Help! I'm an evangelical. Get me out of here!

I love the church, but something is happening to the church that I don't like. Over the past year I have visited a number of independent evangelical churches in the area where I live and my visits have left me feeling uneasy.

This is not because the Christians that I have met are ungodly people, or because the Bible is not being taught week by week, or because major heresy has crept unnoticed into church life. No, I feel uneasy because of the 'church culture' that seems to pervade many of these conservative evangelical churches - a culture that hinders Christian growth and denies outsiders the opportunity of hearing the gospel.

I do not claim to have a comprehensive grasp of the UK church scene, but I am sure that the churches I visited are representative of many others. I offer, therefore, a mixture of personal observation and biblical analysis of contemporary church life. If my analysis is correct (and I would love to be proved wrong!) then it is time to re-evaluate our priorities and our church practice.

Like a street artist who distorts and exaggerates the features of a friend's face, many conservative evangelicals seem to have settled for a caricature of church life. Although we defend our choices in the language of the gospel, in the end our church buildings, church rules and church furniture often take precedence over the genuine life-changing gospel message. If you don't believe me, try changing the time, style or location of a service in your church for the benefit of outsiders. I do not mean to be flippant, but sometimes churches seem to resemble golf clubs more than a community of transformed people. Somewhere down the line the risk-taking, vibrant, outward-looking church of Jesus Christ has turned in on itself and become obsessed with its own distorted image.
Here are some of my observations of our contemporary church scene:

Defenders of the status quo?

I was speaking recently at a Youth Service in a mission-minded, Bible-centred, contemporary church, but even here there were clearly staunch defenders of the status quo. An elderly member of the congregation arriving at the church door and realising (with some horror!) that it was a YOUTH service declared to one of the young people that she was going home (which she did). What amused me most about the situation was that the young man she spoke to kindly offered to give her a lift!

'Change' is a dirty word for many Christians and not just for the older generation. I have known many gracious older people who welcome change for the sake of the gospel and younger people who fiercely resist it. In a world that is rapidly changing around us, we often seek our security in routine and familiar ritual, but there is a real danger that our brand of churchmanship becomes a substitute for the gospel. We are not just people saved by God's grace; we are people saved by God's grace who meet at 11.30 am and 6.30 pm every Sunday, who always have five hymns, who only sing from the appointed hymn book and only use the received Bible version, etc. These 'essentials' of our faith represent a line that must not be crossed. Many Christians have, therefore, become defenders of the status quo. In one church where I spoke recently I asked the congregation to stand to sing as the collection was taken. This request, however, was totally ignored by the whole congregation (except my wife!) who knew that the collection was always received as people sat. As my wife was waved down by one of the church members I realised that the ignorant visiting speaker had suggested something that the congregation considered unreasonable - the line had been crossed!

Now, it goes without saying that not all change is good. We must be discerning about the new and faddish, but we must also look again at some of the things that we have unquestionably accepted in our church tradition, things that actually have no biblical foundation. Both old and new need to be constantly re-evaluated biblically, which will inevitably result in a changing church culture. A characteristic of living things is that they grow and develop. If your church is truly alive IT WILL CHANGE AND DEVELOP AND GROW and if your church refuses to change for the sake of the gospel it should expect to die.

I am not suggesting for a moment that change is not costly or painful - there will be 'growing pains'. It will be hard for some of us to lay aside certain aspects of church life that we hold dear, but we must if we want people to know Christ and become like Christ. Church life is essentially all about change. It is about non-Christians becoming Christians and it is about Christians becoming more like Christ. In John 3 Jesus uses the metaphor of being 'born again' (or 'born from above') to indicate the radical change required of Nicodemus. In Mark 1.15 Jesus calls for 'a U-turn' in the light of the coming Kingdom of God. Paul calls for the same radical change from the Athenians who worshipped idols in Acts 17.30. In Romans 12.2 Paul speaks about the radical change required in our Christian lives as we dedicate ourselves to God's service and reject the influence of a rebellious world; each of us must be 'transformed by the renewing of [our] mind'. In Romans 8.29 Paul speaks of Christians being 'predestined to be conformed to the likeness of [God's] Son'. The future too is described in the language of radical change; 1 Corinthians 15.51-52 speaks of our sudden and irreversible change in God's presence. Christians are to be transformed not transfixed!

We should welcome change, it is the very nature of our Christian lives. The question should not be, 'Should we change?' but 'How should we change?' 'What changes can we make that will help non-Christians hear the message of Christ, and will facilitate the growth of Christians in our church?' The arrangement of the chairs, the timing of the meeting, the location of the service, the number of hymns and songs you sing, the clothes you wear to church, etc. should not be badges of orthodoxy. They are simply the means to an end, and that end is that non-Christians become Christians and Christians become more like Christ. We are not called to defend the status quo, we are called to 'contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints' (Jude 3).

Members of a Christian ghetto?

In 1 Corinthians 9.19-23 Paul spells out his mission strategy for reaching a lost world with the gospel. Rather than expecting others (Jews and Gentiles) to become like him before they could hear the gospel, he went to them and identified with them so that they might hear the good news. In verse 22 Paul writes: 'I have become all things to all people so that by all means I might save some.'

Has the contemporary church lost that vision for the world? Many of the churches I have observed seem to turn Paul's missionary strategy on its head. Our unspoken strategy is that if people want to hear the message of Christ they need to become like us - to walk into our churches, to conform to the way we 'do' church and then they can hear the gospel. We do, of course, go out and distribute invitations to our services at Christmas and Easter, but still we are expecting people to hear the gospel on our terms. I have seen outsiders being glared at and spoken to rudely because they did not obey the unwritten rules of the church that there should be silence in the sanctuary(!) before the service begins. I have heard mature Christians complaining that a visitor smelt of alcohol. What do we expect from people who need Christ? We often seem to have different priorities to the Bible's.

It is time that we took a leaf out of Paul's book. We must welcome people into our churches, but ultimately if we want to reach a lost world for Christ we need to break out of our holy huddle and meet non-Christians in their territory. That is what Paul did! We need to get into the shoes of the people who live around us so that (by God's grace) we might save some. And then once they become Christians, they need to be able to follow our godly example as we follow Christ (1 Corinthians 11.1). That was Paul's missionary strategy. First, the proclamation and then the conformation, not the other way around.

I can think of a number of occasions when I have been asked to speak at evangelistic services, and have found out afterwards that there were actually no non-Christians present. I have now realised that there is a very simple explanation for this - Christians (often) do not have any non-Christian friends! We have such a developed Christian sub-culture that we have no need (and no desire) to socialise with people who are not Christians. But how are we going to reach a non-Christian world if we do not have any non-Christian friends whom we meet and eat with on a regular basis? As well as Jesus's example here, notice Paul's commitment to the Thessalonians (1Thessalonians 2.8) to share not only the gospel but his life as well. Church-sponsored evangelism does not discharge us of our evangelistic responsibilities as Christians. We need non-Christian friends with whom we earn the right to speak about Christ. It is time to break out of the ghetto.

Participants in a joyless ceremony?

I realise that we are not all 'smilers' by nature, but I find it quite revealing sometimes standing in front of congregations during services. When we sing lofty words about the great truths of our faith I look across a sea of faces each looking like they've just had a tooth extracted and wonder what is going on in people's minds. Are we really engaging with the words and using them to express our joy in the gospel, or are we just going through the motions? Once or twice I have drawn people's attention to their stony faces, which generally promotes a warmer response, but sometimes they just continue to grimace for the gospel!

Take the time to look around your church next Sunday. Does this look like a company of redeemed people? Would people be attracted to Christ because of your church? (Those of us who have brought non-Christian friends to church will know how our church takes on a new light when we try to see it through their eyes.) Of course, it would be wrong to directly equate smiling with joy, or to suggest that we should be thoughtlessly bouncy in our services. There are times when it is more appropriate to cry together than laugh together. In my church the person leading the prayers about the search in Soham for Holly and Jessica cried. How right that was! She expressed what we all felt. Church must be real. Nevertheless, I simply want to ask if we have lost our joy in the gospel. Surely, if Christ means the world to us it will show on our faces? Could it be that we have become professional church-goers, rather than joyful celebrants of what God has done in our lives?

Paul asked the misguided Galatians who were being tempted to swap God's grace for legalistic religion a similar question: 'What has happened to all your joy?' (Galatians 4.15). What has happened to ours? Have we settled for religion rather than a living relationship with God? Like the Ephesians, have we forsaken our first love (Revelation 2.4)? We need to be very careful about what we say (and sing) to God. Are we expressing the worship of our hearts or simply mouthing empty words?

Hearers of a second-hand message?

The pursuit of the Bible's treasures is one of my overwhelming passions. This book needs to be read and understood and imbibed. I love to hear God speak by his Holy Spirit through his Living Word. Which is why I get so upset at Bible abuse from the pulpit.

I am weary of hearing sermons that do not do justice to the biblical text. I remember one sermon where I was reliably informed that the 'rod' and the 'staff' of Psalm 23 were prayer and Bible reading respectively! That sort of interpretation is not uncommon. In particular, preachers struggle to preach Old Testament narrative - either they resort to moralising and tell us nothing about Christ, or they over-spiritualise and find Christ under every stone. Then there is the preacher who dips into the Bible to make his point (often with little regard for the context) and then rides off into the sunset on his latest ecclesiastical hobby-horse. Suddenly an obscure verse from Zechariah becomes the biblical basis for Christians not watching TV or Jesus's teaching on the Last Days becomes a timetable for when the world is going to end! There are too many nice-sounding, half-baked, semi-biblical ideas that are preached as a substitute for the Word of God. Jesus (Matthew 4.4, quoting Deuteronomy) stated that: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' And very often God's people are left hungry for the Word of life.

The Bible is pivotal to the life of the local church. It is not just that it is nice to hear good sermons from time to time, it is essential for our very existence that we are constantly attentive to God's Word. Sometimes as I sit listening to sermons like those described above I feel indignant. What would a non-Christian sitting here understand about the real gospel? How will this help the people of this church be better prepared to serve Christ this week? How can we make this life-changing message so dull and so lame? One of the greatest needs of our generation is for Christians to correctly handle the word of truth. I long to see a new generation of preachers across this land who are committed to systematic and contemporary expository preaching, and who can teach God's Word in its biblical theological context. I praise God for the many excellent Bible teachers I know, I am in their debt, but I pray for many more.

It is time we trained our people to understand Scripture in context and to communicate it effectively. There needs to be a place in the local church for training up the next generation of Bible teachers and for ongoing assessment of what is taught week by week. None of us like to be criticised, and we are foolish if we discourage our workers by dismissing their best efforts, but there must be a place for loving critique. Church leaders have the responsibility of ensuring that a church's preachers, youth leaders or small group leaders are teaching the Bible correctly, and it will require tremendous courage, humility, honesty and vulnerability if we take our job seriously.

It is time also to guard our pulpits from those who preach erroneous ideas as biblical truth (however well intentioned). There are godly Christian people who have been preaching (badly!) in our churches, maybe for decades, who are simply not gifted by God for the task and need to be encouraged to find and use their God-given gifts elsewhere. There are visiting preachers who should not be invited back. We actually do our churches a great disservice when we let the untrained or the ungifted teach God's people. How we need faithful Bible teaching in this Bible-starved generation!

Expounders of an impenetrable gospel?

Have you listened to yourself recently? I am sure that many Christians, let alone non-Christians, do not know what they are singing about in church. Whilst our world is becoming less literate we insist on singing about God being 'ineffably sublime' and 'raising our ebenezers' and 'broken cisterns' (which sounds like a problem with your lavatory!) I went to a church recently where we sang a song about 'living in the fountain' - what on earth does that mean? We talk about being 'washed in the blood of the Lamb' and that 'burdens are lifted at Calvary', and those ideas may be very dear to us, but we need to understand that most non-Christians would not have a clue what we're talking about. Many of the biblical and religious metaphors that we use in our churches mean nothing to the non-Christians on the street who, by and large, do not have a clue who Jesus claimed to be, let alone understand the technical language of Christendom. Gone are the days when we could assume that people have a basic knowledge of the Bible. The scandal is that most non-Christians don't realise that Jesus is God himself, that he is God's Rescuer, that God's Judgement Day is coming, and that they need to be ready. For many today Christianity is an out-of-date and irrelevant religion, a view that we often reinforce by our words and actions.

We need to look again at the words and metaphors that we use in our services, our sermons and our evangelism. Some of these belong to the past and should not be used without careful explanation, others belong to our core Christian vocabulary (like sin, justification, propitiation, etc.) and it is imperative that we train our people to understand them and explain them in contemporary language. Apparently it was C.S. Lewis who suggested that if someone could not simplify a complicated argument to appeal to an average person they probably did not understand it themselves. Only when Christians are clear in their own minds about what they believe will they be able to communicate it clearly to a 21st-century person.

Of course, we must acknowledge our total dependence upon God to turn anyone's life around, and recognise that we only have one message - the message about Jesus Christ, of the cross, of unimaginable forgiveness and of outrageous grace. We must acknowledge also that there are no perfect evangelistic methods; God graciously uses our worst efforts to bring people to himself, but even so, we must re-evaluate what we're doing. Why is it that in a world of micro-chips and high-tech graphics that many of us still view 'flannel graphs' as the latest technology? Why is it that we are still handing out 'tracts' (what does that mean?) that were written and printed decades ago? If you watch a TV clip from the 1980s you will see that the clothes, the hairstyles, the technology, etc. look so outdated now. Likewise, many of the pieces of paper that we hand out to people in the high street do not commend Jesus Christ to a contemporary world; they belong to the past and belong in the bin! Our Christian literature needs to be of the best quality, using the language and the metaphors of today - not yesterday. We are foolish if we think that our methods of communicating are as ageless as our message.

In Acts 17.22ff Paul addresses the Areopagus and tells the idolatrous Athenians about the 'Unknown God' and builds a Christian worldview from Creation to the Final Judgement for these people who were totally ignorant of the Bible. But, although Paul's address is soaked in the message of the Old Testament, Luke gives us no reason to believe that he quoted it once. Instead Paul uses the familiar words of pagan Greek poetry about Zeus (verse 28) to explain who the real God is. Paul was willing (and able) to use the words and culture of his hearers so that they would hear the gospel clearly.

Likewise we need to clearly understand both the Bible and our culture so that we can communicate effectively with contemporary people. Often we assume far too much knowledge of the Bible with non-Christians. Our job is not to teach people religious words and phrases, but to present people plainly with the facts about Jesus Christ. It is time that we made the gospel understandable again, because this message is too important to get lost in communication.