Further, to my previous comment.

I recently had a conversation with an ex-Sydney Anglican ‘non church-goer’ that finished like this:

“Yes, I believe in God. I might even say I believe that Jesus is the son of God who died for my sins. But I am never, ever going back to church.. so don’t bother asking...”

I’ve had a few conversations like this lately that make me think we need to listen to the TC critique.

Have others had similar experiences?

I really enjoyed the interview with Shane and Stuart. Well done Jeremy, I’d like to hear more of that sort of thing.

Shane, if you get your Dendy movie group happening, let me know. I’d be keen to be a part of it…

Jeremy Halcrow - 31 March 2008 04:52 PM

I’ve had a few conversations like this lately that make me think we need to listen to the TC critique.

Have others had similar experiences?

Hi Jeremy

theres is actually a book that has been written that reflects a similar sentiment called ‘we like Jesus but can’t stand the church’ or something like that . (Jeff has probably read it.)

I think this relates to an apologetic that is not purely rational but also where the gospel needs to be embodied relationally.  Particularly the post christian post modern who doesn’t ask ‘ show me its true ‘ as a first question , but rather ‘show me it works?”
sadly when the gospel doesn’t radically centre and shape the church’s life together, these stories become common place.

I would love to know the stats on church refugees.

BTW this complaint could too easily be dismissed as an excuse and cover up for sin - but I think we need to really feel the point (and pain) of these objections and ask - if this person experienced a genuine gospel centred community that embodied truth and love - could they be ‘re hooked’ in fellowship with God and his people?

Shane.

When we did Christian ministry as a subject one of our lectures was about burnout - both for the pastor and the congregation. The stats were given that a high percentage of people burn out between 4 and 7 years of ministry within the church. Then they become either nominally involved, leave the church and become less involved with the new church or don’t bother going regularly at all.

Given this high percentage of burnout, the question needs to be faced about what is going to happen or could happen with our current congregations who are starting and have started to put into high amounts of energy; physical, spiritual and emotional into the 10 year mission?

Perhaps many of those whom Jeremy and others have encountered have been burnt out by the church already and it is that previous experience that is a hurdle for them to jump as they do profess some kind of faith?

It seems that there is a real tension that needs addressing. In the past the minister and elders did all things. Then the priesthood of all believers came into the fore and congregations got behind the program of the church - doing church.

I see a real benefit and hope with this idea of Total Church -I recognise that it is not the only way of running and planting a church Yet I see a way forward that if done properly will cause people to not burnout, fellowship in a real manner that deals with real issues of life.

I think the early church grew because the communities they were in saw first hand their love for one another and that it was a religion that worked in the power of the Holy Spirit, and was not just in word only.

If your interested, you can download a session on Gospel Driven Church planting given by Steve Timmis from an Acts 29 Boot Camp last year.

As we consider what TC says about the value and significance of Christian community being expressed in our congregations, what do others think of the increasing number of people in our diocese who insist on just calling their congregations a ‘meeting’?

Well, what’s a better word?

I have started to prefer gathering myself

Hi Shane,

The book you are referring to is Dan Kimball’s “They Like Jesus but Not the Church”
http://orders.koorong.com/search/details.jhtml?code=0310245907

Thanks Mark
I haven’t read it but the title is tasty.
do you know of a quality merchandiser where I would purchase it ;)

on that note I think tis important to realise that alot of the so called emerging church material is not a hard post modern epistemological movement as Don Carson may have suggested in his book on that subject. I am rarely disappointed with Don but I thought that was probabllty one of his weaker efforts and an unhelpful reading of most emering leaders.

Most of the emerging stuff is a protest movement away from tradition evangelical forms of church that they don;t feel are connecting with culture. that it is primarily an ecclesiological movement not an epistemological impulse (though some have move this way)

The problem becomeswhen the protest isn’t driven theologically in mission.

Hence alot of emrging stuff has become the new liberalism becasue its beginnings are often atheological.
They end up hating church (a least the more trad forms). My problem with this s that Jesus loves his church, his bride. If we love Jesus we must love his church. After all it is his agent of bring the gosple blessing in the world.

whlilst I want to sympathise with those who are outside and find the church ugly and unlovely, I don’t want to join them in hating church. Sadly there are many who are supposedly part of churches who spend more time bagging church then loving it and seeking its sanctification and effective sending like Jesus did.

my heart aches when I think of the number of people who have been burnt out or flamed out by churches that use, abuse and confuse people who genuinely love Jesus but can’t swallow church, but I am still committed to the reality that you cannot believe Jesus without belonging to his people,

btw Jeff and Craig
meeting and gathering are in the same semanitic range . It needs a something else to decribe it appropriately. 

I think we need to think of God’s People as the overarching category, or God community or the gospel community who meet tegether and mission together AS God’s people

ie what you do on sunday is God’s community gatherihg or the master’s meeting it is not just a gathering or a meeting.

As stated earlier - I think we move beyond this semanitc squabble when we begin to see church primarliy as an identity
(we are the people of God in Christ with one another)

it is a particular identity because we live serve work love in a particular place time and culture
yet this is part of a greater heavenly and eschatological identity - those who are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms as revealed in the last day of penultimate worship

so we have a heavenly and eschatological identity as well a particular local identity as the people of God:
- who gathers ( around the word for one another) aka ‘worship’
- and scatters (with the word together) aka witness or mission in community

ps last chance tomorrow to register for Total Churhc Confernce

I have read through 1/2 of They Like Jesus but Not the Church (sourced from that other quality purveyor of books - Amazon).

Kimball is not a church hater as such. He is a pastor of a relatively normal church in california. The book merely tries to highlight the views that non-churched people have of the institutional American church. From what I can gather, Kimball is no anywhere as far along the theological scale as other emerging leaders are.

He doesn’t advocate chucking it all out either - more removing any uneccessary, non-cross, stumbling blocks.

On the semantics of what to call ourselves, I was suggesting gathering only in the context of our Sunday activity - rather than call it church which then equates that term with Sunday exlcusively.

it is hard not to fall into the go to church, when is church, thats a big church kinda thinking

Kimball was one of the saner voices in Webber: Listening to the beliefs of the emerging churches

you are right he loves lost people and hates the fact that church is often inaccessible to lost people

Total Church conference was great yesterday.

Big Thanks to Shane and the other guys who pulled it together.

Come on, you lot: can we hear some reflections on the Total Church conference for those who weren’t able to be there?