According to the Barna Group, half of Americans say they know a growing number of people who are tired of the usual type of church experience. The statistics are even higher among blacks (59%) and Hispanics (58%).
Keep in mind, one dissatisfied man’s “typical church experience” may be another dissatisfied man’s dream church. However, this important trend should not be taken lightly. Half of Americans perceive the number of people who are tired of typical church experiences is growing.
And 64% of Americans are completely open to carrying out and pursuing their faith in an environment or structure that differs from that of a typical church.
So what is “typical church?”
And how can the global Church reach the dissatisfied?
I think when we talk about changing from a “typical church” people’s thought tend to instantly turn to music styles, build layouts, and the use (or lack there of) of technology.
In reality, however, I think we need to focus more on how we relate to and connect with people. The answer to not being a “typical church” is to offer people something they can’t find anywhere else, genuine love rooted in the cross. Our world culture has become so cold, distant, and disconnected. The church should seek to go against this trend. That is what people will find refreshing about church.
Should we seek to be relevant and meet people where they are? Absoultely! But each congregation should determine what that means for their individual community. There isn’t one specific formula, style, or focus for churches to follow. The only main component must be a unbreakable focus on connecting with others with genuine love.
A community of people working to connect with Christ and connect with those around them in love. I believe that is the answer to the “typical church”
We represent the typical church, gen Y… loud, proud, innovative and creative.
we watch 9 tv shows at the same time, we blog while on the phone and texting our GF or BF… Facebook is for old people …
the question is… who are you trying to communicate to?
are you the over 40 crowd? then communicate in their language… under 30 … do the same….. BE YOU… I REPEAT… BE YOU…. no one else like YOU on the planet.
we are a body and if someone doesnt like your church, send them on to somehwere else ….. TEAM PLAYER
a different church experience is not a building. it’s selling property and “stuff” and giving the money to the local poor, in person, face to face.
it’s no more entertainment in the name of “ministry.”
i think a new church is rather old, stripped down to what we were called to do - love one another in the name and power of jesus.
what if christians were consistent in their value of life by protesting not only abortion, but war, capital punishment and poverty?
when i see a big church building with lots of staff and stuff i think of the single moms my wife and i have brought groceries and diapers and paid rent for. how many more could we bless with all the proceed from real estate, lighting, and sets?
i read jesus and don’t see demographically-oriented, well-branded messages with supporting online content. i just see him loving people in ordinary ways, and in doing so challenging the status quo.
meet in homes. sell your stuff and give - literally give - the money to the poor, not a faceless charity. be jesus. he and those who followed him changed the world.
i just saw some of this info on stetzer’s blog…i think we can “re-do” church, as long as we follow biblical principles in the process. we should still be cracking open the book. i personally feel that the church we have today is NOT the same church in the book of Acts. We have re-manufactured institutions. Not every church is like this.
[...] Boring Typical Church [...]
[...] Boring Typical Church - No surprise here! [...]
I suppose its all in how you define church. If the church is the body of believers that form a community to care for one another and engage the world - than yay!
Unfortunately, churchs today are not trying to engage the world, they are trying to engage the culture of “believers” that desire more and more entertainment and the next thing.
“IHateChurch” You cannot say that you hate church and still consider yourself in accordance with Christ. Christ cherished the church and died for people; that He then directed to “be the church”. We have strayed away but (one gen x’er to a y’er) as I sit here commenting on this blog, while attending a Homeschooling conference I know that Christ stayed the same. He was relevant and engaging with a blog, twitter or txt messaging.
Christians leaving the church and becoming dissatisfied is a result of a culture that is inherently narcissistic. We want to sit back and be entertained and engaged, but fail to understand that being a Christian is a verb. Of course you’re going to be bored if you just sit there for two hours on a Sunday morning!
The people in the first century church met every day from house to house, not because that was what was printed in the bulletin but because they were so excited they couldn’t stop. It says, “Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.” When there is no awe, no miracles and wonders you eventually wind up with a religious club who study a book, listens to lectures (sermons) and offers form prayers.. You can pep it up with a men’s ministry that rides motorcycles or fishes together but it is still a club. Sorry I am being so bleak here but after 48 years of attending evangelical churches every sunday and wednesday, that’s my observation.
However, when a church honors the Holy Spirit, expects miracles, evangelizes the lost, is in love with Jesus, reads the Bible as a personal letter from God and can’t get enough of worship, big time awe breaks out. On that first day of pentecost 3000 people became Christians and it had nothing to do with how well they related to one another, how relevant the service was or the correct application of Biblical principals. I know of a Church here in the Northwest where people line up early to get in the building as they would for a rock concert and it has nothing to do with entertainment. It has to do with experiencing the real presence of God’s Spirit. That is the secret to the growth of the church in China, Africa and South America. We keep thinking that if we just went to another seminar, understood Biblical principles better, were friendlier or had better entertainment more people would come to church. People can get better entertainment, music and comraderie any night of the week in the world. The one thing they can’t get is the real, manifest presence of the Holy Spirit.
I think the global church can reach the dissatisfied by the reintroduction of a relational connection to the everlasting Christ. The dissatisfied will be interested in what Jesus did for them 2000 years ago after they are drawn to the everlasting Christ within a small group of believers.
In a biblical community where the members gather in Christ’s name and for his sake the dissatisfied will see a love they’ve not experienced in the world. This community meets regularly, but is not meeting focused.
When interacting with a group of Christ-centered believers, the dissatisfied become dissatisfied with their life and get in touch with their depravity. And that, my friends, is what passionately drives them to the cross.
It’s time to step up to the plate and be the church, not attend it. The attractional model is only attracting consumer Christians, moving from one church to another and the big box churches are shutting down the tiny ones where more relationships exist.
I am not too worried about this situation though. I see taxation for church property and a loss of tax breaks for charitable giving coming soon. This may well crush the brick and mortar mega churches we know today and be the last straw for denominations.
I’m no house church proponent, but I’m also not a proponent of the cult of personality seen in the American church today… and that’s what the dissatisfied who won’t darken the door of a church think too.
Regardless of building, tech use, music styles, etc., a typical church meets once to three times a week and may include Bible studies and small groups. But parishioners seldom interact with each other outside of the church setting.
At a service, there is a worship set. In a liturgical church, the singing is interspersed throughout the service. In a non-liturgical church, most music is at the beginning. Usually there is music when offering is taken. Often, no matter how emotional and/or Spirit-led the worship, the worship lasts about the same amount of time every Sunday.
There is one sermon, often preached by the same minister every Sunday. It lasts about the same time every Sunday.
Children and youth typically do not want to go to a typical church. Adults who go often have to force themselves to go, and they will admit this, and they will couch the forcedness of their decision to come in spiritual terms. For those toying with the idea of not coming, “do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together” is used as the last trump card in the pack to tell such people that they will not be obeying God’s will, period, if they give up going at least weekly to church.
I think that “typical church” is doing the same style church forever and never looking to change it. When we just run the program, we miss the Spirit and God’s calling, perhaps we need to get back to running atypical church, which is dynamic and changing, as the culture and the demographics of your region change.
Here is what sounds ideal to me, with my limited experiences and thinking skills.
I want to live in a community with my friends. Yeah, people who have been there with me at certain times in my life. People who have listened to me, who know me, who like me the way I am, even if I drink a beer or say the s word man, or get mad when I’m just not throwing the frisbee as well as I think I could (disc golf). People who in some way or another have “shown me a part of Christ’s character”. (I know that is a huge phrase with huge implications; I’m sure we could all chill and ponder they mysteries of what that means).
You know? Wed live together, people like Tim, Mike, Mark, Mark, Debbie, Melissa, Brian, Jeff, Steve, Mike, Annie (my wife man, yea!), Rachel, Justin, Amy, Amy, Andrea, et. al. All of these people have impacted my life, somehow “shown me Christ”. But the closest one lives 1,000 miles away man, and we’re all spread out.
We’d live in a community together. We would go through life’s ups and downs together. Tim would definitely have the garden, alright? We would all share stuff like cars or HDTV’s, those things you just press down on and it cores your apple and gives you 8 nice slices, or whatever. We would help each other with kids but never the diapers, not goin’ there. We’d come together to “worship the Lord” (again, huge phrase wrapped in huge mystery and awesomeness, right?) in my yard or something, around a fire, maybe spontaneously. No one would not have to drive 35 minutes one way up the hill to go to the 9:30 am service because we’d be together man. We wouldn’t need to make the same trip for Wednesday night Bible study. This would be our “church” man.
But somehow, we wouldn’t be all about ourselves. Somehow we’d actively care for the poor, give stuff away like the apple slicer if someone needed it, preach Christ by our love, reach out and let others chill with us in our community. But you would have to sign this pledge sheet thing that said you’d never swear, drink a beer, bet on the Angels (huge winning streak right now man) or smoke, or own a gun (okay man, we wont’ do the pledge sheet). And then other communities would get set up if ours got too full or something, I don’t know.
So this would be more what my life looked like, instead of not knowing even the names of the neighbors two doors down. Instead of checking out the MLB lines on a Sunday morning to place some kind of parlay wager, I’d be loving people, I’d know them man, and they’d know me.
I know that what sounds “ideal” isn’t perfect or even ideal when it does happen. What I’ve described would suck at times, probably even a lot, because when we’re with each other, man we can get on each others nerves. I’m pretty bad at not getting all mad (or annoyed, judgemental, or whatever else isn’t love) at other people, friends included. I really suck sometimes, but we all do sometimes, right? But that’s part of it, isn’t it? Isn’t this more of a picture of church than me “connecting” with people by smiling and saying hello to people who live an hour away from me, once a week on a Sunday morning or twice a week if we go to a kind of Bible study?
There are steps I could take to move towards this ideal. I admit that I’m a one to blame for not having something more like this. Yeah, maybe I’ll do something about it. I’ve enjoyed reading and thinking about your posts. Thanks guys, you rock. If anyone made it through all this, you’re the man/woman.
-Karl
The goal must be to allow God to be God in the gatherings and community that you call “church”. Paul said “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”
When people start to have tangible interactions with the living God, as well as connecting with those who are leading dynamic lives of faith and power because they also are having tangible interactions with the living God, then they (the lost) will turn to God, if they have any inclination to do so. And if not, then all the programs and cleverness you can muster will only fill a building with the unconverted who will fall away at the first hint of being bored, let alone persecution.