supposed to be doing.  The church is not just another charity, fellowhship, or do gooder club.  We need to be the body of Christ in the world today!

Blessings,

Derik

Laying the Foundation

In our current sermon series at RMBC we are exploring what it means to be a Baptist church.  I’ve written on this subject in the blog in various ways but I do want to address it once more.  I really do belive it is good for people to know who they are and their history.  If we were building an actual church building we would first lay a foundation.  Of course as Christians we have basic foundational issues- God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Prayer, Bible, etc.  We have a 2000 year old heritage that while we have differed on specifics we believe in God, faith, Christ, etc.  Then each denomination then has its own foundational issues as well.  Baptists have their own distinctivies (while distinct to Baptists are not only Baptist and other ‘tribes’ may also carry some of these).  Walter Shurden has described Baptists has having four fragile freedoms- Bible freedom, Individual Freedom (Soul Freedom/Priesthood of the Believer, Church Freedom (Autonomy of the Church), and Religious Freedom (Separation of Church and State).

Some would again argue- so what?  We are post-denominational so what does it matter?  Denominations as human institutions are often dying or going through great change.  Yet the tribes they represent will not disappear.  The Baptist tribe is not found in one denomination but many and in churches that are not even a ‘denomination.’   The same is said for Methodists.  Even if the United Methodist denomination closed its doors the legacy of John Wesley would not die and that tribe would continue to express the Christian faith in unique ways.  On and on this discussion could go.  In the American Episcopal Church there are those who are pulling out over the issue of homosexuality.  In fact the Anglican church in North America is attempting to be official in the eyes of the global Anglican community.  I would wager that they will eventually find this support but even if the global Anglican community refuses to do this they will not disappear but continue unofficially in the Anglican tribe.

Are these tribes bad?  No!  Each Christian tribe brings good things to the table.  For me as a Baptist the core of being Baptist that is found within our DNA is that of freedom.  We practice believer’s baptism out of a desire to declare that all are free and we must personally accept Christ and be baptized by our choice.  Baptists have stood for religious freedom and have continued to refuse to have an official power that oversees each local church because freedom is the way we best can express our faith.  I realize we aren’t the only tribe to push for freedom but it is why we do what we do.

Baptists have resisted creeds from our beginning.  We refuse to mix politics and church.  We want our members to have a voice and vote.  This is why Baptists vote on budgets, officers, new members, and everything else.  It is why we pick our own pastors.  It’s why we have busienss meetings.  It’s so much of who we are and while we aren’t perfect it’s the way we do things.

As a Baptists I don’t want one person or a body within or without to control the church.  God is our boss and together we work to figure out God’s direction for our church.

All of this is our right and yet it is our responsibility.  We are to be responsible and we do this by our support, prayer, and involvement in our church and God’s work.

And so here we are.  We lay our foundation and from that we’ll build what we do but we must remember who we are and why we do what we do.  Our beliefs matter!

If being Baptist doesn’t matter anymore we need to go and spray paint that word off of all our church signs.  I believe it still matters.

Having said that let me quickly add that we don’t have it all figured out and we can learn from other tribes.  We also have some within our tribe who have changed the rules and while still called Baptist tend to do it different.

Some Baptists mix politics and don’t mind telling you who to vote for but this isn’t being Baptist!  Some Baptists try to have the pastor run the church or create a elder group to run the church but this isn’t Baptists.  Some Baptists try to tell other church bodies what they can and can not do within their own congregations but this is not Baptist.

Being Baptist allows for much diversity.  We have fundamentalist, conservative, evangelical, moderate, and liberal Baptists.  We have Baptists who are charismatic and Baptists who aren’t.  We have Baptists who are Calvinist and those who aren’t.  We have Baptists who support women in ministry and those who don’t.  We have Baptists who have women deacons and those who don’t.  We have Baptists who have preachers who wear robes, others suits, and others overalls, and some yes women in dresses.  We have Baptists who support educated clergy and those who don’t.  We have Baptists who speak English and many who don’t.  We have Baptists from Albania to Zimbabwee.  We have Baptists in Alabama and Baptists in Russia.  We have them in Possum Trot, NC too.

So we are diverse because we are free.  That’s our DNA and our heritage.  As a recent commercial says, “That’s how we roll.”

Derik