October 22, 2006 Church of the Covenant Concecration Sunday The Rev. Dr. Robert J. Campbell Printer-Friendly Version
Purpose Driven Church or A Church With A Purpose?
Luke 5:27-31
I Corinthians 9:19-22There are a lot of products that speak to reversing the decline in church membership. One of the most popular is a book called The Purpose Driven Life, with its companion, The Purpose Driven Church. (1) They claim to help people and churches focus on what is important to faith and ministry.
My home church, over a hundred years old, regional in membership, great music, recently went down the "purpose driven path." The minister convinced the congregation to spend $125,000 on advertising. There is truth to advertising if not always in it. He was right; if we want people to know we are here, we have to get the word out. But he was a bit zealous. In a quest to be relevant, he then had the music director of 20-plus-years replaced by a "praise director.” Todd need not worry.
The sanctuary was filled for about two months; then the congregation split over worship, culture clashes, and tradition. The minister is now looking for a new job. The congregation is struggling and all those new converts are gone.
As one member said to me, "How can you be a 'purpose driven' church without having any purpose? It's fine to say we're for the Bible and Jesus, but how does that translate into caring for the least among the least? How do these new purposes embrace who we have been for generations, while helping us to adapt for the future?" Which is the point for this and every church. Are we driven by a clear understanding of our purpose both past and present?
Evangelist Billy Sunday used to say, "When the word of God says one thing and scholarship says another, then scholarship can go to Hell." That is where some churches are today, which moved evangelical professor Mark Knoll to write, "The weakness of the evangelical mind is its treating of verses in the Bible as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle needing only to be sorted and fit to reveal God's divine truth. There is the neglect of history that shapes perspective."
But by the same token, Stephen Warner writes, "The problem with liberal congregations is that they exist in a state of pluralistic ignorance and anxiety. Liberalism tries to maintain congruence with the wider culture and at the same time be Christian. Accommodating the world's view, the rhetoric beats to the rhythm of inclusion, tolerance, and the rights of individuals, but ends up being without substance. Pluralism is seen as a gift; certainty is seen as the mantel of those who fear diversity. Yet, Christianity does call its followers to live in the world while remaining separate from it." So, who is right?
Anyone who spends time around any church with its worn-out linoleum and 19th century hymns, its propensity to trivialize the gospel, and its tendency to make mountains out of molehills can quickly become impatient. Those of us who love her want her to be so much more. More biblical, yes! And more relevant, friendly, and much more evangelical in the best sense of that word, while at the same time we want her to be more inclusive, compassionate, and tolerant.
Fred Buechner suggests, "Maybe the best thing that could happen would be for some great tidal wave of history to wash the church away, buildings tumbling, money lost, blowing through the air like dead leaves. Then all we would have left would be each other and Christ. Which is all there was in the first place."
But Buechner isn't radical enough because he ignores the fact that even the earliest church never quite lived up to expectations. As Ann Dillard so wisely put it, "What a pity that so hard on the heels of Christ came Christians, full of wild ideas and self-importance." All of which raises questions, "Who are we here at the Covenant? What is our purpose?"
Paul writes, "Even though I am free, I make myself a slave. To Jews, I am a Jew and to those outside I stand with them. To the weak, I am weak. I become all things to all people." Talk about waffling.
Luke tells of Jesus and Levi, who was a toll collector paid in advance by the Romans, which meant abuse was his way of life. Levi and Jesus were at a dinner party along with some Pharisees who by contrast lived out their devotion in every way possible, especially around the dinner table. We dare not miss the subtlety of that table scene for when the religious types started to judge and exclude others they began to exclude themselves.
The church is never all things to all people, but it is Christ in the midst of all people. The church's primary standard is based upon God's accepting love that includes everyone until they exclude themselves.
Yet, theologian Walter Burghardt says today as we read, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice's sake; but where is justice heard in our pulpits?” Christians too often either don't believe it or believing it, are afraid of it. The consequence? Encouragement without challenge, biblical sermons bereft of the prophets, and a bloodless Jesus.
And if that trend continues writes Karl Riner in his book, Shape of the Church to Come, the church will become solely the doctrinal guardian and teacher of abstract principles becoming increasingly more abstract to the point of sterility, a repository for useless antiquities.
But this is not our future! Or at least it is up to you to make sure that is not the case and currently I see you doing so in so many ways. Like this past week as members gave their precious time to the Northeast Ohio Alliance for Hope; as I see you in so many ways caring for others through our mission. Still, we know that is not where it ends.
There is much talk about "family and traditional values," which are always directed toward personal rather than social morality. That's because personal morality doesn't recognize the need for a new ordering of the world. Family responsibility, hard work, compassion, and religious piety are important. But a person's moral character, important as that is, isn't enough when it comes to speaking truth to power. When talk of responsibility is directed toward the powerless, it is trivial compared to the irresponsibility of a system that enriches the few and impoverishes the many, promotes consumerism and devastates the environment, all the while producing good money and bad leadership.
"When the comfortable are in control, then the priorities of Mary's Magnificat are reversed.” (2) And it is then that a church seeking God's purpose is driven to stand with Mary and her beloved, who are being sent away empty, which is who this church has proven herself to be down the long corridor of time.
Yet, to insure that is who we are we need to remember with Chardin that God is as much ahead of us as within us and above us. When asked, "Where do we stand?" our response is always,
"We don't stand anywhere, we're on the move! We understand our purpose is to be permanent revolutionaries, pilgrim people who have decided never to arrive because we live by hope and we are energized not by what we have, but by what we have been promised."
That's what we learn over and over through our ministries of education, which provide some of the best scholarship of any church. They help us to see scripture both in text and context. To know that history is a dialogue between God and humans in the language of the every day.
With that as our base, we can then look clearly at life through all kinds of glasses, all valid. We can see our God through headlines and by-lines and political ads, all the while not asking is this a liberal or conservative agenda, not is this republican or democrat, but where is the message that speaks to what is justice and right?
If something claims to be "faith-based," we ask is its base in-line with a God whose finger is always on the scales tilting them toward the margins and those being "left behind?"
The people of God congregated in what we call the church must always be in the world, but not of it. And that is what our worship reminds us of when we gather in worship, embracing the great liturgies and music of the ages, melding them into feelings and experiences "for the living of our days," we are exposed not only to tradition but to what Rudolf Otto called the "Mysterium Tremendum," the tremendous mysteries of God who is present in these moments to comfort, sustain, and challenge us to become who we were created to be.
What then is so very important on a Sunday like this is that it calls each member to remember why we are part of this church. That we are a people committed to helping one another live God's agenda in the world and confronting the world when it abandons those who God puts first. That is the historic purpose of this congregation and the privilege we enjoy as members in the present tense.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, about to be hanged for being part of an attempt to assassinate Hitler, wrote to his parents, "During the last year, I have come to appreciate the worldliness of Christianity as never before. I thought I could acquire faith by trying to live a holy life. Later I discovered and am still discovering up to this very moment, that it is only by living completely in the world that one learns to believe."
This Sunday we make personal commitments. It's our opportunity to be what early Christians called "the we" of Christianity. While we know full well we can never change what happened to Jesus at the hands of those in power, we know that we can change what happens to Jesus now.
1) Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren
2) John Kenneth Galbraith
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