It would be easy to come up with a million reasons to “leave the church.” A few include:

• Hypocrites hurt people.
• Stifling values enforced during childhood don’t line up with real world experience.
• In a choice between Jesus and Dinosaurs, you can see a dinosaur’s skeleton.
• Gay people are generally nice people, too.
• Some churches are boring.
• Some churches try to be exciting, but are still boring and end up feeling cheap or cheesy.
• Churches don’t seem to care about the poor as much as Jesus did.
• Going to church sometimes means driving a gas guzzler, denying global warming, packing a gun and avoiding public schools. (Which to some people feels like a lot of work.)

These are all really good reasons, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

Which begs the question: Why do any of us stay in church?

For me, it feels like I never really had a choice. The value of the church was pounded into me twice on Sundays, once on Wednesdays, and multiple times throughout the week.

By the grace of God, it stuck.

There’re some pretty unflattering reasons people stay in church.

One reason (that doesn’t make me proud) is that churches provide structures that make it easier to make friends. That helps me a lot. Some people probably stay because it’s a good way to network and get a job. Others might stay because it’s a good place to meet girls. Some people stay because that’s what’s expected in their families.

Some people leave the church in their 20s and come back when they have kids and a house.

Some people just like to feel religious.

Some people aren’t wired for questioning, and they never really doubt what they were always taught.

Some people had an undeniable experience they are haunted by the rest of their life. I know one man who left behind heroine when he heard an audible voice of God. He’s been in the same church for the last 35 years.

Sometimes I ask myself, “why are you still in church?”

The best answer I can come up with is:

1) I expect official Church institutions to basically have the same foibles as any other institution made up of imperfect people.
2) I’m obsessed with the idea of a contagious body of Christ that changes the world.

Churches are going to fail us. Organizations and institutions more so.

That’s okay. If we’re as sinful as scripture says, it’s to be expected.

When I read Jesus, he keeps talking about “the kingdom of God” and how it is “at hand.” He described in terms of yeast and mustard seeds. It was full of unscrupulous tax men, struggling prostitutes, the sick and the disfigured.

Jesus taught them how to live.

When they started to live out Jesus teachings, they had to do it together. They had to share their stuff. They had to feed each other.

They partied together. They mourned together.

They redefined family across social boundaries and ethnic lines.

They called themselves “The Way.” They were labeled “The Third Race.”

The only way to believe Jesus’s words “The kingdom of God is at Hand” is to witness it in a group of people living out the kingdom together.

I’m still in church. Sure, it looks very different than the one in which I was raised. To be honest, we still haven’t mastered this whole kingdom of God thing.

Perhaps my cohorts who have left the church have been expecting an institution to do something or be something, and they were disappointed. I’m still in church because the word church to me means “the people who want to live in God’s kingdom together.”

Church is not an “it” that we agree with, attend or join. It’s a “we” that is constantly being defined and refined by an “us.”

I’m still in church because I want see that become a reality.

What about you?

The post A Better Question is: Why Do Any of Us Stay in Church? appeared first on Chris Morton.

Today’s young adults are hoping to go into careers that make an enduring impact on others….St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital came in as the No. 1 place these millennials wanted to work “The focus on helping others is what millennials are responding to,” James W. Lewis, the chief executive of the honor society, told Forbes.

Some studies have suggested that millennials are narcissistic and flaky in their professional and personal lives, and are more selfish than prior generations…Whereas older millennials showed a concern for meaning, the younger millennials who came of age during the Great Recession started reporting more concern for others and less interest in material goods.

This data reflects a broader pattern. Between 1976 and 2010, high school seniors expressed more concern for others during times of economic hardship, and less concern for others during times of economic prosperity. During times of hardship, young people more frequently look outward to others and the world at large.

…Millennials have been forced to reconsider what a successful life constitutes. By focusing on making a positive difference in the lives of others, rather than on more materialistic markers of success, they are setting themselves up for the meaningful life they yearn to have — the very thing that Frankl realized makes life worth living.

As more and more comes out about the Millenials, I’m rethinking the ideas of writers like Robert Webber and Leonard Sweet. Webber suggested that Younger Evangelicals would embrace liturgical forms. Sweet predicted that post-moderns were more concerned with collecting experiences than accumulating stuff.

As a follower of Jesus, do I find this encouraging? Not yet. Many of his teachings are simple “how to be decent humans”, and it should not surprise when others come to similar conclusions.

The problem with a general sense of altruism is that that it is unsustainable alone. Jesus called for peace, and so did the hippy generation. A few decades later the US was back at it in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and those voices nowhere to be heard.

Ideals such as altruism or peace-making need to couched in a worldview that gives them broader meaning. They need a system that teaches one how to act on their feelings. Jesus followers call that Faith and Discipleship.

What do we do with a study like this? Use the growing sense of altruism to as a launching point for teaching the Jesus way of life.

Millenial Searchers can be read on the New York Times website.

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Yes, Millennials are leaving the church. Women in their forties feel left out. I’m pretty sure if we dug a bit we could find that men in their 60s and dogs in their 30s (in dog years) are also leaving the church.

The problem is not the problem, folks.

The church is on the decline in the west. These are only symptoms. We’ll see the problem appear in Millennials first because they, of all living generations, have spent the majority of their lives in a world where the church is not a centerpiece of Western society.

I’m glad that RHE brought up the millennial issue because they are my people. But the best thing we can do for Millennials is also the best thing we can do for Xers, and Boomers and the Silent Generation: Hasten the transition into a Missional Church.

Rumor has it that the term “missional” is already on the decline, at least among book sellers. It’s probably being replaced by “radical” or “gospel” or “discipleship” or something else I’m not maven enough to know about yet. While missionally minded thinkers might not sell as many books, the Missional Church will continue to evolve. In the future, as the church is increasingly marginalized, mission is all that will matter.

There will be three types of churches in the coming decades, and you get to choose which one you want to be:

1. The Church that Was

Powered by foundations and denominational structures, these dwindling churches will become smaller and increasingly polarized. There will be left-leaning universalists and right wing politicians. They will make a lot of smoke but no fire.

2. The Imports

Immigrant churches from Latin America, Africa and Asia. They provide opportunities to celebrate their native culture and feature charismatic worship. They provide a means of community and acculturation. Expect them to be vibrant, that struggle to connect with outsiders.

3. The Missional Church

A rag-tag band of outcasts from #1 and #2, as well as Damascus-Road-style converts. They will be radically committed to experiments in local incarnations of the gospel. They will have a passion for hospitality and a heart for evangelism. They will be hard to fit into your categories, but likely be a whimsical and vibrant minority.

Mission is the cure to the “Millennials problem”. A missional church with heart for Millennials will simply ask “how can we be the incarnate church for Millennials?” In other words, how can we show God’s love for Millennials?

Mission is the cure to the problem of women in their forties getting lost “in a sea of hipsters” and the other dozen gender problems in the church. A missional church will fight to have each person engaged in using their gifts for the sake of the mission.

Mission is the cure for the race problem. Racial reconciliation is a part of God’s mission. There is no greater reconciling action than being involved in meaningful tasks together.

Mission is the cure for suburban loneliness. Mission is the cure for theological divides. If Pope Francis gets his way, mission will be the cure for the Catholic Church’s systemic sins.

Without mission,
Pastors become (just) counselors
Prophets become (just) bloggers
Apostles become (just) non-profit leaders
Evangelists become (just) salesmen
Teachers become (just) historians.

We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. How we engage in our world is mission. Without mission, we are no longer ourselves. Without mission, we have nothing to offer the world.

The post Millennials! Sexism! Racism! The Problem isn’t the Problem. appeared first on Chris Morton.