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One of my favorite teachers Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington DC has a request:
We’ll kick off a series this weekend titled The Elephant in the Church. The series plays off the old idiom: the elephant in the room. It’s a reference to obvious truths that everyone ignores. I want it to be a series where we honestly and humbly acknowledge the church’s shortcomings, but give it a positive spin by talking about how we are the church and we can be a solution to the problem.
I’d love to draw on the wisdom of the blogosphere. What are some taboo topics we ought to be talking about? What are some confessions the church needs to make? What are those issues that everybody is thinking about but nobody is talking about?
Listen. If you want to leave a comment, let’s not be jerks about it. This isn’t an opportunity to attack. It’s an opportunity to help and encourage.
This reminds me a lot of what Hemant’s eBay auction turned into: a look at the church from an “outsider’s” perspective. What is the church missing? How can it reach people better? What topics does it seem to ignore when you feel it should be the first it addresses?
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Tough assignment. I don’t have anything that wouldn’t look like an attack. Let me turn it around.
Look at atheists meetups or humanist groups from an “outsider’s” perspective. What are we missing ? How can we reach people better ? What topics do we seem to ignore when you feel it should be the first we address ?
Sometimes I think the “church” misses the point in conveying to others that we don’t have it all together. No single person has figured it all out. And we are not better than anyone. The “church” seems to need constant reminders that we all meet humbly at the foot of the cross. Some churches seem like clubs more than a picture of what they believe.
My suggestion would be for churches to adopt more homeless shelters, and do more missions in thier own back yard, and actually roll their sleeves up and get dirty, to reach others. “Others”- people who are not currently inside? Just a few thoughts…:-b
As my husband has reminded me many times, “People are messy.” A church is filled with people, and people are messy. We have to admit that sometimes we are so empty, so raw, so void of feeling that we are unable to deal with messy people. Too many times church is the great escape for people where they can live in LaLa Land for awhile and ignore their problems for a couple of hours a week. Don’t challenge us or place difficult ministry in our path or else our break from the real world will be ruined. So, what is my point? I guess it is that we need to be reminded that being a part of the Body of Christ is not purely blissful, but is filled with all kinds of challenges, good and bad, that we must be prepared or willing to face. We can’t do church without God. We cannot take our title lightly. Yes, as Christians we’ve come into a right relationship with Jesus, but we still have to work on it and on our relationships with those around us. People are messy and we must rely on Jesus to help us clean things up.
Ben, since this is Bill’s blog I will stick to his question, not your turn around….sorry;)
I think the church needs to be more real so that outsiders can see we’re real people with problems and faults, the only real difference is that we believe in the atonement for our sin. “Tam” did an awesome blog on this recently and worth a check out…..
Also, more churches need to be more about relationship and not religion…more on grace and not law.
Just my opinions….:d/
One thing I just don’t get is how churches can waste so much money. One large church I attended (but have since lef) purchased a $20,000 video camera. It blew my mind…that’s two decent used cars for families in need. That’s a whole church building for a congregation in Central America!!! And for what purpose, so they can have video quality which can’t be appreciated without 50″ HDTV anyways?
Time and time again, I see the offering money thrown at trivial things. While the church is buying rock concert quality lighting, there are hundreds of needy individuals right in there community who go un-noticed and un-assisted. I know of multiple pastors with extravegant 4,000 sq. ft. homes who drive brand new Chevy pick up trucks.
So lets talk about how we use what is supposed to be God’s money; I don’t think He’s very satisfied with the “stuff” we waste His dollars on…
When I was younger I attend religious classes. First in the Protestant faith than, after my mother died, the Catholic religion. This training did not result in my believing there was a God. It actually had the opposite effect.
I am a skeptic by nature. I do not believe in something solely because it is written in a book, or because someone tells me it’s so.
There were several times during my religious instructions where I was told I could “never” understand some of the “mysteries” of the nature of God. I was not expected to continue to ask questions about these points. Needless to say I was not the most popular student. I always ask questions. The word “never” is not a word I am very comfortable with. Neither is the idea of “blind faith”.
Some of the reason I came to question the existence of God.
1)I have no problem with the Ten Commandments as a moral code, expect the first one. Why would it be so important to an all knowing, all powerful God to have humans acknowledge his existence above all others? Would a benevolent God be that vain?
2) How could a benevolent God create such a terrible place as the Hell. Of course in many religions “hell” simply means you are not with God when you die if you have not lead a proper life.
3)Most importantly - I only believed in God in the first place as long as I accepted without question what I was told by my parents and religious instructors.
As soon as I began to ask questions and perform my own research I realized that not everything I had been told by my elders was completely accurate. “Blind Faith” was not enough for me.
4) I have never felt of the presence of God. He has not in any manner spoken to me.
The religious instructions I received did not safistfactorly answer my question about God. Nothing I have read or heard about since has lead me to change my mind. However I try to maintain an open mind.
Someday someone may come up with evidence that can withstand the test critical peer review.
Some day God may speak to me. If he does I will probably go hide in a closet.
@Erik…
I like that one. I think some quality discussion could come out of that!!
I have one, but it’s probably not one you want to hear, because it’s the exact opposite of what Christians apparently like to do.
Quite simply, I want you all to stay the &*%# out of my personal life, and stop rubbing my face in your beliefs.
Case in point. I’m an Australian. In 2004, our illustrious PM amended the the Marriage Act to be between a man and a woman only, no Queers allowed, as cynical ploy to nab votes from our fundamentalist evangelical set (Yes, Australia is just like a little America, only with kangaroos).
Recently I was forced to get married in order to obtain a Visa to keep my family together while my partner works overseas. Know what I discovered? Along with the amendment, the Act now requires that the celebrant remind me, at my wedding day, that marriage is between a man and a woman only. I could find no way to stop this. However, that is only the case if I choose a secular civil service. If I got a religious service, I could get the celebrant to say whatever I want.
See the implication of that? Apparently atheists like me are so immoral that we need religious instruction on our wedding days. How would you like it if the atheist lobby forced all Christian celebrants to read out excerpts from The God Delusion? How would you like it if the celebrant was forced to say that marriage is only between a white man and a white woman, no coloured people allowed, but only if there were black people in the audience? Probably not very much, I imagine.
I do not need moral instruction from you, least of all at my own wedding, especially when it involves something I consider homophobic, immoral and wrong. And I certainly don’t need moral instruction from the same political party who thinks that it’s okay to lock up the children of refugees.
So that’s my elephant in the church. Though in truth, I do believe that this will come back to bite you all. Now we can add Queer rights to your list of sins, right after women’s rights and the inquisition, and even less people will be Christians in the future. So I suppose every cloud has its silver lining.
Oh, and I’m not trying to be a “jerk” with my comment above. Like I implied, I feel as strongly about anti-Queer marriage law as most people today would feel about the old ban on inter-racial marriage. I consider it a grave injustice, and I feel very angry that certain people would rub in my face the fact that they have the political power to continue to perpetrate this injustice. It would be wrong to sugar-coat this to protect your sensibilities.
… and now I feel bad about making sweeping statements about “Christians” like to do (damn, all this “Friendly such-and-such” is eroding my powers of grumpiness!). To those Christians who thought that the amendment and others like it were a stupid idea, and who actively tried to dissuade your co-religionists, thank you. My issue is not with you.
nerdiah, here is some info below on where the issue of same-sex stands in the US.
A state by state listing of same-sex marriage laws in the US:
http://marriage.about.com/cs/marriagelicenses/a/samesexcomp.htm
The most recent poll I found on this issue was:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/30/opinion/polls/main565918.shtml
“(CBS) Just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Texas law banning sodomy, more Americans object to legal marriage for homosexuals than support it.
In the latest CBS News/New York Times poll, 55 percent would oppose a law allowing homosexual couples to marry, giving them the same legal rights as other married couples, while 40 percent would favor such a law.
GAY MARRIAGE
Favor
40%
Oppose
55%
Republicans hold particularly strong views against gay marriage: 71 percent of them oppose it, and 27 percent favor it. Democrats and Independents are more evenly divided; 45 percent of Democrats support it, as do 45 percent of Independents.
Younger people are much more likely than older Americans to support gay marriage. Sixty-one percent of 18- to 29-year-olds favor it; that drops to just 18 percent among people 65 and older.
Opposition to gay marriage is strong among conservatives (71 percent oppose it), blacks (63 percent) and Protestants (64 percent). Catholics also oppose it, though by a smaller margin than the entire population; 44 percent favor it and 50 percent oppose it.
There are no real differences between men and women on this issue.”
Now that I have supply a bunch of data on the subject of same -sex marriage I’ll entrall you all with my views on the subject. Which I am sure you can’t wait to read. 8-|
I have this grand, probably somewhat naive, belief that as we become a more intergrated society laws that place restriction based on race, gender or sexual preference will go away.
As we live and work with people who are different from us we learn they have the same goals and dreams as we do.
Business have already learned that to stay competitive they must based who they hire and promote on how that person can do the job. Nothing else.
It makes no sense to me that a person can risk their life for their country and then come home and be told their country won’t recognize their marriage to the person they love.
Reason and logic will triumph over the straight jackets of tradition and intolerance.
If they don’t we will become extinct.
So endith the lecture. [-(
@Ed: Right on, preach it, brother
I totally agree with you, and I look forward to the day when homophobia is openly mocked as ignorant and outdated. I don’t think it’s naive to think that we will eventually triumph, I think it’s inevitable, because like you said it makes sense, it’s rational, and every word we say is part of the fight to make it happen.
Like I said before, this will come back to bite the Christian Church. We have not forgotten the role they played in repressing science, the genocidal wars, colonialisation, supporting slavery, oppressing women, the list goes on. And now, we will not forget what they did to our Queer brothers and sisters. One more sin, one more black stain on God’s name, and thousands more people who will turn their back on religion because of it. And you know what, Christians? You’ll have no one but yourselves to blame. You’re your own worst enemies. We’ve already won. :)>-