Articles
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Down with Christianity – for Christ’s
Sake
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We’re Sorry
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It is Time
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Consumer Church
Down with Christianity. For
Christ’s Sake.
As a matter of full disclosure, I love Jesus.
I’m a pastor. And despite our countless faults, I love the Church.
But like others, I’ve become convinced that the greatest threat to
the cause of Christ is the religion that bears his name –
Christianity.
Jesus offered hope and unconditional love. He
offered a life of meaning, purpose and joy. He stood in opposition
to the religious leaders of his day. They offered condemnation;
Jesus offered forgiveness. They set themselves as lords over the
people; Jesus came to serve. They demanded obedience to oppressive
religious laws governing every aspect of life; Jesus offered freedom
to live better than the law demanded through the power of the Holy
Spirit. Religion was a taming and civilizing force. Jesus said,
“Come, follow me,” offering an adventurous life lived by faith. The
response to Jesus was strong - the “sinners” absolutely loved him
and the religious folks killed him.
In the beginning, Christians dramatically
changed the world for the better. It was not an easy road, and to
be a Christian was to put your life at risk. Many Christians were
burned alive and fed to lions by the Romans, yet the lives they
lived, the care they gave, and the love they shared drew increasing
thousands to embrace Jesus as the forgiver of their sins and
the leader of their lives. Eventually even the Roman emperor
would publicly embrace Christ, and the Christian faith essentially
became the state religion of the Empire. The Romans were a changed
people; unfortunately, they returned the favor. The “barbarian
faith” of the Christians was radically transformed by the Romans.
Christian religious leaders began dressing as pompously as the pagan
Roman priests had dressed. As Christians, we abandoned gathering in
homes and public places, and used vast amounts of money (often from
the poor) to build magnificent cathedrals. We acquired wealth and
privilege. We began to use violence against others, just as it had
been used against us. Increasingly, we ceased to be a movement of
God for the good of the world and became an institutional religion
focused on advancing ourselves.
This was not what Jesus had in mind. Jesus did
not come to establish a new religion. He came to release us from
its constricting power and expose the emptiness of its promises.
Jesus came to set us free. Not, of course, free to sin, but free to
sacrificially serve one another in love, and free to live the lives
we were created to live. Not once did Jesus ever say “Christianity
is the way, the truth, and the life.” Instead, Jesus tells us, “I
am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Once, millions embraced Christ because of the
faith, hope, and love that characterized the Christian community.
Now millions flee from Christ because faith, hope, and love are so
lacking in today’s Christian communities. While we rail against the
world, the greatest threat to God’s mission is us. In my
conversations with those who’ve rejected the church and the
Christian faith, not once has the issue ever been Jesus. In every
case, the issues are with those who claim to follow him.
As churches, we have marketed and promoted
ourselves and called it “offering Christ.” We have spent our
resources “for the glory of God” when it usually brings more glory
to us. We say we follow Christ but avoid the places Jesus would be
and the people he would be hanging out with. We’ve withdrawn into
a Christian subculture with its own man-made rules, lingo,
bookstores, radio stations, and coffee houses. Jesus said “Go” and
we’ve walled ourselves off in fortresses we’ve built “for the
community.” We pay lip service to the needs of the world but spend
most of our money on ourselves. We forever criticize the ways of a
secular, materialistic, politically driven society but don’t
hesitate to use those very ways to advance our own goals. We are
known for our endless condemning, though our most oft cited verse
says God loved the world - so much that he gave his only Son
to set it free.
For Christ’s sake, let’s start over.
We can do life with Jesus without being a
follower of what is, perhaps wrongly, called Christianity. We can
embrace Jesus without religiosity. We can bypass all the baggage
and follow Jesus himself in a life lived by faith. Christian
community can be simple gatherings of people who want to know Jesus
more and become more like him, meeting (as in the New Testament) in
homes and public places. Being a church doesn’t have to be
expensive. We can and should spend most of time and resources
addressing the spiritual and practical needs of the world around
us.
Mobile is blessed to have many churches who
honor Christ and serve the community in many ways. Additionally,
some groups are following Jesus by doing what he said to do – going
to the places he would go, respectfully sharing his love with all,
inviting them to get to know Jesus, and offering themselves as part
of that process. Their focus is not on indulging or glorifying
themselves, but on serving. Their focus is not on a rule-filled
religious life, but on the freedom that comes when we walk with
Christ.
If you’ve rejected the religion of Christianity
and the Church, that’s understandable. But don’t reject Jesus
because of our failures. Jesus made it clear that community
is essential, so find an authentic body of believers that cares
about the things he cares about and is doing their best to follow
him. Then, join them. Be part of a movement that walks by faith,
shares his love, and participates in God’s reshaping of reality.
Don
Woolley is the pastor of Jesus Tribe (www.jesustribe.org). They
worship at Satori Coffee House at 6:30pm on the first Wednesday of
each month. They have various worship services in nightclubs and on
an empty lot on Dauphin Street. In addition, Don is pastor of
Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church, a traditional but very
outwardly focused church at the intersection of Pleasant Valley and
Government, just behind Colonel Dixie. To get involved, find out
more, or criticize his terrible article, send emails to
.
[Top]
We’re Sorry
An open letter to non-Jesus
followers and those hurt by the Church
[Below is an ad/article we placed in
the Lagniappe – a local bi-weekly. This is the second time we’ve
done something like this and the response has been really positive.
Honestly acknowledging our faults helps dismantle barriers and
encourages healing among those wounded by the church.]
Ash Wednesday is a
time of confession. We can’t speak for all “The Church,” but for
our part, here are some things for which we are truly sorry:
That we’ve been
judgmental. Judging is God’s job, no one else’s.
That we’ve been
self-righteousness. While we might debate other issues,
self-righteousness was something Jesus never tolerated.
That we took the
life-giving message of Christ and turned it into a numbing,
soul-quenching, self-centered institution interested primarily in
its own maintenance and growth.
That we have spent
millions on the finest of facilities, somehow convincing ourselves
that building
buildings equates to “success” in building the Kingdom of God.
That we have
produced a vast army of “consumer Christians," rejecting Jesus’
message of “deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me” and
joining the call of “give me the best of everything - programming,
facilities, and feel good messages - or I’ll go worship [myself]
elsewhere.
That we’ve turned
the all-out adventure of following Christ into a repressive,
man-made-rules-filled religion.
That, on both the
left and the right, we’ve been more loyal to political parties than
Christ.
That we’ve implied
being a follower of Christ means fitting into some mold - looking
and acting a specific way (i.e. like us) instead of just being set
free by Christ to be the man or woman God created you to be.
That we, of all
people, have tried to put God in a box. We have missed out the
fullness of God’s love, grace, and power and caused others to do the
same.
That there is
often among us an anti-intellectual attitude. Jesus said we are to
love God with all of our minds, meaning we should learn and
understand as much as we can, while acknowledging: it’s GOD,
we can’t possibly understand him completely.
That Sunday
morning church services are often an experience of putting on a
happy face, superficial greetings, and an absence of acceptance,
while twelve step meetings are frequently a place of brutal honesty,
real community, and unconditional support. It kills us that people
can honestly say they have experienced Jesus more in twelve step
meetings than in church.
That the church
has failed to rise up against injustice and evil, and in fact, has
often corrupted our beliefs to endorse them, especially in the
instances of slavery, civil rights, the environment, and countless
unjust wars down through the ages.
That we have hid
behind a host of flimsy excuses to justify our status as the most
segregated body in America, both racially and socio-economically.
That we have said
“love your neighbor as yourself” while spending nearly all our money
acquiring stuff for ourselves while billions live in abject poverty
across the planet, and millions die from conditions and diseases we
could prevent if we cared.
That we have said
“love the sinner but hate the sin” when, in many cases, we’ve
publicly hated the sinner, and secretly enjoyed the same sin.
There is a whole
lot more we have to apologize for, but you get the idea - We‘re
Sorry. We’re genuinely sorry for all the ways we, as Christians,
have given Jesus a bad name and harmed his cause of setting the
world free through love. We’d only ask that you not hold our
failures against him. In Christ, there really is love, hope, joy,
and peace unlike anything the world has to offer. While “Christians”
may have failed to love, he has not. We‘d also ask you to give us
another chance as the church. All over the city, people are coming
together, struggling to get it right. (Jesus Tribe is just one
among those groups.) Sure, we‘re going to blow it sometimes, but we
are genuinely trying to be the people of God we are meant to be.
Join us. Find and join an authentic community of Jesus followers -
worshipping, serving, and growing together - becoming all God
created you to be. Help us get it right.
Repentant and Incredibly Hopeful,
Jesus Tribe
[Top]
It is time!
In the Lord of the Rings, good and evil are at
war and the fate of all “Middle Earth” hangs in the balance. Far
away in the Shire, the hobbits are largely clueless. But another
group, the Ents, are not clueless. They are good, and they are well
aware of the situation, but they are undecided as to engage in the
conflict or not. To their credit they gather for a meeting – an Ent
council - to discuss the issue. They talk together a long time – a
very, very long time. Two in-the-know-hobbits, Merry and Pippen,
anxiously await the verdict. And then, the Ents finally
reach a decision. The verdict? They won’t engage. They won’t
help. They’ll sit the war out.
Across the city of Mobile, good and evil are at
war and the fate of tens of thousands hangs in the balance.
Seriously.
Many Jesus followers and non-Jesus followers
alike are clueless. But there is a large group of Christians who
are not clueless. They are good, and they are well aware of the
situation, but they are undecided as to engage in the conflict or
not. To their credit they gather to discuss the issues. They meet
on Sunday mornings, weeknights, and even before dawn. And they talk
together a long time – a very, very long time. And adding to that,
they email and blog, and meet for breakfast, coffee, and lunch to
talk some more. But after all that, we won’t engage. We won’t
help. We callously, selfishly, sit the war out. And then we make
up lame excuses to make ourselves feel better. But we know the
truth and so does God.
“for you are a chosen people. You
are a kingdom of priests, God's holy nation, his very own
possession. This is so you can show others the goodness of God, for
he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter
2:9
The situation is this. Every man, woman, and
child was created for a divine and holy purpose. It is in Christ
that we discover who we are. And it is in Christ that we discover
our God-given destinies, the reasons for our existence. It is a
matter of embracing our true identity, not just intellectually but
in action. Otherwise we are living pathetically below
God’s intentions for us. We weren’t called out of darkness into
light so we could yak endlessly about how cool the light is, or
incessantly worry about how to soak up more light in a self-absorbed
kind of way. 1 Peter 2:9 tells us we are called out of darkness
into the light not just, or even primarily, for our own sakes but
“so you can show others the goodness of God.”
I just got back from a prayer walk through RV
Taylor – a public housing project on Michigan Ave. I see the same
things there, I see everywhere: brokenness, bondage, pain, despair,
need….and opportunities that beg to be seized. While on the walk, I
prayed with a man for healing from his addictions. I saw angry
glares and looks of distrust that have their origins in events that
span our history as a nation. And there, too, at RV Taylor, I again
met Christ and experienced the hope only he can bring. In separate
conversations, followers in situations much more challenging than
mine lamented with me the lack of workers for fields so ripe for
harvest, but encouraged me “don’t give up.”
From the 08’ers to the projects, and everywhere
in this city, people are enslaved by selfishness, addictions,
distractions, busyness, and religion. And we know it, and we talk
about it, and we sit and do little to nothing. At least the Ents
had the integrity to actually voice their decision – “we won’t
help.” Instead, we lie to ourselves, we pretend our talking is
helping. And maybe it is, some, but it’s not enough. Not by a long
shot.
The institutional church is not all-together
inclined to go to the places Jesus would go if he were here. It is
ill-equipped to reach out effectively enough or fast enough to free
the masses with the good news of Jesus Christ. God is using the
institutional church in fantastic and wonderful ways, and I praise
God for that. But there is a sense of urgency to our mission that
requires a new way to be the church. And the time is now.
The last two plus years of “planting a new
church” have been filled with great blessings and significant gains
for the Kingdom, but it’s also been a painful time of God pruning
from me all that I thought it meant to be the church. From the
beginning, we said church was not something you do, or a place you
go, it’s who we are 24/7. But in my mind, church was still very
much about gathering for a hopefully large, and definitely well
orchestrated worship service. We spent many months gearing up for
that and then launched a weekly service. It was good. We liked
it. But it wasn’t what we were called to do. And because it
took all our time and resources to pull it off, we served less and
reached out less (except to try to get more people to the service).
To our credit, we had the discernment to realize our error and the
courage to pull the plug and start over.
In contrast to my
ideas, Jesus’ only definition of church is found in Matthew 18:20:
For where two or three come together
in my name, there am I with them."
We all know that, but we also know that a
church of a few people isn’t considered a great success these days.
Still, it was just such churches, and their expression of love and
community, that turned the entire Roman world upside down. They had
none of the resources or property we think of when we think of
church. Instead, they met in small groups in one another’s homes
and in public places. Their worship involved reading Scripture and
discussing it. They shared their stories of God with one another.
They sang. They celebrated the Lord’s Supper with bread and wine.
They ate meals together. Then, they took the good news everywhere
they went.
Through the centuries, great revivals and
movements of God have included a return to these simple ways of
being God’s people. The church is at its best, most beautiful, and
spiritually powerful when it is stripped of everything but
its primal mission. Mobile is ripe for spiritual renewal. God is
moving. Of course Jesus Tribe is just part of what God is doing in
Mobile, but for God’s sake, let’s do our part to the fullest.
The times call for less talk and more action.
So, in Jesus’ name, I’m calling you out.
I feel strongly that God is calling Jesus Tribe
to serve him in new and more radical ways, as an active partner in a
great expansion of the Kingdom. It falls to us to go, with the
weapons of faith, hope, and love, to the hard places of Mobile.
We’re to creatively share the love of Christ with those who reject
the institutional church and those who have been rejected by the
institutional church. Rather than launching elaborate worship
services, I believe we’re called to be a network or association of
“simple churches” that serve faithfully, and intentionally multiply
across the city.
Now, here’s where a lot of you will want to
quit reading. Prayerfully resist the temptation. This is the
getting off your butts and actually doing something part. Here are
some things you can do:
Start a Church
Gather your friends and neighbors and be the
church – a simple, New Testament kind of church. Find a way to
serve others together in your neighborhood and across the city,
discuss a passage of Scripture, eat together, share your burdens,
help one another, pray together, and pray for those who don’t know
Jesus. Take up a collection and use it to help others less
fortunate (as opposed to paying staff, utilities, operating
expenses, etc.). Join other simple churches in the network to take
on bigger projects. Decide how often you will meet, and what you
will do, and share responsibilities. And (this is crucial)
intentionally grow and then multiply. You can split, or one or two
can leave the group and start a new group. Regular people did this
naturally for the first three hundred plus years of our faith. You
can do it too. We can help.
Start a Life Transformation Group
Find one or two people of the same gender and
form a Life Transformation Group for intense spiritual growth. Meet
for one hour each week. You’ll do three things: (1) Hold one
another accountable for being and doing all you were created to be
and do. (2) Dig into God’s Word. (3) Pray for lost friends. I’ll
re-send the LTG info in the next few days. You can do LTG’s with
fellow Christians but you should also reach out to non-followers who
are searching. When you grow to four, meet for two or three weeks
and then split.
Start an Alpha Course
God uses Alpha in beautiful ways. Alpha is a
ten week introduction to the basics of the Christian faith. There
are three basic components to Alpha. First, you eat together. This
can’t be skipped because this is an important and natural
relationship building time. For food, you can potluck, take turns,
order out, whatever. You just want to set a definite “start” time.
Second, thirty minutes later, give folks a short break to smoke,
then start the Alpha video (lessons include “Who is Jesus?” “Why
did Jesus die?” etc.) The video will last about 20 minutes. It is
an uncompromising presentation of basic Christian beliefs presented
in an engaging way. Third, when the video is over, ask them what
they think. The rule in Alpha is that anyone can say whatever they
want to say. No comment is too offensive. No questions and doubts
are out of line. When it’s quitting time, call it a night. If you
have enough folks you can start a group yourself. We’ll provide all
the guidance and materials needed. Otherwise, round up your friends
and bring them to the next Course. The current group finishes up
next Thursday with a Celebration event designed as an intro to the
next Course. They’ll be bringing interested friends and it would be
great for you to come with your non-Christian friends and check it
out.
Help with our LoDa monthly outreach.
We do a lot of different things, but one of the things we do every
month is go downtown when the city has its LoDa Artwalk. We have an
artist painting and music playing. We give out bottled water,
lemonade (or coffee), and The Message New Testaments. As the
nightclub crowd rolls in, we have different musicians and bands play
a mix of clean secular and good contemporary Christian music. It is
a no-pressure outreach (like everything we do). If people are
interested and want to talk then we don’t miss the opportunity, but
we don’t force it in any way. We’re not there to argue and we’re
sure not there to condemn. We’re just there to share the love of
Jesus in a really natural way. We always need help setting up,
manning the table, providing music, art, etc. etc.
Start a whole new ministry
God has planted his ideas in many of your
hearts. Do your part in making those ideas a God-honoring reality.
So (for those of you who are still reading)
what’s it going to be? Are you going to really join the
cause of Christ or just keep talking about it? Are you going to
help, or like the Ents (and the rich young ruler) walk away?
My cell is 689-4333.
My email is
.
My faith is that God will send workers into the
fields of Mobile so ripe for harvest.
My fear is that few will heed the call and go.
My prayer is that God will prove my fears
unfounded.
His,
Don Woolley
Jesus Tribe
Many Strengths, Many Struggles, Many Colors.
One Lord, One Tribe.
[Top]
“Consumer Church”
Reflections from Jesus Tribe
[Note: we
sent this out via email but chose not to publish it in the
Lagniappe.]
First of all, we confess we are
very, very far from being perfect. As a group we’re
definitely still struggling to understand and embrace God’s will.
When it comes to getting it all right, we definitely haven’t.
Second, we believe that God loves us so much he will meet us
anywhere, anytime, regardless. Thankfully, no matter how far we’ve
gotten off track, he is there ready to work in us and through us.
That’s true for us as individuals and as churches. With that said,
from our lowly vantage point, we believe a large section of the
Church has gotten seriously off track, and the purpose of this
article is to publicly wrestle with the problem, as we see it.
Despite assertions to the contrary,
church has primarily become an event people attend and a
place they go, instead of just who we are as a community of
Jesus followers 24/7. The church has created this problem by its
efforts to attract people through its Sunday morning productions,
buildings, and programs. These efforts are well intentioned. The
idea is that if we can get people into the building by providing for
all their wants (“felt needs”), then we can get them to embrace
Christ and the way of life he offers. To that end, some churches
offer a place for people to work out and play basketball, programs
for everything imaginable, indoor playgrounds, the finest meeting
facilities, state-of-the-art technology, etc. etc. The difficulty
is that when you give people all they want and the best of
everything the world has, it becomes difficult, with any integrity,
to embrace Jesus’ standard of discipleship:
“Then he [Jesus] called the crowd to him
along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me,
he must deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me.” (Mark. 8:34)
So corrupt is our understanding,
congregations actually hear these words of Christ used as an
admonition to give money so that more self-serving buildings can be
built, and more self-serving activities can be maintained and
expanded. Of course buildings, programs, and events are not in
themselves bad. Some are great. But they can have the unintended
consequence of distracting us from, rather than furthering, our
primal mission – to GO, sharing the love of Christ
with a hurting world and serving as a light in dark places.
The root problem is this:
CONSUMERISM. It invades the church today virtually unchallenged,
even though it strikes at the heart of what it means to follow
Christ. Regardless of the good intentions, there is a huge
difference between offering Christ and promoting ourselves. We’ve
come to an unprecedented time where churches actually advertise,
“Check out the city’s newest place to work out,” or “we have the
largest indoor children’s play area in the city.” Paul’s words are
used as cover: “I have become all things to all men so that by
all possible means I might save some.” But it’s difficult to
imagine Paul writing to the Corinthians, “Sorry to hear the
numbers are down. Try building a large indoor playground!
You know, like Chuck E Cheese.”
It’s also important to remember
that Jesus absolutely loved the worst of sinners and they loved him
back (it was the religious leaders who rejected and killed him) but
Jesus didn’t practice our faults to reach us. He didn’t become a
prostitute to reach prostitutes, yet when it comes to reaching a
society drowning in consumerism, that’s exactly what many are
doing. This has produced a vast number of spiritual consumers who
insist on the best, and most expensive, of everything in return for
their attendance and support. This is expressed in countless ways,
including parents at a megachurch who began looking for a new church
because they weren’t satisfied with the level of programming….for
their two year old! Again, this may not immediately
strike us as odd (which shows what a mess we’ve become), but can you
imagine this kind of mentality in the New Testament church?! Jesus
meant for us to be the most loving, selfless people on earth.
Certainly, he never intended for us to be so bizarrely consumeristic.
A key unaddressed question concerns
who is being embraced as Lord when people “come to faith” in
a consumer church? Is it Jesus, or is it ourselves? Jesus said,
“If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it. But
if you give up your life for me, you will find true life.”
(Matthew 16:25). In light of this and in light of Jesus’ blunt
statement that we are not his followers unless we deny ourselves and
pick up our cross and follow him (into the world around us), how can
we possibly believe that “consumer Christianity” is even real
Christianity?! Will we not one day look back on the consumer church
with all the pride with which we remember the selling of
indulgences?
As the Church, we can and should do
better - for God’s sake and for the sake of the world that Jesus
came and died for. If you are in a church that has uncritically
embraced consumerism, we encourage you to be a voice that challenges
this well-intentioned but tragically misguided approach, while
supporting the many good things the church is doing. If you are
looking for a church that hasn’t embraced consumerism, there are
lots of options in Mobile and Jesus Tribe is just one of these.
Jesus Tribe seeks to offer an alternative, and very New Testament,
way to be the church. No buildings. No elaborate productions.
Just small groups of people struggling together to follow Christ,
meeting as “simple churches” in homes, coffee houses, and other
public places to worship God, study the Bible, support one another,
and serve the community together.
If you’d like to get involved or if
you have an irresistible need to set us straight (we need the help),
send emails to
or call Don Woolley at 689-4333.
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