Body of Christ, Church Services, and a needed Reformation

Body of Christ, Church Services, and a needed ReformationFiled Under: church

Thanks for coming back!

Online Marketing has helped changed my view

Being in online marketing and learning what’s effective and why made me rethink a lot about the way that church is done and why it’s dying fast. Being passionate and emotional about something helps (it’s mainly why the pentecostals are growing rapidly…main natural reason) but much of the church is declining rapidly throughout America.

Is the Gospel no longer relevant? Is Science replacing God? Is Atheism too powerful to argue against? No. No. and No. Point blank, the people are identifying the message anymore. Typically you could talk in a authoritarian voice and people would follow you but no so in the church anymore. People have become glazed by the message, be it good or bad.

Why are they glazed about pulpit messages? They have lost respect, honor, and admiration for the clergy, therefore the church. Not only that, many pastors speak in Greek and Hebrew but they can’t break it down to common-day American English. Pastors speak messages that people can’t identify with. The bible is clear “to a Jew, I am a Jew”, so when we are among different cultures we should shape HOW we communicate the message, not the message itself.

Some reformed christians will be like “No, the issue is the message has changed”. Eh, it’s partly an issue but not as big as you think, liberal churches that deny Christ=God is few and far between.

Declining churches and mini-history of the dialogue

So, we have an issue, obviously, of declining church members/converts. I think the issue is the METHOD in how the church communicates the gospel. We are preaching AT people and not TO people. We are being authoritarian and not speaking as a humble servant.

For America specifically, I think churches should change their cultures/services to include a dialogue. I say this because it’s extremely biblical and because it’s effective (as seen by the internet). The bible states all believers are priests. This new status is a high privilege, that once only a selected group of a few people, literally you had to be a VERY VERY rare person to become a priest. Chosen by God, meeting numerous specifics, and you got to hear God, while others couldn’t, you had a direct line to God. Now we all do, as new believers.

In addition to this, priests, before Christ and even now, had discussions to discuss doctrine and beliefs. The power to “bind and lose” that Peter was given (by Christ), was actually the power to pick doctrine. He was saying, when the church agrees “x means this…..”, that is what it is. So, this means that the CHURCH (everyone…since we are all priests) has the power to discuss and debate doctrine. Not an elite hierarchy.

Again, NOT AN ELITE HIERARCHY. Meaning, the web designer, the tax collector, the mailman, and the priest have EQUAL authority to talk and make doctrine. This idea is somewhat new (from my understanding), the only group of people, other than the early church, is Quakers but they even have somewhat strayed away from this. I’m not a Quaker but I like some solid methodologies they promote.

So, within OT times, priests would get together to discuss doctrine and say “yes on this, no on this, etc”. Now today and for the past 2,000 years, Christians have had this GOD-given authority but have been suppressed from it for about 1,700 years.

How can we walk this out today?

Encourage dialogue within church services. Have vocal feedback at the end of the message and allow questions and any random comments.
Let others speak. Yes…even the former stripper and high school teacher.
Have discussions with people as your “lecture”. Basically have a debate while everyone watches.
Let atheists, anti-Christians, and any other non-Christian groups to speak.
Think about other ways to involve people.

Conclusion

I could support all this with Scripture but I don’t have time to find them all. I’m sure I could within 30 minutes but any pastor or christian wanting to learn more just look up contextualization and dialogue. I forgot the hebrew words for Jewish dialogue but I’m sure you can find it or maybe ask a Christian professor. I doubt this will ever come about but it would be awesome to see the church shine as the way Christ intended.

Joshua SciarrinoLast name; “Sure-Reno”