I’m thirsty for God’s Word. If I want to hear a good sermon or teaching, there are numerous podcasts to which I can subscribe. If I want to sing along to great worship music, I have several CD’s I can listen to at home. If I want to hang out with cool people in a trendy atmosphere, I’ll go the local coffee shop or bar. If you want me to attend your church gathering, give me one good reason why I should. I’m looking for an authentic community of Christ followers who regularly meet for prayer, worship, and Bible study. No one is dominating the group or directing all of its activities, it should be organic and based on quality relationships, not the number of people sitting in the pews. Church is the people, not the steeple. You can’t go to something you are. There should always be more money spent on being the Church rather than maintaining or improving a building where the Church meets. The building is a secondary thing, in fact it would be more advantageous for people to meet in homes than to buy a building. Of course this means one individual cannot control everything that is going on, but that is just fine because Christ is the head of the Church, not any man.

Are there any churches that teach and preach from the whole counsel of God? In other words, teaching and preaching should begin with the text, allowing the text to govern the topic rather than the speaker using Scripture to proof-text his or her own topics and ideas. On special occasions topical preaching is desirable, such as weddings, funerals, catastrophes, etc. But overall, entire books of Scripture should be taught so that no passages are avoided. Another alternative would be for an assigned series of readings to be used to prevent the pastor from succumbing to the temptation of skipping texts that are harsh, offensive, confusing, or boring. Why are so many parts of the Bible excluded from teaching and preaching? The Word of God should be the source for all teaching and preaching, not man-made materials nor popular Christian literature. The pastor is not there to impress or rule over the local church, but rather to shepherd it, remaining transparent to Christ and leading as He did by making Himself the servant of all.

I’m thirsty… and frustrated.

Tiffany and I (Dan) ate at a local restaurant called Houlihan’s the other day, and as I sat there waiting for the check, I realized that Houlihan’s was a lot like a typical American church. Let me walk you through the similarities.

The Experience
Before going there, I checked out the website to see the menu. I always view church’s websites before attending as well, to see what it might be like (and to see if the church is culturally relevant enough to publish a somewhat informative website). Anyways, the Houlihan’s website was really flashy and had some progressive music playing (see for yourself). It seemed pretty cool.

Upon arriving, the atmosphere was fairly trendy: they had metal covers on their menus, a neat paint/color scheme, progressive music playing, and the staff wore all black and looked stylish. Despite the artificial atmosphere, the wait staff wasn’t all that good, the glasses were dirty, and the food was average. It was a let-down. I used to feel this way a lot when I attended new churches. They would have a cool atmosphere, but the same old attitudes and ways of doing things (just like in the Starbucks church video, watch it if you haven’t seen it yet!).

What They Say About Themselves
Later, after reflecting on this. I decided to revisit their website and read the “About Us” page. There were some startling similarities with how churches present themselves. Let’s go through some of the statements they make about themselves and compare it to how churches portray themselves:

In 1972, Houlihan’s first opened its doors in Kansas City with a progressive, eclectic menu and energetic bar scene. Ferns hung throughout, artifacts cluttered the walls and tapestries made by San Francisco hippies formed the ceiling. Caviar burgers, roasted duck, foot-long hot dogs and fresh carrot juice were just a few original menu items so ahead for its time. It was hot.

Just as Houlihan’s opened in the early 70’s with an eclectic and energetic atmosphere, so too many churches found their origin in the “Jesus Movement” of the 60’s and 70’s and used charisma and popular culture to draw in crowds. Notice the goal here is to cater to the consumer, not to conform the consumer to a greater ideal. In many ways churches today have it as their goal to meet peoples’ needs, rather than to conform them to the image of Christ (even when it’s not popular to do so).

Before long, there were a lot of ‘casual dining’ restaurants opening and call us crazy, but they looked a whole lot like us. We tried to be flattered. Some grew really big, and by the ’90s, the whole ‘casual dining’ landscape was pretty me-too. Instead of watching the consumer, the industry seemed more worried about what competitors were doing. Casual dining lost its way, and in doing so lost its edge.

Houlihan’s makes a good observation here, they recognized that not only had the casual dining industry lost touch with the consumer, but it also became self-absorbed and chased after competition relentlessly. Over the last few decades, churches have also been racing to be the biggest, most “relevant,” have the best worship band, and draw the largest crowds. They have forgotten that the true focus is Christ, not having better preaching than the mega-church on the other side of town.

Fast forward to 2002. That’s when we had our ‘Aha!’ moment (as Oprah would say). New leadership, new ideas, new inspiration. We completely re-imagined ourselves, and got back in touch with the consumer. New menus. New plates. New building design, new soundtrack. Stylish uniforms. And a modern, warm restaurant design with an open kitchen and prominent bar. Today, our company is built entirely around what the progressive consumer seeks in a restaurant + bar experience. And we plan to keep it that way.

Forget ‘casual dining.’ That’s an industry term so out of touch with how consumers eat and drink today. For premium quality and style; fare that’s at times familiar and other times adventurous and a laid-back modern setting, Houlihan’s is a true original.

Notice two things: 1) All of the changes involved the external environment, not any real internal change on the parts of the staff; 2) Above and beyond merely stating the casual dining industry has gotten out of touch with the consumer, Houlihan’s believes entirely new terms need to be employed to describe their “original” setting, rendering the “old” terms obsolete and “out of touch.”

Isn’t this also the only real change many churches have made – external only? In an attempt to make church all about the people in the pews (rather than keeping its sole focus on Christ), it has tried to create an experience that will meet the Christians’ needs for belonging and adventure, among many other things. The problem is, these needs can only be met in Christ! The church will never be able to meet all of peoples’ needs, the local bar or the person’s family can do that much better – but the Church can show the person the only thing that will truly meet their needs: Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Also, just as Houlihan’s has sought to employ new terms, the church is filled with new terms such as “missional,” “relevant,” “seeker-sensitive,” etc. Now those terms are being attacked as out of touch, and new terms are emerging such as “post-missional,” “beyond relevance,” “seeker-friendly,” “post-denominational,” etc. Despite the terms, the church still looks and feels the same, and it’s still doing things the exact same away (in many instances it is doing them worse than it did before).

Conclusion
Just as my Houlihan’s experience was blah and average, my experience with many churches is the same. The church can’t compete with Satan’s progressive culture, nor should it try. The church needs to stand against the grain of culture and challenge it to embrace Jesus Christ. Rather than adapting to culture, the Church should transform culture. Only Jesus Christ can do this, not a new movement, program, or committee.

God’s really been humbling me this week. I’ve decided to try and read the entire Bible in 90 days. It takes me about an hour and a half daily to accomplish my daily readings (plus work and school). It might take me slightly longer than 90 days, but I’ll do my best. I’m doing this in a Bible designed for this purpose that has no commentary: just me, the Holy Spirit, and the text. It’s been very eye-opening. I’m taking notes and asking questions along the way to go back and answer.

One of the things I’ve noticed in Genesis so far is how Abraham builds altars for God wherever he goes. That might sound like a simple observation, but this shows that he takes the time to dedicate places to God, show Him respect, sacrifice to Him, and worship Him. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: too many Christians these days spend more time talking about God than they do talking to God. And I’m one of those Christians.

I was reading an article a few days ago entitled Prayer: Rebelling Against The Status Quo by David Wells. In the article, Wells says:

There is plenty of passionate and lively discussion in the church today – whether justified or not – about the mediocrity of the preaching, the emptiness of the worship, the superficiality of the fellowship and the ineffectiveness of the evangelism. So, why, then, don’t we pray as much as we talk? The answer, quite simply, is that we don’t really believe prayer will make any difference.

When I read that, I felt the Holy Spirit tug at my heart. That’s me, I thought. While I try to balance my critique with helpful solutions and the grace of Christ, I spend more time thinking, writing, and talking about what the Church can do better rather than praying for it to happen. To all of my readers: I’m sorry, please forgive me.

I will continue to write thought-provoking and faith-stimulating material as always, but I am making it my goal to plead with God for His grace and healing in the situations about which I write.

I gleaned the term “friendonomics” from Scott Brown in a Wired article he wrote about Facebook. In that article, he says,

Thanks to Facebook, I never lose touch with anyone. And that, my Friend, is a problem.

Hey, want to be my friend? It’s more than possible; it’s probable. Hell, we may already be friends—I haven’t checked my email in a few minutes. And once we are, we will be, as they say, 4-eva. A perusal of my Facebook Friend roster reveals that I, a medium-social individual of only middling lifetime popularity, have never lost a friend. They’re all there: elementary school friends, high school friends, college friends, work friends, friends of friends, friends of ex-girlfriends—the constellation of familiar faces crowds my Friendbox like medals on Mussolini’s chest. I’m Friend-rich—at least onscreen. I’ve never lost touch with anyone, it seems. What I’ve lost is the right to lose touch. This says less about my innate lovability, I think, than about the current inflated state of Friendonomics.

Yes, I know he said ‘hell’, so did Jesus — get over it. Aside from that, this raises a serious point. I’ve written about Facebook before, and I’ve even mentioned how you never lose touch with people using the service, but Brown really hit the nail on head when he said, “What I’ve lost is the right to lose touch.” He goes on to say:

“A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature,” Emerson wrote, not bothering to add, “and like most things natural, friendship is biodegradable.” We scrawl “Friends Forever” in yearbooks, but we quietly realize, with relief, that some bonds are meant to be shed, like snakeskin or a Showtime subscription. It’s nature’s way of allowing you to change, adapt, evolve, or devolve as you wish—and freeing you from the exhaustion of multifront friend maintenance. Fine, you can “Remove Friend,” but what kind of [person] actually does that? Deletion is scary—and, we’re told, unnecessary in the Petabyte Age. That’s what made good old-fashioned losing touch so wonderful—friendships, like long-forgotten photos and mixtapes, would distort and slowly whistle into oblivion, quite naturally, nothing personal. It was sweet and sad and, though you’d rarely admit it, necessary.

And maybe that’s the answer: A Facebook app we’ll call the Fade Utility. Untended Friends would gradually display a sepia cast on the picture, a blurring of the neglected profile—perhaps a coffee stain might appear on it or an unrelated phone number or grocery list. The individual’s status updates might fade and get smaller. The user may then choose to notice and reach out to the person in some meaningful way—no pokes! Or they might pretend not to notice. Without making a choice, they could simply let that person go. Would that really be so awful?

I thought this was a neat idea about a ‘Fade Utility’, but aside from that, why has “friendonomics” become such an issue? I think a lot of people in my generation and younger migrate from Myspace to Facebook once they get a few years into college, in order to do away with the past, but often the old friends find you there, too. Myspace is even trying to replicate Facebook lately, with the creation of “Apps”, “People You May Know”, and other Facebook-cloned programs.

I think this causes a huge stunt in maturity for many Web 2.0 kiddies. And it’s beginning to stunt the growth of Busters and Boomers who are new to the technology as well, as they get caught up in the friend-o-drama of “friendonomics”. In real life, you simply “fall out of touch” with people, but in Web 2.0, you have to intentionally delete them as a friend. That causes a major crisis of conscience for many, and so they stay connected to hundreds (sometimes even thousands) of people whom they never interact with on a regular basis, aside from social networking antics such as “getting poked” or being invited to take part in some ridiculous application or cause.

What does this mean for Christianity 2.0? I really don’t think is a whole lot different from how the faith looks now, actually. What do I mean? Well, you show up for church on Sunday mornings, and there’s a whole slew of people you only interact with in that setting. In many cases, neither party really opens up to the other in a real and meaningful way, and they may even be annoyed by each other. Still, they continue to say “peace of the Lord” to one another every Sunday with a smile, never making any real connection. Take this over to the Web 2.0 realm, where now they’ve become friends on Myspace (or Facebook). They look at each others’ family photos, comment on one another’s walls on holidays and on each others’ birthdays, and they may even be sure to include them in their “top friends.” But what constitutes a “top friend”? And why so cordial with no real connection?

I’m not exempting myself here, I do it all the time — but I’m sick of it. My wife and I have been very blunt and authentic with people lately, and it’s not very popular. But you sure learn who your friends are quick. How can we be more blunt and “real” using Web 2.0? What can the church do to ensure that Christianity 2.0 isn’t a game of Schrades, where we all play our respective roles?

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.” –William Shakespeare

Church folks typically hide their sins and trade more noticeable sins for ones that are easier to hide. I think one of Satan’s best tactical deceptions has been to get God’s people to associate most sins with shame, guilt and embarrassment — and thus not share them. The worst part is that Satan has gotten church people to view people who struggle with sin more negatively. Most people in church will readily confess that they are sinful, but few can point to specific sins they struggle with or have been delivered from. Without real sin, there is no real Savior! But if your sin is real, then your Savior must be also! The reason we struggle with “dead churches” is that we have lost our gratitude — because we do not truly see ourselves as being sinful.

The Bible says to “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). I don’t know about you, but I long for that healing, and the transparency and profound relationships that come through it.

So where do we go from here? I’d say being yourself, i.e. becoming authentic is a great start. And after you can do that, it’s time to do some friend-purging. . . .