64% of Australians Don't Know Who Adventist's Are. And That's Tragic.
Life is busy at the moment. So blogging isn’t something I do a whole lot of these days. In fact, I recently posted an update on my FB page letting people know not to expect anymore blogs or podcasts for a while.
But then, the AUC released the SDA Church Perception Study - a report compiled by McCrindle Research - on how the general public in Australia and New Zealand perceive the SDA Church. And let’s just say, the results were so relevant to post-church mission, I couldn’t resist the urge to write a responce.
You can download the full report in the link above. Below I share 5 reactions.
1. I have a love-hate relationship with church surveys.
On the hate bit: The truth is, if you ran a church perception survey at any point in human history you are unlikely to receive glowing reviews for the church. The church has always been counter-cultural. It has always been a thorn on the side of empire. It has always been a threat to the stability of social conventions. “Jesus is king” has always been, and will forever be, a seditious narrative. So, I don’t believe for a moment that church perception surveys filled with praise from the general public should be a goal or an aim for believers.
On the love bit: Nevertheless, when the unfavorable opinion is based on people not knowing who we are or what story we are telling the world, there’s a problem. In other words, I don’t mind being hated by the world so long as I am hated for the right reasons. For example, Jesus was hated for being a friend of sinners, for eating and dining with rejects, for proclaiming a message of love and inclusion so potent that it destabalised the religio-social scaffolds of his day. Likewise, early Christians were ridiculed for rescuing babies from dumps, for celebrating communion, for rejecting class warfare, for resisting emperor worship, and for seeing all people regardless of gender, economic class, or nationality as “one in Christ Jesus”. If people hate the church for these reasons, fair enough! But if people dislike us for being irrelevant and out of touch… well, thats on us.
And sadly, when it comes to how the general public perceives Adventist’s in Australia and NZ, thats basically what you get. Here are the 3 stats that stood out to me the most:
Most people are not open to attending religious programs.
Most people have no idea who SDA’s are and what we believe.
Most people don’t think our church is relevant in the 21st century.
Again, I’m not chasing public praise. I don’t mind if people think we’re weird.
What does bother me though, is when no one knows who we are, what story we have to tell, and how relevant it is for our world today.
And when I see that we, as the church, spend 90% of our energy running religious services every weekend that are having virtualy zero impact in our emerging secular, post-church society, I have to admit, my eye lid starts to twitch a bit.
2. We clearly live in a secular, post-church society.
At the start of the survey we see the following question: “What religion do you currently practice or identify with?”
For Australia, the highest number is “None” at 35%.
When we consider that many people who identify as Cathoclics tend to be “cultural Catholics” and many who identify as Christian today do so for political and cultural reasons as well, it becomes clear that the vast majority of our neighbors in Australia are post-church. They don’t go to church. Their parents and peers don’t go to church. And their kids have next to no idea what a church is or does.
But, what if we had a super good preacher, excellent music, and put on a fantastic service each weekend? In fact, what if we went digital and hosted church services online? Would they be open to attending then?
Nope.
I think this is honestly where we have to do our deepest and most painful soul searching as a church.
If most Autralians do not attend church programs and are not interested in attending church programs, then why do we invest so much time, resources, and energy into running them?
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that the church should not gather to worship, pray, fellowship etc. The Bible clearly commands this.
But is there a simpler way to do it?
A way that is smaller, more mobile, and less exhausting so that we can re-invest our talent and energy into getting to know our post-church neighbors without the constant demands of rehearsing, rostering, and executing the weekend program?
I’m not trying to start any wars here. But its a relevant question that deserves honest exploration.
3. Most Australians and NZ’s have no idea who SDA’s are. We are, by and large, an irrelevant subculture of Christianity.
According to the survey, “Almost half of Australian’s and NZ’s are unfamiliar with the [SDA] church."
When asked, “Do you know of a local SDA church in your suburb or town?” 77% said “No”.
Later on, we find that 34% of Australians never heard of the SDA church while another 30% think of it as just another denomination among the many. Taken in totality, thats a whopping 64% of Aussies who do not know who Adventist’s are, and that is tragic.
Now let’s put this into perspective. We live in a post-church society which means most people don’t know anything about any Christian denomination.
I met a guy about a year and a half ago at a local workout park. When I told him I was a pastor, he asked me what church. I asked him if he was familiar with Pentecostals, Wesleyans, Methodists etc. ( I wanted to gauge what his knowledge of Christian culture was). He gave me a blank look and shook his head. “Never heard of them,” he replied.
A few months ago a young tow truck driver came to my rescue (my car ran out of petrol on the way to the petrol station). I told him I was a pastor. He had never heard the word. He even asked me to repeat it again because he couldn’t pronounce it.
This reminded me of the millennial Sydney doctor I met who had never heard of pastors either. I told him I was kind of like a chaplain, but I worked in churches not hospitals. He replied, “whats a chaplain?”
Aparently he had seen them in the hospital when he worked in emergency. But he had no idea what they did and never bothered to ask.
In this secular context, our church as a whole tends to get swallowed up into all the others. In the end, nothing we have to say seems to have any significance to the lives of contemporary Australian generations.
Now what does this mean? Does it mean we need better marketing campaigns? Better branding, signage, and logos?
The simplest answer is: not really.
I mean, as a denomination we have already done some pretty remarkable work with modernising our branding. I still recall when the new branding kicked in around 6 or 7 years ago (ish?) and thinking - hey, this is well done! I don’t have to be embarassed with outdated fonts and logos anymore!
But the reality is, the above stats of people not knowing who we are, are results that have continued through the years following all our re-branding work. So good as it might be, branding alone isn’t the answer here.
So what is the answer? I don’t think I have the full picture myself, but here is a good place to start: We as Adventist’s have to accept that whenever society changes, the anxieties people experience change as well. And as anxieties change, the questions people are asking change with them.
I believe the reason so many people don’t know who we are or what we believe is because we Adventists are still answering questions people were asking in 1930. We focus on religio-centric topics like:
Law vs grace
What day the Sabbath is
The day/year principle
Daniel 2
The investigative judgment
Now don’t get me wrong. I believe all the above. I have even written books on the stuff. But the way we engage these conversations is so outdated, only already-religious-folk like us find them relevant.
Most people today could care less about what day the Sabbath is, creation vs evolution, what the true church is, why so many denominations exist, etc. Simply put, these are NOT questions emerging secular generations are anxious about. And no amount of new signage, color schemes, or fonts are going to change the fact that most of our churches spend most of their time answering questions emerging generations simply aren’t asking.
New generations have questions revolving around social issues, oppression and marginalization, justice and equity, economics, affordable housing, ecology, and so on. That some dude in a weird hat (pope) whose church I never attended and whose name I can’t pronounce changed the Sabbath to Sunday thousands of years ago is meaningless to generations that have grown up with next to zero religious context.
If we want to be a relevant church, I believe the best place to begin is by listening to our neighbours, understanding their anxieties, and offering a message of hope that speaks directly to their anxieties, not ours.
4. Young people are still searching and still open!
But there is good news! According to the survey, secular generations are still open to attending activities put on by SDA’s. The difference between activities and events is simple. Events are religious programs and services. Activities are more social in nature. Take a look:
If secular people are open to attending community service and social activities, then the most missional shift our churches can make is to re-orient energy from endless religious programming toward community service projects and social events where we can connect with and get to know our neighbours well.
If this means we do less church programs so that we can do more social and community activities, then let’s do it!
5. Final thoughts…
Some of you reading might be thinking, “Yes! I agree! But how?”
If that is you, I have good news. There are two projects currently in motion. One is called The R3 Network: a church plant in Perth, WA that is reimagining the local SDA church for mission in post-church cities. And the best part: It has an entire online school that teaches you how to gather, empower, and launch missional communities for post-church mission wherever you are.
If that sounds like something you have been searching for, access the free course on our website at www.ther3network.com
The second project is The Mission Collective: an online post-modern evangelism school hosted by yours truly. This school teaches students how to be effective missionaries in our contemporary, secular age. For more info, click the button below.
I hope these resources are instrumental in moving our church from simply talking about the issues, to actively participating in change.
Together, we can birth an Adventism. Redesigned.
Did you read the survey? What parts stood out to you? What thoughts did it spark? Share in the comments below!
Is Your Local Adventist Church Like Jesus? (A Quiz)
Is your local Adventist church like Jesus?
This week, I want you to take a quiz. Do it on your own, but also invite others in your church (leaders or not) and do it with them as well. In this quiz, we are going to identify wether or not your church is like Jesus.
Good news: There are only three questions. (Sort of.) But first, we need to read the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:1-7 because the quiz is based on the parable. So here goes:
“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’
I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”
OK, now that you have read the parable I am going to break it down into 3 overarching points. Those 3 points will form the basis for our quiz.
Who Does your Church Attract?
The first point that leaps out from this parable is that the sinners were “all” gathering around to hear Jesus. Not the religious folk. Not the culturally conservative. Not the theologians or scholars. They were the ones in the back of the room judging, condeming and complaning about Jesus. In their heads, they couldn’t figure out how a holy and sacred God would associate with people like that—people who were clearly immoral. So the story begins with this simple picture: The religious people on one side of the room, Jesus on the other. And where are the sinners? With Jesus.
I had a friend years ago who was part of a ministry that gave free rides to drunk students on campus. During one of the rides, a student asked her: “Why would people like you (Christians) want to be around people like us?” In the same vein, I have had so many friends tell me they will never set foot in a church. “The building might burn down” some say. “Ill get struck by lighting” others say. But in the end, the message is the same - todays culture does not see the church as a safe place for sinners. We are, in effect, the opposite of who Jesus was. While Jesus attracted sinners, we scare them away.
So my first question in our quiz today is: Who does your church attract? Does it attract sinners or saints? The easiest way to find out is to ask a few followup questions. Questions like:
Who is most at home in your church? (If the religious folk are, its often at the expense of the non-religious.)
Who loves your church most? (If the religious folk love you, it’s because your church caters to them and not the lost.)
Who is most excited to attend your church? (If there is a trend of visitors coming and not staying at your church, it’s because your church only connects with saints, not sinners.)
So who does your church attract? Thats the first question.
Who Does your Church Prioritise?
Jesus attracted the sinners while the religious folk did not. So Jesus tells them a story that reveals exactly why. In the story, Jesus asks a really interesting question: Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
Jesus question is interesting because he states it as a matter of fact: “Doesn’t he”? Its as if Jesus is assuming that the normal thing to do if you lose one sheep is to leave the 99 and go find the one. But from an investment perspective, this makes no sense. If you lose one the best thing to do is count your loss. You don’t leave the 99 “in the open field” and go searching for the one because you risk losing another ten! It seems to me that the best thing to do is count your loss on the one and preseve the 99 you have left.
But Jesus does the oposite. He leaves the 99 and goes searching for the one. It’s as if Jesus is saying: The 99 are not my priority anymore. The one is.
Funny thing is, most of our churches tend to operate the other way around. We live to coddle the 99. We exist to keep them happy, pacify their desires and pamper their every whim. When the 99 complain, the leaders have to find a way to keep them happy. And the sad part is, many of the 99 want a church where they are comfortable—a church where the one doesn’t fit in.
And this is why Jesus attracted sinners while the Pharisees repelled them. Jesus did not exist to coddle the 99. He did not come to the earth to make church folk happy. He came to reach the one. He had a heart that beat for the one. He wasn’t concerned with meeting the expectations of the 99. He was concerned with reaching the one.
Who does your church prioritise? Is it the 99 or the one? Here are some build-up questions that can help you figure it out:
Which department in your church gets the most money? (If your outreach budget is tiny compared to the amount of money you spend on “in house” things, thats worth contemplating.)
How committed is your church to understanding its un-Christian neighbors? (Is your church constantly putting on programs that only feed the saints with things that have little to no missional use? Or is your church investing in resources and tranining on how to connect with its secular surroundings?)
How open is your church to changing its culture and methodology in order to more meaningfully connect with the lost that surround it? (Most churches refuse to change any of their cultural or methodological practices because thats the way they “like it”. This is a sign of a church more interested in the 99 being happy than in the one that is lost.)
What does your church celebrate?
People celebrate when they win. And the easiest way to know what your church celebrates is to find out what it considers a win. Celebration isn’t always a loud party. A celebration can be quiet and hard to identify. So don’t answer this question by trying to find the times when your church throws a party. Instead, dig for the “win”. What is your church’s win? Because when it happens, a celebration ensues wether or not its evident.
For Jesus and all of heaven, a win is the one coming home. When the one returns, Jesus celebrates. Now most churches are happy when theres a baptism - I mean, who wouldn’t be? But that doesn’t mean they are celebrating because a baptism may not be a win for them. Instead, there are churches who consider it a “win” when they disfellowship someone. Others consider it a “win” when they get rid of a particular pastor, gain control over a particular issue in the church, or when they finally scare off those pesky young people with their weird ideas.
Some churches have no win whatseover (in that they have never discussed what a win is or have no unified win) and others consider it a win to reject or resist particular theological developments (ex. churches that pride themselves in being anti-WO or anti-”new theology” etc.).
But Jesus didn’t have any of those as a win. His only win—the only thing the Bible says heaven ever has a party over—is when the one comes home.
So then, what does your church celebrate?
These three questions: Who does your church attract? Who does your church prioritise? And What does your church celebrate? constitute the “Is Your Local Adventist Church Like Jesus? Quiz”.
What are your answers? Share them below and lets chat.
You might be asking: What do we do if our church is not like Jesus?
To answer that question, I have put together an online mission and discipleship school. Tap the button below to learn more.
Debunking the Top 3 Myths About Church
There are lots of church myths floating around our churches these days, and these myths are not victimless. To the contrary, the more we believe them, the more they damage out ability to reach the world.
Let’s take a look at the top 3 and compare them to scripture:
MYTH ONE: THE CHURCH IS A SACRED BUILDING
One of my favorite verses in all of scripture is Exodus 25:8 where God says to the nation of Israel: “have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.”
God has set his people free from slavery and, as they journey through the dessert, he instructs them to build a “sanctuary”. And the reason is simple - “that I may dwell among them”.
Now this isn’t the first time this idea is seen in scripture. Way back in Genesis we see God personally designing humanity out of the dust of the ground. And as God finishes his design, the Bible says he breathes into man’s nostrils the breath of life. There is something special taking place here. There is this inanimate biological entity laying on the ground and the creator leans in and breathes. And man, the Bible says, became a living being.
The rest of creation God speaks into existence. But man? He gets personal on that one. It’s as if God is saying, “I like to be with people.”
Fast forward to Genesis 3:8-9 and man rebells against God. God’s responce is amazing,
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Do I really need to comment on how cool it is that in their moment of rebellion God seeks man out? It’s as if God is saying, “I know what you have done. But I love you and like to be with you. So please tell me where you are!” And as the narrative unfolds we are introduced to a tragic plot twist - sin now seperates us from the God who likes to be with us.
Fast forward to Exodus 25 and God calls a nation of slaves to keep his story alive on the earth and then tells them, “make me a sanctuary so that I can dwell among you.” Why? Because God likes to be with people.
Fast forward to the New Testament and speaking of Jesus an angel says, “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” (Mat. 1:23)
Why God with us? Because, God likes to be with people.
Fast forward to the death of Jesus and the curtain in the temple, representing our separation from God, is removed. “At that moment” Matthew writes, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” (Matt. 27:51) At this moment, heaven is shouting to humanity - the separation is ended! Jesus is the sacrifice that reconnects us to the father. In him we are reconnected.
Notice what Paul adds in Hebrews 10:19-22 - “Therefore… we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God…”
Why? Because God likes to be with people.
And notice how the story ends in Revelation 21:1-3
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
God likes to be with people. And all throughout scripture, he is working to close the gap, to draw near and end the separation. In the Old Testament, he closed that gap via the sanctuary which served as a symbol of God’s desire to be with people. But after the death of Jesus something amazing happens. The temple is no longer the place where God meets with man. Instead look at what Paul says to the church:
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst? - 1 Cor. 3:16
Now here is the thing. Paul is not talking about the church building! Because nowhere in the NT do you ever find any reference to the church as being a building. Instead Paul is talking about the people because in scripture the church is not a building it is people. God dwells in us, not in a building. And the beauty of church being a people is that instead of “going” to church, the New Testament teaches we “are the church”.
This means that while the temple was the place where God dwelled with people in the Old Testament, in the New Testament the people are the place where God dwells. In short, You are God’s temple - individually and collectively God dwells with humanity through us - flesh and bone.
But somehow, we have bought into this big lie that church is a building. And that big lie results in three tragic outcomes.
First, people begin to think of a church building as “sacred space” where you have to behave extra well but when they aren’t in the building they are no longer in “sacred space”. This leads to divided living where we can be one person out there and the moment we walk into the church building its like Dr Jekyl turns back into Mr Hyde. And this is not biblical at all. The church building doesnt even exist in the NT and we treat it as some super holy space where you can’t do x y z and then we leave the building and its like - “phew I’m not in Gods presence anymore so now I can gossip”. Where do we read this in scripture?
Because of this, people no longer live in the presence of God on a daily basis. Its like he is only there in the building. And so people are no longer living in the presence of God always but compartmentalise God’s presence to a man made structure.
And finally, people lose sight that they are the church. So everything God centred gets relegated to the building and its services. And today many Christians think that church is a building and don’t realise that they are the church every day and every where, God dwells with man through them—not buildings.
MYTH TWO: THE CENTRE OF CHURCH IS THE MAIN SERVICE
The sanctuary reveals that God likes to be with people. What this demonstrates is that the center of scripture a relational God who wants to be in relationship with people. And when the early church gathered under this idea, they ate together, read the word together and celebrated the last supper (communion in which we ‘commune’ with God and celebrate our ‘union’ with him).
Why? Because God likes to be with people.
Luke records:
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:46-47)
and,
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)
In the new testament there was no such thing as a church service. The central aspect of a church gathering in the NT was communion in which we celebrate the end of separation from God and the sanctuary nature of God.
Why? Because God wants to be with people.
But what is church today?
Fracis Chan captured it pretty well when he said,
Church today has become predictable… You go to a building, someone gives you a bulletin, you sit in a chair, you sing a few songs, a guy delivers maybe a polished message, maybe not, someone sings a solo, you go home… is this all God intended for us?
Let me frame it this way: Where in the NT do you find instructions on when the church should meet? Or how many songs to sing? Or whether there should be a platform party at the front or not? Or whether we should sit in rows or tables? Where in the NT do we see people stressed out with questions like: Is the program running smooth? Is the song service running too long? Have the details been organized well? Is the bulletin accurate? Did we miss an announcement? Was the special item good? Was the preacher inspiring?
Now none of that is inherently bad. There is nothing wrong with being organised, that’s biblical. The problem is we spend all our energy doing what God has never spoken about and have little time to do what he has spoken about. In fact, I have been to churches where they haven’t reached a soul for ten years (which God commanded us to do) and no one seems fussed. But you touch one detail in the program and its an all out war! It’s like “yes! we will die for what God has not spoken about while ignoring the clear commands he has given us.”
And this brings me to my final myth.
MYTH THREE: THE CHURCH’S MISSION IS THE PASTORS JOB
The sanctuary nature of God means God wants to be with people. Sin separates us from him but God initiates a plan to bring us back to himself—this is the sanctuary.
But here is the cool thing. Part of God’s plan to bring people back to himself involves a secret weapon.
Let me share this secret weapon with you. Im going to quote from Ephesians 3: 3, 5-6, and 10-11. Paul writes,
God himself revealed his mysterious plan to me… God did not reveal it to previous generations, but now by his Spirit he has revealed it to his holy apostles and prophets.
And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and… belong to Christ Jesus.
God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was his eternal plan...
Did you catch that? Through the church, God not only reaches out to the people he likes to be with but through it God reveals his heart to the entire universe.
But here is the crazy thing. Gods secret weapon is the church but the church is not a building and its not a program, the church is people. But its more than that! Notice what Paul says about these people just a chapter before:
Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil…. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. (Eph. 2:1-3)
In other words, God’s secret plan to defeat evil, dwell with humanity and glorify himself is a group of people (the church) but not just people—imperfect people—just like everyone else.
God bypassed perfect and loyal angels and instead has chosen, from history past, that his secret weapon would be messed up people who are just like everyone else. And what does he do with this group of messed up “just like everyone else” people? Peter hits the nail on the haid in 1 Peter 2:9 when he writes:
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Please tell me you caught that! God’s secret weapon is shockingly unexpected. Instead of angels or super holy people, God’s secret weapon is imperfect, unholy people—just like everyone else—whom he would transform into a kingdom of priests and then through them reveal his heart to the world and beyond.
This means you are a priest. All of you. And what is a priests job? To help bring the sinner into contact with God.
It’s about bringing the two together. And that is you and that is me, all of us priests because God has called all of us to be a part of his dwelling with humanity because God likes to be with people.
The mission of the church doesn’t belong to a pastor. It belongs to people—unholy people, just like everyone else, saved by grace and called to be priests on the earth.
Wow.
Most of us have no idea what church is in the Bible and we can see the effects all around us.
Adventist churches are dying, splitting and barely functioning.
We think its a building with a program and its own fultime CEO pastor who does it all so we can sit back and get fed. But this is not church. You don’t find that anywhere in the NT.
Instead, the Bible declares that you are the church, that the centre of church is not a program but people and that each of us imperfect, messed up people have been reclaimed by God’s grace and called to be a kingdom of priests with one mission: To point others to Jesus.
Because God likes to be with people.
How to Create a Church that Connects with Secular Culture
Assistant editor to The Atlantic, Faith Hill, published an article titled, “They Tried to Start a Church Without God. For a While, It Worked” where she traced the demise of the secular church movement which, despite starting with a bang in 2012, quickly died off.
However, Hill doesn’t simply explore the secular church movement from a historical perspective but also offers her own observations about the trend and its future. Her overall point is that in order for it to succeed, secular churches “need to do a better job of imitating religion.” In doing so, she hands the church the keys to connecting with secular culture on a silver platter. (More on this later.)
A Bit of History
For those entirely unfamiliar with the secular church movement, it was essentially an attempt to give secular people an alternative to church. As Hill described, “Members gather on Sundays, sing together, listen to speakers, and converse over coffee and donuts. Meetings are meant to be just like Church services—but without God.”
Once again, the movement started off looking super strong. Not only did they grow rapidly in their early years but, as Hill indicates, they were “heavily covered by media outlets.”
“The Hot New Atheist Church,” was one of the hit articles, published in 2013 at the Daily Beast. BBC, the Economist, Huffpost, the Insider, the Guardian, Vox, Salon and Wikipedia where among the other media outlets that reported on the phenomenon. The numerical growth was so impressive early on that “HuffPost noted that the number of [secular] assemblies had doubled in a single weekend in 2014.”
Those of us familiar with the book of Acts will see some parallels here. As the early church began to sweep into the culture of the day, Luke reports incredible numerical growth. Three-thousand in one day (Acts 2:47), another five-thousand plus overnight (Acts 4:4) and “multitudes” more (meaning large enough that Luke couldn’t be bothered guesstimating) as the apostles continued in their mission (Acts 5:14).
However, the parallels between the early church’s explosive growth and the secular church movement sort of end there.
Hill takes us on a journey to the next phase of the secular church’s growth which was marked by, well, no growth.
“[E]ven as the growth of ‘nones’ has revved up in the intervening years” she writes, “the growth of secular congregations hasn’t kept pace. After a promising start, attendance declined, and nearly half the chapters have fizzled out.”
To the contrary, the Christian church continued to spread. Despite being persecuted and scattered nothing was able to stop it. The impact was so strong, that the governing powers of the day described its leaders as “men who have turned the world upside down…” and freaked out that they had “come here too.” (Acts 17:6).
So why the distinction? Why did the secular church movement collapse? Here are three observations:
1. It Didn’t Offer Enough
Hill points out some interesting perspectives. For example, she notes that this experience proved that “[b]uilding a durable community of nonbelievers… is more complicated than just excising God.”
Later she adds that, “The yearning for belonging is not enough, in itself, to create a sense of home.” As her exploration continues, she references religious scholar Linda Woodgead (Lancaster University, Great Britain) who said, “Even more challenging than the logistical barriers are the psychological ones…. Meeting in a building with the same group of people every week … I don’t think there’s any natural need for that”.
I think Woodgead is correct. There is no natural need for “meeting in a building” repeatedly week after week with the same folks. In fact, I will point out later on that one of the reasons I think atheist churches failed is because they attempted to copy the modern church program. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
2. Fragmentation
The whole building thing aside, Woodgead does believe that community is super important but her overall point is that “you can’t just meet for the sake of community itself. You need a very powerful motivating element to keep people coming, something that attendees have in common.”
And herein lies another one of the movements major issues. Hill is clear that the secular church movement is plagued by a sense of fragmentation in which “different groups with different priorities” are gathering together and failing to find common ground outside of their dislike of God.
In some ways, it seemed the only thing the attendees had in common was what they were against and “dislike of anything” is what Alan Cooperman, director of religion research at Pew Research Center, refers to as “the least effective social glue, the dullest possible mobilizing cry, the weakest affinity principle, that one can imagine.”
3. Spectatorship
OK, back to the building thing. The most significant problem the young movement faced was logistical. In their attempts to copy the typical modern western church, secular church organizers found that they were having to put on “a big show on a regular basis.” This created a practical and financial nightmare.
Bands had to be booked. Chairs had to be set up. Food had to be organised.
“Some leaders” Hill points “told me they’re trying to make those weekly meetings so interesting, so entertaining, so powerful that people will keep showing up.”
Sounds like most of our churches doesn’t it?
It was this need to put together a logistically demanding event each weekend that Anne Klaeysen, a secular church organiser identified by Hill, refered to as “unsustainable”. Hill then quotes another organiser - Justina Walford - who pointed out that, in putting on this weekend event, “You’re competing with hundreds of other events at the same time…. Getting enough people to show up felt impossible.”
Once again, the tragedy in this entire scenario is that, in their attempt to create an alternative to the local church, secular church organisers immediately resorted to an attractional program.
What this demonstrates is that in the eye of secular culture, church is a essentially a well-oiled “program” meaning if you want to make an alternative to it, its primarily that weekend program that you are trying to recreate.
What this Means for Adventist Churches
As the article nears its close we encounter a variety of elements and pillars which are purported to exist within local church congregations that gives them a sense of meaning - and thus a greater likelihood of success - not present in secular churches.
Some of the key pillars secular church organisers have pointed our are the presence of costly sacrifice (you have to give up things in order to join the local church as opposed to secular churches which are basically communities “without costly rituals—one[s] that lets you do what you want”).
Other elements pointed out are the need for meaningful rituals, stories, transcendence, and a sense of sacredness attached to the rituals, traditions, and ideals (completely missing in secular churches).
“The irony is that to get away from religion,” says anthropologist Richard Sosis, “they may need to re-create it.”
Sanderson Jones, leader of one of the more successful secular churches named “Sunday Assembly” has also “developed a framework of five core components in any congregation: ‘community life,’ ‘transformational gatherings,’ ‘personal growth,’ ‘helping others,’ and ‘changing the world’”—structural keys that one can find in just about any modern church with business driven strategic models.
However, there is one thing that the secular church movement can’t get around. It is what Cooperman referred to as the real “overwhelming number of people who were raised religious but now have left report being pretty content.”
This sense of contentedness is not something the secular church has been able to break through and it’s also something our local Adventist churches have likewise been unable to overcome. The reason is straightforward: over time, the church has drifted from its New Testament origins as a group of devoted believers living out their faith every day, and it has turned into a mere weekly event in a building we go to for a few hours.
Is it no wonder that the Growing Young research project found that “from 2007 to 2014, mainline Protestant adults slid from 41 million to 36 million, a decline of approximately 5 million” which, the authors summarise saying, “no major Christian tradition is growing in the US today. A few denominations are managing to hold steady, but that’s as good as it gets”.*
The Solution
I don’t have all the answers, but in this article I feel that Hill gives us three keys to connecting effectively with secular culture—keys we would be wise to consider. They are:
In order to reach the culture, we have to move away from spectator events . As pointed out by Woodgead, the thing we call church is simply not natural. We don’t need it. Is it no wonder that most people who attend church would not experience any major change in significance or purpose if they suddenly stopped attending?
Sure, we might miss it because we are used to it but that’s not the same as undergoing an existential crisis. On the other hand, if the apostle Paul disconnected from church his entire life would have been affected. This is because church was not a weekend program for Paul. It was a way of being. A calling that transcended organised gatherings and redesigned his entire identity. Paul did not go to church. In fact, none of the early Christians did. Instead, they were the church and this impacted the way they interacted with society, politics, relationships and just about any other aspect of reality. When they did gather, the gatherings were simple revolving around eating, reading the word and celebrating communion. There was no logistically heavy event and no dry or formal programming.
Sadly, most of our churches today revolve around the main service which tends to be either a dry, repetetive, and formal event with no life, or a logistically heavy program that is exhausting to organise week after week. And my suggestion is that if secular people can’t put on a show for secular people that secular people will want to keep going back to then we sure aren’t going to do it. It’s time to redesign our churches away from revolving around a weekend program to fostering true and meaningful relationships and discipleship beyond the program. In short, we need to offer more and maybe the way to do that is to offer less. Less formality, less spoon-feeding and less lectures. More relationships, more time in the word, and more prayer.
In order to reach the culture, we should not shy away from “costly sacrifice”. Many modern churches, in their attempt to reach the culture, have assumed that we need to get rid of “standards”. However, what even secular people are starting to realise is that what doesn’t cost you something is not valuable. As a result, we should forgo any temptation to make following Jesus “easy”. Love will cost you something. Jesus will cost you everything. And we shouldn’t shy away from that in order to reach people. Meaning is found in sacrifice.
Now of course, I want to be clear. This is not a pass for ultra-conservative Adventists with their ridiculous and unreasonable standards to run around saying “See? We told you!”
Equally true is that many of the people who have abandoned church have done so because church was full of ridiculous rules that caused spiritual harm. The experience with former fundamentalist pastor turned atheist Joshua Harris** is evidence enough of this. So the call here is for us to return to a love-ethic, a balanced and centrist view of sacrifice that actually beautifies the world while demanding radical obedience of us.
In order to reach the culture, we must emphasise our unity in Jesus. The one thing missing in this entire article is how the main glue that kept the early church alive was the union that all believers had in the resurrected Christ.
In Jesus, Paul says, we are one. He has removed the walls of hostility and brought us together. The church is far from perfect, but there is a sense in which it is Jesus, in his broken body, who holds us together and keeps us moving despite our natural human tendency to mess things up. You can remove everything else, and this one thing will remain. Is it no wonder that Jesus said, “by this will all men know you are my disciples if you love one another.” (John 13:35)
Somehow, our unity in Jesus is an incredibly powerful key that keeps the church alive despite its human weaknesses. We need to pursue this unity more. In creating churches designed to connect with the secular world we must demonstrate to them something they cannot find anywhere else - a unity that celebrates the agape love of God and the communal nature of his being. As people see this supernatural union and love exhibited among us, they will be drawn to the Jesus that it all points to.
So those are my thoughts for now! Of course, there is so much more to say about this but I’d love to know your thoughts. What other steps can we take to create churches that connect meaningfuly with secular seekers?
_____
Original article cited in this blog: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/secular-churches-rethink-their-sales-pitch/594109
* Growing Young pages 5 and 7
**On Joshua Harris: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/29/author-christian-relationship-guide-joshua-harris-says-marriage-over
How to Stop the Never-Ending Youth Exodus
Happy monday story-tellers!
This week, I want to focus on my fellow millennials.
Yes, I am one of them. But the sad truth is, so many of us who grew up in church are no longer in it! And just in case you are tempted to think I’m just peddleing the timeless youth exodus myth, allow me to share some stats from the experts:
*
Now here is what makes this youth exodus thing so exhausting - everyone thinks they know why they leave and how to stop it. And of course, everyone has a different opinion. Navigating through all that can be pretty annoying for those who are looking for a solid foundation.
However, there is one resource that I feel outshines every other and can offer the most balanced and wholistic perspective to this issue. Its the book “Growing Young: Six Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church” by Brad Griffin, Jake Mulder, and Kara E. Powell.
What makes this book cool is that rather than asking why young people leave, the researchers went on a journey to understand what makes them stay and the results of all their digging are these six essential keys that have proven time and time again to keep young people engaged in the kingdom of God.
In this weeks podcast, I share a recent sermon where I explore these six essential keys with one of my local churches. Give it a listen below and make sure you get yourself a copy of Growing Young from Amazon or wherever you bookshop!
Metamodernism & It's Impending Challenge
Postmodernism is dead…
- David Guterson, Novelist
To start off with, I want to focus on the death of postmodernity and the emerging metamodern oscillation that is already in full swing all around us.
If you want to read about this in more detail, make sure you get the ebook “How to Study the Bible with Postmoderns” here.
Now here is why I think its so important to talk about the Metamodern arrival.
Adventists started talking about and responding to the postmodern challenge when postmodernism was already on its death bed. Since the 70's, a new perspective has been arising to take postmodernisms place: metamodernism.
My hope is that Adventists invest in understanding this emerging vision of reality and find ways to reach this culture today, not 70 years from now when its old news.
Listen to the podcast episode below!
Is Your Adventism Beautiful?
Is your Adventism beautiful?
Or is it ugly?
Does it attract the seeking heart to God?
Or does it repell it?
Hang with me here.
In Isaiah 61:10 the Bible says,
I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Notice the imagery here. The text is saying that God adorns us like a bride adorns herself in jewels. Picture that for a moment. A bride getting herself ready for her wedding. She is careful to comb and braid her hair just right. Her skin is brushed to perfection. She hangs a necklace around her neck and earrings that match. The jewels themselves can’t be just any old jewel. They have to be just right—not so strong that they steal the show and not so weak that they look out of place. They have to compliment her eyes, her dress—even the shape of her jaw and the length of her neck. It’s a work of art intended to enhance her beauty and draw attention to her joy.
The Bible says that this is what God does for us. He adorns us. He clothes us in his promise of salvation, in a robe of his perfect life and love. The picture Isaiah is painting is clear. God isn’t interested in dragging us into a religion full of rules and weird standards. The exact opposite is happening. God courts us romantically and then, the day we embrace him, he adorns us in all the beauty heaven has to offer.
And God adorns us in this for one reason: He wants us to be beautiful.
But it’s deeper than this. In Psalm 90:17 David wrote,
“Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us…”
In other words, its not simply that God adorns us with his grace and forgiveness. According to David he adorns us with himself. He is like a jewel that enhances our beauty and draws everyone’s attention to his heart.
And yet, it gets even deeper! God is not simply an adornment upon you and me that others see when they interact with us. Instead, the Bible paints an even crazier picture. Notice what Isaiah says in chapter 62 verse 3.
“You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.”
Did you catch that? Not only does God adorn us with himself, Isaiah goes so far as to say that he adorns himself with us!
Imagine God placing a crown on his head, or a royal ring upon his finger. That crown and that ring represent you and me. It’s not that God needs us to make himself more beautiful because he is the height of beauty. However, in some weird way I don’t fully understand God still describes his people as jewels he wears upon himself. I would suggest that because the great controversy is a battle over the character of God—Is he good or not?—then the biblical picture of God wearing his people as jewelry has theodical significance. In other words, when we live beautiful lives we beautify God in the eyes of people who think he is ugly. Our lives are the jewels that catch their attention and enable them to see the true beauty of his heart.
Zechariah also captured a similar picture when he wrote,
“The LORD their God will save his people on that day as a shepherd saves his flock. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.” (Zech. 9:16)
And speaking through the prophet Haggai, God said to Zerubabbel,
“I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you…” (Haggai 2:23)
So let me ask again. Is your Adventism beautiful?
Is your faith like a jewel that God would want to wear?
Because here’s the pain truth: Countless people have turned away from God because supposed believers live lives that make God look ugly. Judgmental, arrogant, disconnected, sectarian, holier-than-thou, argumentative, critical, fault-finding, condemnatory, negative, obsessed with rules, traditions and mindless customs, tossed around by conspiracy theories and full of hatred toward those different from themselves. That’s the sort of stuff that makes God look ugly.
So my question today is, is your Adventism beautiful? Is your life beautiful? Are you adorned with the character of Jesus? Are you kind, fun to be around, and encouraging? And on the flip-side, if you were a jewel would he put you on? Would your life be filled with care for the poor, the vulnerable and the lonely? Is it the kind of life that would make others say—“wow, God really is beautiful.”
The answer to these simple questions is the difference between a life of missional effectiveness and failure. And the point here isn’t to stress you out with the pressure of “being beautiful enough for God to wear me” because the truth is, the beauty God is looking for isn’t all that complicated. Its simple. Its relationship. Its caring for others, defending the weak, advocating for the oppressed, and loving your neighbor.
So today I want to invite you—stop and think if you are adorned in the beauty of God and if, in turn, God would adorn himself with the beauty of you. Because the world doesn’t need more religious people with the right answers. It needs believers adorned with the beauty of God’s heart.
How to Keep Your Fire When Your Church is Frozen
I talk to people all the time who are seriously fed up with the state of their local church. They preach, teach, admonish, rebuke and inspire the members (or try) with zero results. It seems, no matter how hard they work, the church simply will not change, evolve or revive. And if they manage to take a few steps forward, its only a matter of time before the church slides back into its old habits. Transforming our church culture feels like dragging a giant boulder up a soggy, muddy cliff.
Cynicism sets in. They keep attending church but have lost faith in the people. From time to time they run into someone who feels like them but for the most part they feel alone.
Over time, these people lose the capacity to say anything positive about the church. Everything is bad. Everything sucks. There is nothing redemptive. Their fire isn’t necessarily going out but its burning for the wrong reasons. What was once a flame ignited for mission and love, is now a raging inferno that burns with anger and disenchantment. If they have anything positive to say, its minimal compared to the long list of church-fails they have compiled.
I know these people because I meet them all the time. I also know them because from time to time, I am one of them.
I’m human. And despite my faith in God I must admit, sometimes I lose hope in the vision of a vibrant, meaningful and world-transforming local church within Adventism. I hear stories of toxic church after toxic church, pastors uninterested in making a difference, church members vehemently opposed to anything remotely different and fear-mongering ministries derailing missional churches into pointless debates over nonsense that I wonder - are we simply too far gone to turn around? Its not simply our structure that needs to change after all - its our culture! Structure is easy. Culture is a whole other monster. Changing our culture from fundamentalist argumentation to relational servanthood could take another two generations at the least! What are we to do in the meantime?
Some people I talk to just give up. The SDA institution is simply incapable of generating missional churches designed for interacting with and reaching post-modern societies, they say. So they walk away from the church altogether. Others stick around, but they are not happy - sowing seeds of discontent wherever they go. And fewer still keep pushing against the grain, pacing themselves so they don’t get exhausted, but patiently waiting on Gods timing to do what they know can only be done by his Spirit.
Its a tough scenario, I know. But in the midst of this I have found that they key to keeping your fire when your local church is frozen is to recognise that the current state of the church is no surprise in the narrative of redemption. In fact, God revealed that our day would be marked by churches that think they are all that - but are “miserable, poor, blind and naked.”
“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 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. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. (Revelation 3:14-18)
So what do these verses say that can help us keep our fire despite the Laodecian state of the church? Here are five key points that I have found.
They show us that the current state of many local churches as a program-centred, relationally lacking, culturally disconnected, tradition obsessed, mission-less clubs was foreseen by God over two millennia ago. In other words, our current experience is meant to be this way. It’s been prophesied. So before you get all bent out of shape and walk out, keep in mind - this is the way its currently prophesied to be. God is not in heaven surprised by our coldness so we shouldn’t act surprised either.
They show us that our current disgust with the state of the church is shared by God. He goes so far as to say that the Laodecian vibe makes him want to puke. So if church ever makes you want to puke (or like, leave, run, hide, hit the snooze button) then you are not alone. In fact, its the people who are comfortable with the church’s condition that should be worried. But if you are uncomfortable with it you’re probably feeling a tiny bit of how God feels. So you’re in good company.
They show us that we are not the solution, but part of the problem. God’s solution to the Laodecian church is not, “I counsel you to listen to pastor Marcos, subscribe to his podcast and download his eBook.” And his counsel is not, “pay attention to all those people sick of the way you do things and let them redesign your church.” And for good reason! You and I are not the solution. This means despite all our good intentions, we remain part of the problem. So before you run off thinking you are better off without this messed up church, stop and remember - you’re pretty messed up too. Let that humble you and balance you in your journey.
This is a big one for me because my main focus is speaking truth to Adventist tradition with the goal of a redesigned Adventist local church. But I have to remember that the solution remains Jesus - not church strategies, methodologies or structures. Realising I am part of the problem also helps me to avoid cynicism and enables me to look at our broken church with enthusiasm, noticing the good things that are happening and not just the bad. Among those good things is a generation of passionate young people rising up as well as a generation of older leaders empowering and inspiring those young ones. I want to recognise and celebrate this as often as I can.
They show us that Jesus is the only answer. He is the only one who can give us that gold, white garment, and eye salve that we need to be reborn in his image. And the result is spiritual wealth, health and vision. Now imagine a church filled with spiritually wealthy, healthy and visioning Christians! That would be awesome. But the answer is not the next trendy church growth book. It’s Jesus.
They show us that Laodecia is not the end. After the church of Laodecia, the very next thing we find in terms of a church is the remnant of Revelation 12. That remnant are a group of people passionate about Jesus and living for him alone. In a world locked in an apocalyptic struggle over empire, there emerges a community of simple people who are all about Jesus and they stand alone against the darkness. Laodecia is not the end. Its just a chapter in the story. We are in that chapter today. But don’t be discouraged by it. Instead, look to Jesus and remember, he has a final remnant of people who are so in love with him they don’t have time for anything other than lifting him up for the world to see. And this is what our focus should be “in the meantime”.
If you are frustrated with church I want you to know, I get it. I sometimes get super jaded as well. But the solution is Jesus and I take comfort in knowing that he has a remnant in the end. So long as I lift him up in Laodecia, he will use those efforts to gather his true lovers into a final community that will walk through the injustice of beasts and liars reflecting the beauty of God’s heart of love in the midst of a generation that has lost the capacity to love. So focus on Jesus. Lift up Jesus. Be comforted in Jesus. And keep the vision of an “Adventism. Redesigned.” alive in him.
Top 3 Reasons Why Some Adventist Churches Thrive
Some years ago I spoke with a pastor about secular outreach, missional culture and the challenges faced by Western Adventism. At one point in our conversation, the pastor dropped a massive bomb. “There are close to 60 SDA churches in the region I work,” he said. “Only two of them are healthy.”
I was bummed out by the news, but not surprised. In my experience, many local SDA churches are struggling to stay alive. The membership is aging, the mission is nonexistent, and the youth are leaving. Adventist Record editor Jarrod Stackelroth described tackling this crisis as dealing with “the very survival of the Adventist Church.”[1]
But the good news is, within this discouraging environment, there are some churches that thrive. Why do they thrive? What is their secret? We’ll get to that in a moment. But first, we need to wrestle with why these struggles are so normative accross our churches. Here are my top 3 observations.
We have convinced too many people.
Suppose you write a book. The purpose of the book is to convince everyone that New York Pizza is the best pizza in the world. You do this in a very simple format. You state your case in the introduction and then, for the next 12 chapters, you argue one point after another. Chapter 1, the cheese is richer. Chapter 2, the base is thinner. Chapter 3, the sauce is more authentic. And so on and so forth.
By the time you get to the end of the book, you have argued 12 reasons why New York Pizza is the best pizza in the world. Along the way, you have demonstrated how Boston and Chicago just don’t compare and, of course, how Atlanta and Los Angeles never stood a chance. Your book is published and becomes a huge hit. After a year, a massive convention gathers in Manhattan to celebrate your best seller. Thousands of people who agree with you attend to celebrate with you. You now have a “New York Pizza-Only” cult following that sweeps across the globe. Congratulations.
The above scenario is pretty much how Adventist evangelism has historically worked. Adventists have approached the great commission as a great debate in which we argue for our theological brand. “Here is why Adventism is the best denomination in the world!” we cry. Chapter 1 - We go to church on the right day. Chapter 2 - We alone can explain what really happens when you die. Chapter 3 - We have got end time events figured out way better than everyone else.
When we win people with these kinds of arguments, we fill our churches with those who are convinced by our arguments. And they join our movement because they think we are right and everyone else is wrong. They are not necessarily converted (will come back to this) but boy, are they convinced we’ve got the truth. And what do you get when you have reached people by arguing them into the church? You get a church culture more interested in arguing than in serving.
I’m not impressed by gigantic post-evangelistic baptism numbers. What I’m interested in is, how many of them were won with love and to love? Because so long as we keep winning people with arguments we will win them to arguing. And this, I believe, is one of the main reasons why so many of our local churches are struggling.
2. We have freaked out too many people.
Let’s use our imagination again. Suppose you decide to start a business selling insurance but no one sees the need. Eventually, you discover a marketing trick that works like a charm and with it you are able to scale your business and put food on your table. The trick? Sell to peoples fears. If you market how good your product is, no one cares. But if you market how urgent it is “or else”… well now you have the phone ringing off the hook.
In his article “Why Fear Sells: The Business of Panic & Paranoia,” Martin Lindstrom stated clearly that “fear is a powerful persuader…. [w]hich is why the marketing world uses scare tactics to sell us everything from antidepressants to condoms...”[2] Using this handy information you switch up your marketing campaigns and sell to your prospects fear of death, disease, and financial ruin. And caching! You are rich.
But what does this have to do with why so many local Adventist churches struggle? Because this method of selling to fear is precisely what many ministries use in order to get you to buy their products. Add to this the difficulty of a small Adventist market and a ton of competing ministries, and you end up with new start ups having to develop unique selling points. One ministry exists to warn you about the dangers of x, the other to warn you about the dangers of y, and if that’s not enough a new guy is on the scene raising the midnight cry on how if you don’t understand z you and your children’s souls will be imperilled.
Adrian Zahid captured this issue well when he wrote:
Because they are often competing with other independent ministries for the same number of churches who are open to such speakers, they have to differentiate and establish their “unique selling point” against that of another independent minister. It is a zero-sum game. Either they are invited to churches and they quickly establish urgency in the minds of the members regarding their topic and sell materials at the end of the weekend series or they and their family will starve. Enormous pressure, is therefore put on the independent minister, to present information in such a way as to create a thirst in the mind of the member that can only be quenched by buying the materials on sale after the series is ended. The member then adds the materials to their ‘threat-matrix’ system so that they can see this latest ‘spiritual danger’ coming at them a mile away. Often the member does not have the time to really study the materials in any organised fashion or depth because the next weekend another speaker is ready to present yet another ‘testing Truth’ or ‘threat’ that they have to be vigilant about. And the cycle repeats itself.[3]
This process, Zahid argues, has a “tremendous effect on the local church” in which (among other issues) “every person views the other as a potential spiritual threat to their salvation”. Such a culture quickly degenerates into toxicity. Add to this the already existing foundation of argumentation and you end up with a nucleus of people too freaked out about existing to have any meaningful impact in the world. The church quickly becomes a fortress rather than a hospital.
3. We have short-sold too many people.
I want to go back to point one here. When we win people by convincing them with arguments we can publish fancy reports about how many baptisms we got, but in the long run, it all backfires The truth is, belonging to the church is a passage that takes place on the heels of conversion. When a person receives Christ and is born again, the Bible says they pass from death unto life, from the headship of the first Adam to the second Adam, from humanity 1.0 to humanity 2.0, from the kingdom of men to the Kingdom of heaven. This conversion experience transcends a shift in worldview. It involves being born a new from above and this is a miraculous, divinely initiated metamorphosis.
But this rebirth doesn’t happen like a physical birth. In a physical birth a person is conceived and then born into the world. But for a rebirth to take place a person must experience death. Death to self.
In other words, we must die before we can be reborn. And this death experience is imperative in the Christian life. It is death my way of being and my way of walking in the world. Death to the old way of power, control, and pride. Death to my nasty temperment, my judgmental moods, and my desire to dominate. But its this death that is, in itself, the portal of rebirth into an entirely new experience as a child of God. And you cannot accomplish this by convincing people that we are right. And while this is certainly the least popular thing I will ever say, I maintain that the reason most of our churches are struggling year after year is because they are filled with people convinced by the truth but not converted by it.
To put it differently, most of our churches are not filled with men and women who have died and been reborn into newness of life. Instead, they are filled with men and women who have re-branded their worldview via Adventists theology. Mixed with the argumentative spirit of our historic evangelistic style and a constant bombardment of fear based sales pitches and you end up with a culture that is unhealthy and unable to have a meaningful impact in the world.
Now, as widespread as the issues above are, there are certainly local Adventist churches that buck these trends and are able to thrive in beautiful and relevant ways. Here are the 3 reasons I have observed for this:
Thriving churches focus on Jesus because he is the source of true rebirth. These churches preach Jesus not as a nice idea, but as a living person who is calling us to death and new life.
Thriving SDA churches are filled with believers who have experienced Jesus and are in absolute awe of who he is. They have died to the ways of empire, the ways of coercion and control. They have laid their wounds, insecurities, and fears on Jesus. And while far from perfect, their gaze is consistently fixed on Jesus. There is no argumentative spirit, but the beauty of compassion and kindness. Christ lives in and through them.
Thriving churches focus on emotional health and protect the flock from fear based religion. This is not a difficult thing to do when Jesus is the main focus of your culture. But I have noticed that healthy churches have leaders who simply do not play games with toxic religion. Like faithful shepherds, they constantly point to Jesus and are not afraid to take on the wolves of legalism, dogmatism, or fear-driven theology.
Thriving churches focus on the good. Years ago, I interviewed pastor Robert Stankovic about restoring churches high-jacked by fanaticism. He said something so wise I never forgot it. “Focus on the good and eventually the bad will discover it doesn’t fit in anymore.” I think that’s an awesome bit of practical advice. Thriving churches follow this principle intentionally. Focusing on good things like service, mission, intergenerational community, youth empowerment, creativity, diversity, and, of course, the centrality of Christ seems to have a double effect. It builds up the people and it scares off the toxic folk who like to cause problems. Win-win.
The above picture is Christ-centred, emotionally healthy, and focused on good works in the world. This doesn't mean thriving churches ignore the tough stuff like repentance, rebirth, accountability, or prophecy. What it means is that thriving churches filter everything through Jesus and to Jesus for the glory of God and the betterment of humanity.
For them, repentance, rebirth, and accountability are not mere religious exercises, but keys to cultivating safe communities for the vulnerable and thriving families that exemplify love.
For them, prophecy is not a window to conspiracy theories and cynical apocalypticism, but fuel for social justice, humanitarian action, and resistance of cruel pictures of God. This prophetic focus nurtures communities that work to heal the wounds of injustice and protest the parasitic postures of empire and religion.
The end result may not necessarily be a church with 900 members, but it is a church that is full of life, vibrancy, and authentic community. A place where believers and seekers find belonging and restoration. What more could anyone ask for?
So there you have it, 3 keys to a thriving Adventist church.
Do you have any thoughts to add? Feel free to comment below!
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[1] https://record.adventistchurch.com/2018/06/08/growing-young-how-to-save-our-church/
[2] https://brainworldmagazine.com/fear-sells-business-panic-paranoia/2/
[3] https://thecompassmagazine.com/blog/beyond-the-one-project-the-war-over-the-local-church-5b
5 Things I Love About Adventism
One thing I do often (and by often I mean very often) is challenge the Seventh-day Adventist church - particularly in the West - to… well, to do better.
Whether I am calling our local church structures to be redesigned for mission, provoking our cultural quirks and questioning their utility, or disputing unhealthy theological frameworks that exist among us the message is fundamentally the same: we have to be better.
But this week, I decided I would pause the revolutionary broadcast to share 5 things I love about Adventism. So here goes:
I love our theological trajectory. I could go on and on about this, but in short Adventism is a theological narrative that is not about Adventism and I love that. Instead, Adventism is a story about God, his heart and his love, centred and strung together in Jesus. But the best part about it is that our theological narrative is not set in stone but constantly unfolding and developing. Yes, there are those among us who would prefer a more stringent, creedal kind of Adventism but its just not in our DNA. As a result, we remain committed to scripture rather than a statement of beliefs. And that commitment, I believe, has enabled us to develop an understanding of the love of God no other theological system around can match. No, that’s not a very politically correct thing to say. But hey, I wouldn’t be an Adventist if I didn’t believe there was something eccentric about what we have to say.
I love that we are Historicists. Historicism has been challenged for forever by people outside and inside of our church. Today, there is a whole new gang of voices repeating the century old attacks (with some new developments I must concur). And that’s fine, I mean, everyone is entitled to their own thing right? But for Adventism, Historicism is an apocalyptic interpretive method that has transcendent efficacy. Now, I don’t pretend that it’s a perfect method, that we have it all figured out, or that it can’t be misused (because it can and is). But Historicism provides us with a kind of sociological significance unmatched by alternative methods. For example, Historicism gives us a narrative that manifests the injustice of religio-political empire in a way that is not immediately self evident. This gives us a foundation to diverge from the collective pursuit of utopianism and the ever trending move toward social reform via church-state legislation. Instead, Historicism calls us to a kind of theological and ideological remonstrance on the one hand, and social preparation (as opposed to reformation) on the other. This approach is rooted in our view of human empire, which even when united with God’s kingdom ultimately self destructs as Daniel and Revelation so aptly reveal. It is also rooted in the denial of a coming golden age for humanity. Instead, Adventists see a coming catastrophe that cannot be averted by political manoeuvres. Our mission is therefore, to prepare the world for this climactic zero-hour in which the only righteous Kingdom will abdicate the throne of humanities global res publica. Sadly, other common interpretive methods of Daniel and Revelation point in the opposite direction by envisioning a coming era of righteous human dominion which in turn leads to political power grabbing in the name of righteousness. This, Adventists believe, is the precursor to a manifestation of religious intolerance and injustice of apocalyptic proportions.
In addition, Historicism is the only prophetic interpretive method that unveils God in action throughout the entirety of human time. Even during the Dark Ages where it appears God took a vacation (as Morgan Freeman put it in the movie “Bruce Almighty”), Adventisms apocalyptic consciousness helps us understand his presence and movement even in the darkest pages of the church’s sordid story, including the chapters yet to unfold. It’s also cool that we are the only Historicist denomination left. Some people see that as a sign that we are the only idiots left in Christendom. I see it as a sign that we are the only anti-conformists left. Of course, at the end of the day my love for Historicism is rooted in the text and not in whether I think its neat or not, but explaining that will take more space than I allotted for this short post, so I’ll move on.
I love our global structure. Despite all the challenges created by having an intercontinental and cross-cultural institution I honestly can’t think of anything better. Now some of my more post-modern, anti-institutionalist friends find this appalling. They wonder how someone as forward thinking as me can be so fond of our global structure. After all, all those super cool non-denom churches are as neat as they are because they keep all the tithe in house. Why can’t we do the same? My answer revolves around the pragmatic idea that while cynical anti-institutionalism has some value it falls flat when it comes to the practical needs of a global mission. The fact is, Adventism has a message that must go to the entire world. If you believe that, then you need an institution to facilitate that mission. Those who reject the institution are often only interested in reaching their immediate, local region. But Adventism doesn’t have a regional message, it has a global one - for every person on earth. So the bottom line is, we need a global structure. Now of course, I applaud the voices that say the institution needs reform. It definitely does! But that doesn’t mean we should abandon it. The fact remains that if we have a global message, we need a global presence and the level of organisation needed for that sort of thing demands an institution. And because I accept the premise that we have a global message, then I embrace our global structure as a needed tool to that end.
I love our health message. Yeah, there’s always the annoying people who are like super gung-ho and fanatical and no one likes them. I get that. Even non-Christian vegan hippies have their weirdos who will chop your head off for daring to eat your sweet potato quinoa salad in a plastic container (HOW DARE YOU??). But despite this wacko-reality, the health message is one of the coolest things about Adventism. It’s rooted in the idea that human beings are holistic creatures whose spiritual, emotional and physical nature is intertwined like the rhythm, melody and harmony of a musical composition. When they flow well together, something beautiful happens both at the individual and collective level. Even other denominations have started to pick up on the value of a holistic approach to the human as opposed to the dualist approach that has governed classical theology and given birth not only to generations of Christians with little care for physical well being, but also to doctrines like eternal torment that have driven scepticism to the heights of influence it enjoys today.
I love our potentiality. Because of Adventisms theological trajectory, its apocalyptic consciousness, global structure and holistic view of man I believe its future potential is beyond anything we have yet imagined. While our beliefs exist outside our church, they do so sporadically - here, there and everywhere. But in Adventism, each of these elements coalesce to form a movement and a story unheard of in the world. And the moment that we lock into that, get excited about it and refuse to allow tradition, fundamentalism and narcissism to get in the way of it that is the moment that we will sweep the world with something grand. Our potential is overwhelmingly exciting and I pray and hope for the day it is unveiled for the world to see.
What are some things you love about Adventism? Share your thoughts below!
3 Steps Toward a New Adventism
I love Adventism.
I love our theological narrative complete with our passion for Daniel and Revelation. I love the health message. I love the writings of Ellen White. I love the history of our church and its legacy. I love our sanctuary hermeneutic, our global structure, and haystacks. And most of all, I love the way authentic Adventism lifts Jesus up. There’s just nothing like it.
Because I love Adventism I have a passion to see it thrive, not for its own sake, but for the sake of those searching for a liberating and healing picture of God. Our church exists to communicate this picture to the world.
Which is why its so sad when I attend an Adventist church that is youth-less, lifeless, stuck in a bygone era, and filled with its own brand of toxic theological messaging. But the thing that hurts the most is that this kind of church is not rare. In fact, it's the most common type of local church I have experienced in the various places I have lived throughout my life.
And I’m not the only one whose noticed. Research shows us that “our churches are growing older,” and “[m]any young people are leaving the Church once they reach independence.”[1] The primary reasons why people leave our church continue to be “hypocrisy, conflict and lack of friends (especially while going through life trauma such as marital problems")”[2] A 2013 retention summit “revealed the denomination has lost one in three members over the last 50 years. Additionally, for every 100 people the Adventist church gains, it loses 43 previous members…”[3] with one of the main contributions from the church being, “not helping people through their tough life experiences.”[4]
As a pastor who dialogues with other pastors and mission minded members, the conversations always revolve around three main points. First, why do our churches struggle so much? Second, why do 80% of the members do nothing while the same 20% do everything? And third, "how can we keep our youth and reach the culture, when our churches are in such a bad state?”
No one really has the answers to these questions, but we must continue to agitate the conversation because the truth is, the story of God that we tell is desperately needed by the culture. We cannot rest while our churches continue the same unhealthy behaviours year after year. We must raise our voices and inspire the birth of a new Adventism. Here are three steps I believe can get us started.
1. Rediscover the centrality of Jesus.
The message of Adventism isn’t about Adventism. At least, its not supposed to be. Sadly, over the decades thats what it has become. But if we look at our movement throughout history, our message has never been about us. It's always been about Jesus.
As heirs of the radical reformation in the Arminian and Wesleyan traditions, our heartbeat has always been a true revelation of God’s character of love. When that focus gets replaced with a revelation of “us” our movement loses the very reason for its existence. And in my experience, every struggling church I have ever been to is a church that has lost sight of Jesus as the center of our message. Instead, they have gotten caught up in talking about themselves, their uniqueness, and their identity. But the world doesn’t need Adventism. It needs Jesus.
Of course, this doesn’t mean Adventism is a pointless phenomenon. I believe with all my heart God has raised up this movement at this moment of earths history for a very specific task. I have written about this extensively in my books. But here is my point: our task isn’t an addition to the message of Jesus. To the contrary, in the midst of a Christendom dominated by coercive pictures of God, theological constructs that are abusive, and theocratic nationalistic tendencies that fuel social injustuce, God has raised up a people passionate about his heart and his Kingdom of love. That makes our message very important, but only to the degree it keeps its focus on Jesus. Without him, we are just another religious group with nothing truly useful to offer our hurting world.
2. Reorient the focus of the church.
Imagine a race track where the cars stay in maintenance bays with mechanics constantly oiling the engine and warming the seats, but never actually racing. As bizarre as that scenario might be, thats what lots of our churches do. We are maintenance minded instead of mission minded. This means that most of our energy goes toward keeping the church engine (programs and departments) oiled instead of getting out there and serving the city for Christ. In order to change our trend and bring about a new Adventism, the focus of the church has to change from “keep the engine running” to “hit the race track.”
What this looks like at a practical level is beyond the scope of this simple blog. But if you are interested in tangible missional steps, join my online training school, The Mission Collective, here.
3. Redesign relationships.
When it comes to the research, the one thing Adventists consistently score lowest in is “loving relationships”.[5] In short, we lack authentic connection with one another. This is a symptom of Christless religion. And its also a symptom of Western hyper-individualism and consumer culture. Only the Holy Spirit can truly restore us to his original design as a church. But there are some practical things we can do to co-create with him.
The most important: start focusing on relationships. The way to foster relationships in your church is to create spaces where people can build memories together. A church mission trip. A church camp. A church service project in the community. Church picnics, fundraisers, and holistic small groups—all of these activities are out of the ordinary and help foster memories that in turn raise the level of intimacy among your members. If this is combined with a focus on Jesus and a focus on serving the lost, the results will be beautiful.
Perhaps few have captured our current state and future potential as well as Danny Bell in his article, “North American Adventist Church Growth: The Untold Story”, when he wrote:
“The reality is that the Church in western society has become insular, self-centred, and unconcerned about a suffering, dying world. We prefer to stand at church doors and call out to the public rather than go out and get involved in the dirty business of befriending the scum of the earth. The fortress mentality is alive and well in our churches and until we realise that it’s not all about “going home to heaven” and “wishing Jesus would come,” the sooner we can properly engage in the Master’s business.[6]”
The challenges we face as a global church are big, especially in the Western context. But the solutions are not as complex as many imagine. The centrality of Jesus in our message, missional-priority in our structure, and relational intentionality in our culture are simple things, but with them we can get the journey toward a new Adventism started.
And honestly, if you think about it, this new Adventism really isn’t new. Its a return to the way it was always meant to be.
[1] https://record.adventistchurch.com/2018/06/08/growing-young-how-to-save-our-church/
[2] https://www.adventistarchives.org/why-did-they-leave.pdf
[3] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2013/december/seventh-day-adventists-assess-why-1-in-3-members-leave-sda.html
[4] https://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2013-11-19/at-first-retention-summit-leaders-look-at-reality-of-church-exodus/
[5] This statement is in reference to the Natural Church Development Survey
[6] http://atoday.org/north-american-adventist-church-growth-the-untold-story/
Why Truth is Bigger than Doctrine
Years ago, I had a run in with a church member who was very passionate about sharing “the truth.” For him, the biggest and most important task of the church was to “get truth out there.” Forget all this relationship stuff—we don’t have time for that. We have to share the truth!
I corrected him by sharing the following thought: If truth is only information, you're right. Forget about relationship. If truth is just data, the most important thing is to share that data with others, right? But what if truth isn't just information or data? What if truth is a person? If truth is a person, then for people to understand it, they need to get to know this person. And how do you get to know a person? Only through relationship.
Of course, I didn’t make this up. I was working off of Jesus’ own definition of truth when he said, “I am the truth”. (John 14:6) According to him, truth is not a series of doctrinal ideas that we disseminate. Truth is a person. And a person can only be known through relationship.
And that’s good news because the world doesn’t need more information on the Sabbath, end-time events, or the sanctuary. What the world needs is a personal encounter with the Jesus that Sabbath, prophecy, and sanctuary point to. Without him, these doctrines might have factual value but they are not truth in the fullest sense. Truth—the kind that melts the heart, rebirths the soul, and heals the world—is found only in Jesus.
This means three things.
Love is evangelism: Jesus said, "By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35) This means authentic love is the strongest demonstration of truth, not arguments. Of course, I am not saying good theology is pointless. I am, after all, a huge theology nerd. What I am saying is that love authenticates our message. Through it, not our doctrines, the world comes to know that we are his disciples.
Connection is truth: Truth is not just a set of ideas; it's Jesus. Everything we say and teach must point to him. If it doesn’t, all we are doing is pumping religious information into the world. And the world has plenty of religious data as it is. It doesn’t need more. What it needs is Jesus. And Jesus said it best when he stated, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me…” (John 5:39)
Relationship is discipleship: In a post-truth world, truth is most effectively conveyed through the beauty of relationships and shared lives. The culture is fed up with religious know it all’s who want to push their doctrines onto everyone else. What people need is someone to sit with them and build authentic relationships.
Ellen White put it this way:
“You will meet with those who will say, ‘You are too much excited over the matter. You are too much in earnest. You should not be reaching for the righteousness of Christ, and making so much of that. You should preach the law.’
As a people we have preached the law until we are as dry as the hills of Gilboa, that had neither dew nor rain. We must preach Christ in the law, and there will be sap and nourishment in the preaching that will be as food to the famishing flock of God. We must not trust in our own merits at all, but in the merits of Jesus of Nazareth.”-The Review and Herald, March 11, 1890.
The bottom line: truth is bigger than doctrine, bigger than 28 fundamental beliefs, and bigger than our systematic theologies. Truth is more than data, more than information, more than propositional ideas. God did not send a dissertation to humanity, a philosopher, or a scholar. He sent his “only begotten son”. (John 3:16) He became “flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)
And this truth is the only truth that can redeem the world.