Movement.

Today’s post is a callback to a short series I did this summer on the changing face of church, starting with this post on July 3.

As many of you know, Kellie and I are now happily up to our eyeballs in research for our doctoral programs, and my particular focus is on The Evangelical Exodus—why many Christians, especially Millennials, are no longer finding the life and spirit of Jesus in the modern church. I held a workshop recently to help refine the parameters of my research, and one of the questions that invited lively discussion was whether the Evangelical Church can be revived from within, or whether it must be revived from without.

It’s an interesting question, and I think history encourages us that both of these are possible and maybe even inevitable. Pretty much every modern church denomination was birthed in some kind of renewal, one that started organically—unscripted, unplanned, and uncontrolled—and (also inevitably) trended over time toward institutionalism. This is the way of things, and it’s not necessarily bad: A growing vine needs a trellis to grow upon, but we struggle with the ever-so-human temptation to shift attention from the life of the vine to the control of the trellis. So this beautiful organism we call the church necessitates regular and somewhat dramatic renewals! New wineskins.

In short, we need a new Jesus Movement!

Maybe you’ve heard of the new movie coming this February called Jesus Revolution; it’s the story of hippie Lonnie Frisbee and pastor Chuck Smith who forged an unlikely friendship in the late 60s and catalyzed a massive renewal among Christ-followers (and the unchurched), a movement whose effects are still felt today yet are waning. Even among nondenominational churches, institutionalism seems to be choking out of the life of Jesus: political collusion, petrified theologies, cultural fear. And as a result, a full half of Millennials have left regular church attendance (including online) but still claim a vibrant Christian faith. They love Jesus, just not the church.

So yes, we desperately need a new Jesus Movement.

When we talk about getting back to the original church vibe and ethos, we generally look at Acts 2 and yearn for the vitality and intimacy shared around meals, for the communal conscience that directed resources toward the neediest, and for the decentralized structures that empowered the many. But before the Early Church… there was an earlier church! Really.

Jesus said that “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” (Mt 18:20), and I think we can say with confidence that if Jesus is in the room, church is on! The church didn’t start with Pentecost (although it was certainly turbocharged by it); the church started three years before when Jesus gathered his first community. And this is important because the renewal of the church must take us back to the centrality of the person, message, and ministry of Jesus himself.

So what did Jesus’ church look like? As I see it, this earliest church was rooted in three things: 1) a message of hope and freedom, particularly for the poor, 2) a practice of ministering to people’s practical needs (through healing, deliverance, and the occasional fish dinner), and 3) a community of transformational fellowship as they talked, walked, and ate together. In a word, love. I think most modern churches would say, We’re still doing all that now! But the numbers say otherwise.

These facets of Jesus’ church were embedded inside an essential fourth element: His message, ministry, and community were conducted in contrast and challenge to the existing institutionalized “church” of his day. The Jewish “church,” of course, resisted Jesus’ efforts to revitalize it; their emotional identity, vocational security, and positional privilege had a death-grip on the status quo… and this is the same challenge faced by church leaders today. This is the definition of institutionalism.

Which is why we need a new Jesus Movement!

growing the soul

Any time we challenge large cultural currents, it’s vital that we quickly look to our own hearts. As Richard Rohr says, The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. How have we been complicit in protecting the status quo? And how can we personally return to the simplicity of Jesus’ all-encompassing care for others? Who are you loving today?

serving the world

If our generation is saying (with their feet if not their words) that today’s church doesn’t look a whole lot like Jesus, then we need to be listening with humility and compassion. The world needs Jesus, institutions not so much.

takeaway

Movement is genius.