Good Reasons Not to Join a Church

“Good Reasons Not to Join a Church”

 

Romans 5:1-11

September 21, 2014

Mark S. Bollwinkel

Much has been written recently about the decline of religious affiliation in the United States.  If you’ve been following the topic you may be aware that according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life [religions.pewforum.org] our country will soon no longer be majority Protestant nation, the only statistically growing religious communities in the United States are Islam and the Latter Day Saints and the fastest growing segment of the our population is those identifying themselves as “spiritual not religious” (14.5%).

This trend is especially true for those under the age of 50.   In the book unChristian (Kinnaman, Barna Group, 2007) the Barna Research group did an extensive survey of Millennials (ages 18-35) who even when raised in the church are leaving religious affiliation by historic numbers; 25% of those under 30 list no religious affiliation, 3 times the number of those over 70 years old (Pew).  (If you need proof simply ask yourselves if your children come to church?)

The book found a number of reasons that young people avoid the church and it is not increasing trends in atheism.  Over 90% of Americans believe in God.  The surveys found that young people were turned off by the judgementalism of the church, the churches’ involvement in politics and local churches’ unwillingness to trying something new.  In a word, those under 35 don’t find people living like Jesus in the churches and they cannot reconcile our stated beliefs with our actions.

 

Remember the old preacher’s story about the trick horse at the church picnic?  For entertainment, the church invited a cowboy to bring his counting horse.  He asked the horse, “How many people were in the garden of Eden?”  And the horse stamped the ground twice.  The cowboy asked, “How many days did it God take to create the world?”  The horse stamped out six.  The cowboy asked the horse, “How many disciples did Jesus have?”  And the horse stomped twelve times.  The crowd clapped.  And then feeling cocky, the cowboy asked the horse, “And…how many hypocrites are there in this church?”  And the horse started to dance on all fours.*

 

There are a lot of good reasons not to join a church.   One of them is that we will let just about anybody in, even people who struggle to live up to their ideals.  We don’t have a sign up over the door reading, “Only saints allowed!”

When the apostle Paul writes his letter to the new church in Rome, as we have heard in our scripture lesson this morning, he suggests a radical grace, twice:   “….while we were still sinners, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly…but God proves his love for us that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us…”  God loves us before we join the right church, before we are baptized in the right manner, before we confess the proper creeds, before we practice the true religion.  God acts to save us before we believe and do the right things!   That means the doors of our churches are open to everybody …everybody….even the kind of folks who fail.  

Who wouldn’t be welcomed at our dinner table?  Well, God loves even them and as such they are welcomed to Christ’s church.

That’s enough to give anybody a pause when we think about joining a church.  Do we really want to be hanging out with riff-raff?  (Just look around you at the characters who are here this morning, saying nothing of this preacher!)

 

            One Sunday morning, a mother went in to wake her son and tell him it was time to get ready for church, to which he replied, "I'm not going."

"Why not?" she asked.

I'll give you two good reasons," he said. "One, they don't like me, and two, I don't like them."

His mother replied, "I'll give YOU two good reasons why YOU SHOULD go to church. (1) You're 59 years old, and (2) you're the pastor!"

 

            There are a lot more sinners in the church than saints.  That might be one reason not to join a church.  In fact, we could make a whole list of them.   Just consider the expectations of church life!

            You know what I mean.

Think of those people you most admire for their faith.  Picture in your mind the father, mother, brother, sister, neighbor or friend that you would name as an example of someone who really puts their faith into action, someone who lives everyday the values of our religious tradition.

            Ellen Ferrell….Doris Selbig…..Einer Cook…..Bishop Lawi Imathiu….Ila Davidson…..Elizabeth Brownhill….Juntaro Arakawa….and many here at the Wayfarer I wouldn’t want to embarrass by speaking their names out loud.   These folks have names and faces.  These folks live their sermon they just don’t preach it on Sundays.  We learn from their examples and are inspired to our own vital faith as a result.

            These folk have many things in common and one in particular.  They are making or made their church membership a meaningful resource for their spiritual lives.  They do so in very practical, specific ways that we come to admire and wish to emulate: they pray; they attend church regularly…you can count on them to be here; they study the Bible and are eager to learn more about their faith; they go out of their way to serve others whether to bring a hot dinner to a homebound friend or to go off to a mission trip in Mexico; they don’t practice their religion alone but seek out the community of kindred spirits; and they are generous, generous with their time, talent and money.

            Such behavior is obvious to all of us, we admire and our inspired by it.  In fact such behavior is the basis of our ‘unspoken expectations’ for what a person of ‘real faith’ is all about.   Those who make a commitment to such expectations get the most out of their church experience, as they grow closer to God and to those who share the journey. 

These expectations aren’t rules and regulations.  Neither are they “means of spiritual superiority”.  The ones we admire the most for their faith are always quite humble about it.   Rather they see prayer, church attendance, study, service, community and generosity as a “means of grace” and grace is always humble, non-judgmental and ever learning and growing.  

            And…. they are expectations none-the-less.  If we are looking for a comfortable, convenient Christianity…a religion we can visit every now and then when we can fit it into our busy schedules…..well, we might want to give church membership a second thought.  In a United Methodist church all people are welcome to get involved at whatever level of interest they have.  All people in the community can come to us for the sacraments, for weddings, memorial services, for counseling, for assistance whether members or not. 

We refuse to suggest that God loves a church member more than any one else, that is not how God works according to the Bible and that is the basis of our informality about church membership as United Methodists.

A kindergarten teacher gave her class a "show and tell" assignment.* Each student was instructed to bring in an object to share with the class that represented their

Religion.   The first student got up in front of the class and said, "My name is Benjamin and I am Jewish and this is a Star of David."  The second student got up in front of the class and said, "My name is Mary. I'm a Roman Catholic and this is a Rosary."  The third student got in up front of the class and said, "My name is Tommy. I am Methodist, and this is a casserole."

And yet, if folk do choose to officially join the church they can assume a set of expectations of what that means.   These expectations are time tested and honored behaviors of those we all admire for their faith, courage and love.  I am going to talk about three of them this morning and another three next week:

 

-Prayer; people of mature faith pray daily for the church, its leadership, the concerns of the people and the world as well as practice spiritual disciplines for themselves.   (Matthew 7:7-11)

 

“Prayer is a form communication between God and man and man and God. It is of the essence of communication between persons that they should talk with each other from the same basic agenda. Wherever this is not done, communication tends to break down.”
(Howard Thurman in A Strange Freedom, cited in Christianity Today, April 26, 1999, p.105.)   That’s true of our relationship with God as well.

Prayer doesn’t require a set form; one can pray with eyes closed or open, in silence or with music or while jogging or taking a shower.  Prayer is simply and profoundly opening oneself to listen to and be heard by God.  You don’t need a Ph.D.  You don’t need the right words.  All you need is the right heart.  Remember the story that Jesus tells:

 

‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. ¹¹The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. ¹²I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” ¹³But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” ¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’ (Luke 18:10-14)

 

-Attendance; people of mature faith attend Sunday worship if they are in town.  (Psalm 65:1-4)

 

            We worship for many reasons and can worship in any location.  And community sanctuary worship gives us a particular experience of the divine that we can’t get anywhere else.

 

“A pastor baptized a baby. After the baptism, the pastor said to the baby, in a voice loud enough to be heard by parents and congregation, ‘Little sister, by this act of baptism, we welcome you to a journey that will take your whole life. This isn't the end. It's the beginning of God's experiment with your life. What God will make of you, we know not. Where God will take you, surprise you, we cannot say. This we do know, and this we say - God is with you.’”
(Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989, pp. 52-53).

 

            Notice how many times we hear the word “we”.   We are not in life as solitary entities rather our life is in relationship.  Sanctuary worship is a gathering unlike any other form of worship because we, with all of our individual agendas, experience the God that draws us together and find us in community.  We cannot be all that God calls us to be as individuals without sacred community.   That is what we practice here each week.  Church members are expected to be here when they are healthy and in town.

 

-Study; people of mature faith participate in at least one class or workshop a year in order to grow in their faith, learn about the Bible and expand their spiritual understanding.  (Psalm 119:105-108)

 

            In any endeavor in life almost all of us realize that “you shall reap what you sow” (2 Cor. 9:6).  The more we invest in our study at school, the physical exercise of our bodies, the more we give to our marriages, our kids and our friendships the more we will receive in return.

            Isn’t that also true of our faith?  Sixty percent of Americans can’t name five of the Ten Commandments.  In fact, more Americans can list the ingredients of a MacDonald’s Big Mac than they can the Ten Commandments (USA Today 03/07).   The more we get to know the Bible and think through our own personal theology the closer we can grow to God and each other.  Church members are expected to do so.

 

The research suggests that the decline in religious affiliation will end when religious people reclaim their beliefs as a way of life not just an institution to maintain.

To those under 50 who denounce the church for its hypocrisy, I listen and respect such input as it is often correct and then ask where they have found a community of perfect people I can join.   Haven’t heard of one yet.

  All are welcome at church, even the people we don’t like, even the people who don’t get it, even the people who fail….like me.  All are expected to pray, worship and grow.    Such expectations might not be significant for everybody but they are for folks who join a church.

 “Our greatest ethical, political need right now is not for new or better rules. What we’re dying of is a lack of imagination. We need some great gift that would enable us to imagine our little lives as caught up in something greater than ourselves, as contributing, in their countless personal acts, to something public and cosmic.” William Willimon of Duke University in Theology Today (1995)

            For people like us, people who God loves before we get it right, church commitment could be that very gift.

            Amen.

 

*          Source unknown