Too Much Church?
Trey Graham, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Melissa, Texas has a nice post in the opinion section of the Dallas Morning News. In it, he poses the question how much church is enough?–arguing that when Christians spend too much time in the bubble of Christianity, they neglect the great commission.
One of the greatest obstacles to living out “go and tell” is the tendency for Christians to spend all their time inside the physical walls of the church or inside the social walls of the Christian community. In my sermons, I call this temptation “living inside the bubble.” If Christ-followers only live inside the bubble, how will people outside the faith ever hear about Jesus?
I think Trey’s article is a fair and well-balanced admonishment, especially for those trapped in what Jonathan Leeman describes as the counterfeit gospel of formalism.
After some thought, what really strikes my curiosity is whether or not this is a uniquely American phenomenon. For those of you overseas, does Trey’s article apply to believers in your continent?
For those of you in the US, how often (per week) do you attend church services or functions? How do you find a balance between corporate worship, fellowship, evangelism, and service?
Maybe I should cut down to 2 potlucks a week.
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6 Responses to “Too Much Church?”
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i concur that the bubble is a very dangerous (and i think currently american) problem, but i don’t think that it is a too much church problem.”
my observation of the bubble leads me to believe that it isn’t the amount of church that is predictive of the problem but the amount of isolation. many christians listen to “christian” music, buy “christian” shirts, put “christian” bumper stickers on the their car, go to “christian” events and buy “christian” books. this is far more dangerous than being too involved in church. we think we are being holy by isolating ourselves from the world and then excuse the fact by claiming to be “in not of” it. in reality, it is just a modern practice of the asceticism paul criticizes: “do not taste, do not touch” the “secular” art or culture, this has the apperance of wisdom, holiness and dedication, but it only isolates one from the true calling of a christian and from practicing life like christ lived.
i say it is currently american because this type of isolation can only come in a culture of relative affluence like ours. there are no trendy “christian” shirts in africa that twist pop culture phenom’s or products into “clever” ways to get jesus’ name on a shirt. they are generally too low on maslow’s pyramid of needs to think about such trivialities.
1 Cor. 5:9-12 “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner - not even to eat with such a person.”
Paul is writing this to clear up a misconception that the Corinthian church held. They thought he was saying to not surround themselves with anyone who is sexually immoral, covetous, etc. As Paul addresses in this passage, he meant not to keep company with someone claiming to be a believer that is practicing these things. As Christians, we are called to be salt and light. How can we be salt and light if we aren’t surrounded by darkness.
Is it a question of too much church? I don’t believe so. I work at a church. I spend a lot of time at church. Meetings, Bible studies, projects - you name it, I’m here. But does that take away from my ministry outside the church walls? I would say it makes it more difficult at times, but I know I am commissioned to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” and so I aim to do just that. Instead, I believe much of the problem lies in the “feel good” preaching; let’s focus on you and make sure you feel good about yourself. Instead, we need to place a greater emphasis on equipping and edifying (Eph. 4:12) each other while gathered as the church, so that we can let our lights shine while away from the church gathering.
I think that to have a balanced answer without becoming too legalistic about “how much is too much”, I would have to ask “why do you attend church at all?”
I agree completely with Mr. Graham’s article. If your purpose in attending is to isolate yourself from the world and keep it from possibly influencing you, then once a week may be too often.
I personally attend church regularly. By that though, I don’t mean every service, every week. I may plan on going every week, but then - life happens.
If a situation arises somewhere else that needs attention, then so be it. Go, and serve with a happy heart. I would even go as far as to say that God may (*gasp) ‘call’ people to miss church sometimes.
I think a good summary of the purpose of attending church is found in Hebrews: “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching”.
I see the main point being to gather together to consider and encourage one another. This being said, do Christians even require a formal “church”? Based on the text, no.
What if you just quit going altogether? Practically speaking, how you incorporate fellowship, consideration for your fellow believers and exhortation into your life may have nothing to do with church on a particular day, month or even year.
I believe His interest lies in our willingness to forsake everything - even should it be a church service - to follow and serve Him as He calls us to.
Perhaps the problem does not lie in the amount of time spent in “the bubble” but in “the bubble” it’s self. The so called Christian bubble tends to breed conformists,instead of disciples.
I’d actually enjoy a few more potlucks.
During my years in Taiwan, it was a lot like this, we were in a Christian shell, and the culture and religion of Taiwan either had nothing to do with us, or was a threat to our values. Evangelism has been hard for me and my family because of this.
I would say that it is dangerous when your life centers around christian things but not Christ. It is a very subtle temptation to go through the motions of being a christian without living for the glory of God.
It is also very easy to separate oneself from the world because we are called to live different and our lives become different from the world as we live in Christ. There is a constant tension between living in this world and living as if we are not in this world. Often it is easier to just not live in this world.
The solution though isn’t less “church” (unless you define church as a building). The solution is following Jesus because it is radically different than what we would naturally do and it will take us to the poor, broken, hurting people of this world to offer them healing, hope, and the gospel. It will motivate us to gather together to exhort, encourage, equip, love, help, and serve one another. It will take us outside of the context of a church building and into the context of peoples lives so that we can be witnesses of the resurrection of our Lord.
I’m not one for strict church attendance, or expecting everyone to be at every service, bible study and prayer meeting. But I think that as we thirst for God we will want to go to bible studies. As Christ dwells in us we will not want to miss the services when His body gathers together. As we fellowship with God we will want to gather to pray. Those “churchy” things should actually be an indication of our desire to be with God and His people. That is why I say the temptation is to leave God out of it and just go through the motions because it is safe, it makes you feel good, there are people who love you, and you don’t have to worry to much about being uncomfortable. That is Christianity without Christ.