Pop goes the Church

  I have to admit I'm  glutton for tradition.  I grew up in a church that did not change one thing in the 15 years I was there, my cousins and I would start traditions (like eating thanksgiving dinner on the stairs) just for traditions sake, my high school friends and I go to a royals game at the beginning of every summer just because its tradition.  Periodically I'll attending the "early service" at whatever church I'm at just because its traditional.  Tradition is safe, it brings back happy memories, and I just feel like somehow it could bring me closer to being one with God because if the tradition has been around for hundreds of years then man, its gotta be good right?!  There is not push and pull, no scrambling to figure out how something new will work, no brain power needed. Its nice, but deadly.

  Tim Stevens in his book, Pop Goes the Church, poses the question "Would your community be any different if your church disappeared tomorrow?"  The funny thing is the church I grew up in did disappear one day, under the governmental act of Eminent Domain, nobody noticed.  The community is different today, it has an Olive Garden now.  

   Like Stevens, I must admit, I fell in love with the church before I fell in love with Jesus.  I was at the church anytime the doors were open, both Sunday services, food pantry saturdays, set up and clean up for all activities, lead youth council, mow the lawn, go door-to-door on visitation night, choir practice..."my love for the church grew more intense every day"...It was nice, but deadly.  Despite all the hours put in I still went through the typical stages of adolescence, making bad choices, mouthing off to my parents, and pushing the boundaries.

The church I've always known has been driven blindly and obsessively by one goal; to protect ourselves from the culture at all costs. "So rather than preparing our children to engage, discern, and make good choices, we put out hands over their eyes and our fingers in their ears. However, through the internet and news media, the culture was still able to invade our homes.  Unfortunately, our kids were ill prepared to deal with it."  And that's where I stand today, ill prepared.

I know that what this book speaks about is true, its how Jesus would live if he were alive today.  But I am honestly scared and dumbfounded.  I know that I can't go on living in the church bubble I've been in for 21 years.  But as I step out longing to engage a world of searching souls I feel that all I can do is sit down in the middle of the road and observe all that is going on around me.  I think I'm having culture shock in what's supposed to be my own culture.

Stevens says it is his goal for me to walk away from this book and struggle, talk, debate and struggle some more.  He's already achieved that and I'm only on chapter 2.  

"The community around you is dying without Jesus, and it is your God ordained duty to wrestle until you find the best way to reach them .  Once you do, don't apologize."

 "Many who call themselves Christians are like a giant black canopy over the sun keeping the world from seeing the light." 

"If we keep doing what we have always done, we will keep getting what we have always gotten- and I am not satisfied with that."