A week
ago Sunday, and again this past Saturday,
I posted about the church, what has been on my mind and heart for some time. I
haven’t been completely specific about my concerns, and for a reason: I’m still
thinking things through.
Marcus
Goodyear posted first with The Uncertain
Future of Traditional Faith Communities. But what he did was to prompt me to
consider anew what I had pushed down and away.
David
Platt is helping me, too.
At
The High Calling, we’re starting
a discussion today about Platt’s book Follow
Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live. And I will say this: three chapters
in, I can tell you it’s not for the fainthearted, or easily outraged, or easily
aggravated.
Platt
is doing something radical here, and yes, that’s a play on the title of his
earlier book, Radical.
He’s challenging every notion, every understanding we American Christians have
of what it means to be a Christian.
Such
as: The notion that all you have to do is accept Jesus in your heart and you
will be saved.
Platt
says no, that’s not how one becomes a Christian.
And
such as: What kind of lives do we really live in America – Christian or
comfortable middle- and upper-middle class lives? Do we even know the
difference?
Platt
points to the original disciples and asks, why would we think that becoming a
Christian means anything less for us?
He’s
advancing his thesis from Radical –
what passes for much of Christianity in America today is something more
cultural and less spiritual. But this time, he’s taking a jackhammer to the
bedrock.
It’s
all rather unnerving. My first reaction is to argue, disagree, nitpick, and
quibble with alternative explanations. But I stop, and I read on. My heart is
telling me he’s on to something, possibly something big, possibly something
right. So I read and be quiet (for now).
If
I am troubled by the state of the church, so is Platt. And I think it’s for the
same reasons. He’s just articulating them better.
From
early on, I had serious questions about what we call today the “mega-church.” I
attended one long before it was called that. It was a denominational church,
some 12,000 members strong. The word was preached from the pulpit every Sunday.
But
the life within the church was troubled. A sense of drifting pervaded. We
joined a young adults class that had 12 people – 12 in a church of more than
12,000. The class wasn’t interested in studying the Bible.
In
the 1980s ands 1990s, in the zeal for outreach and numerical growth, the
mega-church, or many of them, zoomed right past a basic responsibility of the
church – to make and grow disciples. Bible study was out; trendy books were in.
For a time I thought The Prayer of Jabez
had become the fifth gospel.
Eventually,
even Willow Creek did some serious soul-searching and publicly admitted that it
had fallen short on discipleship. But its influence had been such that a lot of
damage had been done in a lot of churches.
Platt
is right to start where he is – at the individual Christian level. This is
where it has to start. And we need to challenge every idea, every piece of
received wisdom, every conventionality of what we know as evangelical
Christianity.
To
show where this discussion is going next, one of Platt’s chapters for next
week’s discussion is entitled “Don’t Make Jesus Your Personal Lord and Savior.”
I’ve
fastened my seatbelt.
We’re
discussing Follow Me over at The HighCalling. Please visit the site to see the discussion and comments. It’s an
important topic and important book.
