Believing Barna???

George Barna (US church pollster) says that America's faith community is changing (no kidding....does he think we have been asleep, I suppose some are). The reason he gives for this is that "there are more than twenty million adults who have dropped out of church, not because they've lost interest in spiritual matters or are disconnecting from God, but because they want more of God in their lives. These are believers who are less interested in attending church and more interested in being the church" (A New Kind of Church, Baker Books 2007).

I read this on the weekend and it reminded me of Wednesday night. One of the guests at our home group this week asked how we all got involved with the church. Did we grow up in it and if not, how did we get here? It was interesting to hear everyones stories. A few of us were brought up with the church as an important part of our lives, others of us had been involved in the church and had given up for various reasons, and still some others had not much history with the church at all. There was a common thread that ran through each story - the reason why they are actively involved in the church now is because they feel they are learning more about Jesus and less about the church.

Isn't this the whole purpose of the church's existence? To follow Jesus' command when he said "go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you" (Matthew 28:19-20, NLT).

Am I blind or something? Because I don't see it saying go and make disciples by teaching them rules that will set them above everyone else and church politic so they will eventually run themselves ragged and be driven into the ground. I understand that these are done under spiritual words, such as "holiness" or "commitment." We make ourselves feel better about doing these things to people if we can somehow find an obscure Scripture that "supports" what we are doing.

I believe in holiness, commitment and the church. But we have taken Jesus, his teachings, and his people and turned them into a strange religion where we decide to play God. The truth is we are not playing God because God wouldn't do these things; we are playing puppet master with God's people.

Instead of telling people what to, we need to value their relationship with God and trust God to speak to them and trust them to listen. If we can help people to listen to God and do what he tells them, isn't that the biggest thing we can ever teach. I know people who have done a lot in a church building, and who appear to have it together on the outside, and then flame out miserably. And then I know people who others might look down because they do certain things or look a certain way, and these people have gone on to be huge influences for God in their families and communities. So we never know...and so it's best not to pretend to know...and best to play our parts and not the part of God.