The source of pride and self-righteousness comes from a mind set that the institution IS the same as Christianity, and therefore has the sole right to speak on the authority of Christ. The truth is, Christianity is not an institution. It is not a corporate structure. It is not a building, set of rules, hierarchy, or human authority.
Christianity is a movement. It is comprised of individuals who go forth into the world every day to share the Good News that Jesus Christ is Risen! Yes, these individuals gather together to celebrate, grow, study, learn, share, pray, give, and encourage one another.
This “body” of believers who gather in community sets apart various individuals to serve each other in a variety of roles. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Church at Ephesus that God has called some to serve as apostles, prophets, evangelist, pastors, and teachers. (Eph. 4: 11).
The entire body, though, has equal participation, equal responsibility, and equal authority. By virtue of their relationship in Christ, each is already empowered and ordained to engage the work of Christ as the Spirit leads.
In today’s church, the gate keepers, mostly male, protect their holy turf by restricting the participation of the person in the pew. They control with fear of excommunication along with damnation and hell, for failure to obey, in all matters of faith and doctrine, the teaching of the gate keepers. Fear is a powerful motivator, but the younger generations are no longer buying into that mind set.
The younger generation is looking for an authentic expression of the Kingdom of God. They are looking for a spiritual experience that is consistent with the claims of Jesus, as they understand them in the written New Testament.
They are rejecting in greater numbers the God of the Old Testament, as taught by the gate keepers, and claiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as written in the New. They are rejecting the controlling, top heavy, heavy handed tactics of the organized church.
They are asking questions, seeking relationship with God through Christ, finding a new ways to live as faithful servants and disciples of Christ, engaging others in their faith, and seeking to be faithful to God in all things. They have come to understand that their authority to engage in their ministries and work is given by the Holy Spirit, not the Bishop, or the executive leader of the denomination.
Mainline denominational churches across America are dying. The centralized authority that refuses to allow individuals to engage in meaningful ministry and relationship with Christ is suffocating the church.
The gate keepers are refusing to engage creative and deeply spiritual individuals in ministry. Gate keepers fear, more than anything else, a loss of control. They would rather die in their vestments and offices than release control of the ministry to the people of God.
If you don’t believe me, look around. Who are the gate keepers? How did they get there? When was the last time you saw someone ordained to ministry who was poor?
In virtually all churches today, to be ordained to celebrate the sacraments requires a four year college degree, followed by a Master of Divinity at an approved theological school. Master of Divinity usually requires a minimum of ninety-two (92) credit hours at a cost of approximately three-hundred ($300.00) dollars per hour. There are not many poor who can afford that, and I do not see many denominations rushing to pay their way.
The church loses, when it loses the voice of the poor, the marginalized, the weak, the women, the children, and the current societal lepers and outcasts. It loses when it becomes an institution. It loses when it forsakes Christ for a position of power and authority.
So here are my predictions. (Without the added value of a crystal ball.)
1 – The Church of Rome, as well as most Churches and denominations in America, will eventually implode. They will shrink and downsize, holding onto their last vestiges of power and authority, before imploding. But it will eventually happen.
2 – A new movement, already emerging, will take center stage. It will be a movement free of hierarchical claims, based on a common ministry.
3 – Christ will be glorified and exalted in and through the lives of individuals, lived out in community. The Church of Jesus Christ will prevail. The gates of hell cannot stop it. But it will look radically different than it does today.
How do I know this? All you have to do is read Church History 101.
I am really excited in the day in which we are living. No other time in history have we had the ability to communicate and organize as we do today. The entrenched power structures will never reform. Nor will they ever relinquish control.
Martin Luther could not make it happen in the Reformation. Out of the Reformation a new order emerged. It will happen again. It is already beginning. We have the opportunity to be on the forefront of that new time.
The exodus has begun and will continue. Present structures will begin to look like empty, white washed graves.
The new communities may not even meet in large structures. It may be more mobile. Rental space may be used instead of purchased buildings, to allow a greater flexibility to meet the rapidly changing needs of the community.
Clergy may not be seminary graduates. They may be mentored, as they were in the early church, to SERVE the people. They may be ordained by the people, not the institution. They will work side by side, hand in hand with the other members of the community.
No one ministry will be minimized, rejected, or elevated. The new communities will be built on freedom to engage the work of Christ without denominational permission.
We need to start looking at new wine skins. If we try to pour the new sense of what God is doing and calling forth into the old wine skins of the current Catholic and Protestant Church, the old wine skin will just burst and all the new wine will be wasted.
I do not know about you, but I am ready for new wine, new skins, a new wind to blow across the land. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Holy Spirit. Breathe on me, on us.
And, as I said at my ordination in 1995, “Here I am Lord. Send me”.
