Should it stay or should it go? Or better, what should stay and what should go?
Not too long ago I came across a series of post at The Church and Postmodern Culture called (Re)thinking Christianity. Here a number of people were asked two questions:
- First, what is one believe, practice or element of Christianity that must die so that Christianity can move forward and truly impact the world in the next 100 years?
- Second, what is one belief, practice or element of Christianity that we must hold onto and live out more fully so that Christianity can move forward and truly impact the world in the next 100 years?
In brief, here's what people said.
Needs to Change:
- Young people don't have a voice within the church
- Pastors as spiritual vendors
- Disunity
- Nostalgia
- Good discipleship to youth
- Potlucks
- Spoken prayers in the worship service
- Therapeutic believing
- Doubting alone
- Centrality of buildings for spiritual formation
- Avoiding surprise
- Institutional Christianity
- Our worship of the bible
- Waging war on women
- Performance
Needs to Stay:
- Hope that God will call competent people
- Repentance
- Corporate confession of sin
- Long periods of silence in the worship service
- Times of testimony
- Doubting in community
- Corporate prayer
- Eucharist
- Loving our enemies
- Freedom in Christ, owning our own faith
- Reconciliation
- Sense of urgency
And now some questions:
Do you agree with this? What would you change?
If you've bailed on the church, why? What would you change?
If you've stayed, why? What do you embrace?
Is there anything problematic about the above two questions?
If all of these things need to change, where does it leave us as a church in terms of a place to stand?
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