The Church in America needs to change. If it does not, the state of Christianity in the U. S. is in danger of duplicating the state of the Church in the U. K. within ten years. In England, only 3% of people attend a church. The Church exists well outside the boundaries of the culture and society. Its position of influence on the world around it is minimal at best.

Increasingly, the Church here in the U. S. is becoming irrelevant, unable to engage a culture that is leaving it behind as an antiquated, anachronistic institution representative of a passing time and generation. Frankly, the church has earned this distinction. Largely, the church has failed to recognize that it is no longer the focal point of cultural and societal activity. The world has moved away from it while it remained fixated on itself and its own preservation. Our communities became increasingly inclusive and the world progressively more "flat." Meanwhile, the church circled its wagons and closed its borders in an effort to protect a mindset that has little to do with the proclamation of the Gospel and everything to do with its parochialism. Just as the institutional church rejected Galileo and his scientific reality that the earth was not at the center of the universe, much of the institutional church is now blindly rejecting the socio-political reality that the church is not at the center of people's lives.

Still others in the Church have taken notice of this cultural shift. However, in an attempt to reach the culture they have walked the line of compromising the Gospel to the point where Christ and culture are indistinguishable. Well meaning people have adopted methods of "evangelism" that do little more than feed into the consumerism that is already rampant and increasingly understood as responsible for the breakdown of community. It has led to churches that are filled with people who are "happy" as long as the church meets their needs. When the church no longer serves that function, the "attender" simply breaks ranks and looks for the next God fix provided by some other church or loses all need and interest in the church altogether and walks away completely.

This may all sound harsh, but the numbers back it up. Researchers from Barna to Gallup agree that, despite the mega-church movement of the last twenty years, the state of Christianity in the U. S. is and has been one of decline. This is occurring while our culture is still among the most religious in the world.

This is sobering, but within it is the potential for a great awakening of the Church and a rediscovery of its purpose as the envoy of the Kingdom of God. It is time for the Church to stop seeing itself as institution and again see itself as a movement. This is the approach of the Church in the pre-Christian environment found within the book of Acts and it is the right approach for the post-Christian environment of the U. S. in 2009. Much like the U. S., the Greek and Roman cultures of the Middle East and Mediterranean corridor were highly religious, yet ambiguous. The Church was in no position to expect anyone to come to them. They had to engage the culture, yet not in order for Christ to become one with the culture, but in order that Christ might transform culture and the Church would act as that transformational agent in the world.

The strength of this ministry was found in its weakness. Left to its own devices the Church was destined to fail. Its message was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. For the Jews, the message of Jesus Christ crucifixion was an embarrassment. The word translated as "stumbling block" is scandalon. Yes, it is where we get the word "scandal" from and its meaning was closely associated with the idea of "disgrace." Still, the Jewish faith shared an understanding of the Scriptures (i.e. Old Testament) and of Sin. They neither had to be convinced of God's Law or their need for salvation. However, to the Gentile this was all just foolishness. They neither shared an understanding of Scripture or of Sin. As the messenger to the Gentiles, Paul could not rely on a shared understanding of God or the need for redemption. If he or the Church at that time, began their message with the amorphous question, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go" they would have received a host of answers that had nothing to do with God or Sin or Heaven or Hell, nor would have their audience possessed any foundation on which to understand such concepts. Their world was highly religious, but not even remotely Christian.

I believe the same is increasingly true today. When I began in ministry just twenty years ago, meeting someone who was first generation unchurched (i.e. they had never gone to church, but their parents had) was unusual, but certainly not unheard of. Today, not only is it common to meet people who are first generation unchurched, but it is not highly unusual to meet someone who is second generation unchurched (i.e. neither they nor their parents have ever gone to church). Consequently, the Church can not operate with an expectation that it shares a religious foundation with the world around it. At the threat of complete ineffectiveness, the Church is being forced to rethink how it communicates the Gospel.

When the culture shares a biblical world view, the distance that one must travel from recognition of our Sin to acknowledging our need for a Savior is a short distance indeed. When the culture does not share that biblical world view, the starting point and the destination are not even on the same maps. In this context, the most effective witness comes through the combination of hearing the Good News of the Kingdom of God and seeing that Kingdom manifest itself in the world. Herein lies the source of the early churches success. They understood that the witness of their words was not enough. Christ told them to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit before venturing out as his witnesses (Acts 1:4ff). The work of the Holy Spirit was absolutely necessary in their ability to engage and transform the culture around them. It would not simply be by words but the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God into the world through their witness. We see it again and again in the example of their lives and the power of their actions. God performed many signs and wonders through the people of His Church (Acts 2:43, Acts 4:30, Acts 5:12, Acts 6:8, Acts 14:3). They absolutely expected God to show up and confirm the message he had given them to share with the world. The Apostle Paul reiterated this in his first letter to the Corinthians when he said, "I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. ⁴My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, ⁵so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." In his letter to the Romans, he again says, "I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— ¹⁹by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit."

The pursuit of increased church attendance was never the mission of the church. Increasing our "numbers" should have never been the measure of evangelism. Yes, it is the byproduct, with the caveat that the numbers increased are those who put their faith in Christ, not those who attend our church. Even then, evangelism has always been, biblically speaking, the "going", the "taking", "the proclaiming" of the Gospel to the world! The Church must be a movement. As it was in the first century pre-Christian culture, so it shall be in our 21^st century post-Christian culture. People will come to Christ only when the Kingdom comes to them. Moreover, as they did in the 1^st century, so we go now- with the faith that God will confirm His message. The message of Christ crucified may seem foolishness to an unbelieving world that lacks any biblical context for hearing that message. But the manifestation of the Kingdom into their lives through God's envoy- the Church- will confirm the message. When ordinary, everyday men and women do extraordinary things in the name of Christ our weakness points to God's power. Today, as then, we will not rely on wise and persuasive words. We will not turn to the devices of man. We will not put our confidence in the most eloquent preacher or the slickest projection or the most professional band. We will put our faith in the demonstration of the Spirit's power. The Church will confess all it's prideful sin in its own ability to manufacture what God alone can produce- faith! And we will go. As God has called us, we will go, and proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God.
For further discussions on the issues of missiology and ecclesiology check out the following posts:

•  Ecclesia vs Church 
• 7 tips for joining the emerging church movement