Over the past week, I've read articles, listened to books, and watched sermons (specifically by A. W. Tozer and Francis Chan) that have really gotten me thinking about how we can "fix the church." So here's my solution:
We can't.
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But here are four ways we can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, actually make a difference in our local churches, and therefore, the universal church.
1. Surrender to the Holy Spirit
There are two reasons we can't fix the church: first, because it is comprised of sinners, and second, because the Holy Spirit is the One who is doing the work. We can't underestimate His power.
First, remember that we are not broken. Reminding ourselves that we are already whole because of Christ refreshes us with the truth that we are not continually searching for something to fix us or something in which we find our value and validation.
But that's not all. It also reminds us that we can't use the "We're all broken, imperfect people, so it's fine" excuse anymore. Christ has made us new, and we have a clearly given responsibility to live victoriously in that truth (Philippians 1:27).
Secondly, Francis Chan reminds us that the church is fixed not by social programs or accountability partners, but by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one doing the work, although He is gracious enough to let us be included.We need to stop trying to fix the church or fix our own lives without letting the Spirit have control. It won't work any other way.
2. Pray for the Spiritual Condition of the Church
Chan tells the pastors he is guiding that if they are not praying for the people in their local church by name, then they shouldn't be doing anything else. It was because of this lack of personal responsibility that Chan left his megachurch, Cornerstone Church, to begin in-home churches, with a desire to go back to Scripture and reevaluate everything we thought we knew about "doing church".
But that challenge is not just for pastors, elders, or deacons. It's for all of us.
We need to pray like Paul does here:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)
We need to pray not for people to be fixed, but for people to be filled. Filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with Love, which is all in all.
It's not about fixing. It's about filling.
3. Hold A Proper View of God and Sin
I've been listening to A.W. Tozer's The Knowledge of the Holy, and am linking the free PDF here because it's a must. read.
In the preface, Tozer asserts that in order to have a thriving church, we need to understand how great our God is. We need to stop belittling Him and putting Him in terms that we understand.
The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men. This she has done not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic. With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. The words, “Be still, and know that I am God,” mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshipper in this middle period of the twentieth century.
The middle period of the twentieth century. Does not Tozer's analysis of the "modern" church sound drastically similar to the modern church of the twenty-first century? Many churches dim the reality of the Gospel. They tell lies like, "You are worthy", "You are essential", "You are valuable", and so on, often putting God and us in the same plane.
Here's the truth: We are not valuable apart from Christ.
What is so great about us that makes us think that we have the ability to be valued (which is what valuable means, anyway)?
Being valuable and being valued are two different things.
God values us, and in Christ, we are valuable. But apart from Christ, we are not valuable; we are sinners destined to an eternity apart from God. God values us although we are not able to be valued; although we don't deserve it, God loves us with an everlasting love. He loves His own to the end (John 13:1).
So of course we want people to understand how much God loves them and how precious they are to Him. But we aren't loved or valued because we deserve it, but because we don't. And that's what makes the truth that we are both loved and valued so priceless.
You can't understand the depths of God's love if you don't understand how massively it is undeserved. Tell people they're unworthy, because they are. But they are also worth it, according to Jesus (Hebrews 12:2).
Tozer discusses the gravity of our sin in this section of The Knowledge of the Holy:
The gospel can lift this destroying burden from the mind, give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.
4. Own Personal Responsibility
If we want to raise the numbers of millennials in the church since 59 percent of millennials raised in a church drop out, we can't put all the blame on "the church". We are the church. "It's also important to remember that as Christians we ARE the Church, therefore, we are the imperfection that is, the difference that needs to be, and the good that the Church is doing."
Millennials need to stick around even when they are frustrated or discouraged. We need to build each other up even when we don't get anything out of it. We need to get out of this mentality that we only need to go to church when we feel like it, or the mentality that we don't need "church" at all.
If we didn't need church, God wouldn't have founded it or given each person a different gift that is vital for the furthering of the kingdom. In one sermon, Francis Chan challenges us to see the vitality of the church; you can watch this worthwhile sermon here.
We need to recognize our personal responsibility to read the Bible together, pray like Paul discusses in Ephesians 3 and Colossians 1, and have true Christ-honoring fellowship. We need to go back to the Bible and read it for what it is, and not for what we think it should be. The Holy Spirit doesn't just need to be included, He needs to be our one true Guide.
The church will begin to be "fixed" when we begin to be filled, but it all starts with our surrendering over to the Holy Spirit. Surrendering happens when we recognize that we can't do it on our own.
We are filled when we pour ourselves out in our devotion to the church; we can't abandon our local church just because we're frustrated. If we want to see change, we have to stick around and allow the Spirit to do His work.
