CHURCH: PEWS, PROBLEMS & PROMISE SERIES
A Eulogy for the Church
Thank you all for joining me today.
We have gathered today to remember the Church. Not a particular denomination, building or pastor. We are here to remember the Church many of us once knew, the place that taught us to pray, introduced us to Scripture, buried our parents, married our children and assured us that casseroles were an appropriate response to nearly every human tragedy.
It meant something to us.
For many of us, the Church gave language to things we already felt but could not explain. It taught us that life had purpose, suffering was not wasted, forgiveness was possible and death did not get the final word. It reminded us that we were not the center of the universe, which was disappointing at first but eventually proved helpful.
The Church gave lonely people a family. It fed people who were hungry. It visited the sick, comforted the grieving and told frightened children that God knew their names. At its best, the Church stood beside people when the rest of the world had quietly stepped away.
There was a time when the Church did more than reflect the world around it. It changed the temperature of the room. It confronted cruelty, challenged injustice, restrained selfishness and reminded those with power that they would someday answer to Someone with more of it.
Eventually, however, the Church became better at reading the room than changing it. It learned which subjects made people uncomfortable, which truths affected attendance and which convictions were bad for the brand. The Church did not stop speaking. It simply became more careful about saying anything that might cost it something.
It was never perfect. No family is. The Church could be judgmental, stubborn and occasionally far too interested in what someone wore on Sunday morning. It survived arguments over carpet colors, music styles, Bible translations and whether coffee belonged in the sanctuary. Somehow, it made it through all of that.
But it did not survive becoming an event.
The death was not sudden. There was no single fatal blow. The Church died slowly, comfortably and with a surprisingly full calendar.
Perhaps the first generation encountered God. The second generation remembered that encounter. The third generation created programs to commemorate what the first generation had experienced. Eventually, we inherited the schedule, the language and the building—but not always the life that created them.
We became caretakers of memories we had never made.
Somewhere along the way, the Church became little more than a music presentation followed by a lecture series.
On too many Sundays, it feels like we are attending a bad concert followed by a mediocre TED Talk. The music is performed for us, the speaker gives us information we will not use, and we leave largely unchanged. We may have been entertained, encouraged or made temporarily emotional, but we have not necessarily worshiped, grown or become more useful to anyone.
The problem is not music. The Church has always sung. The problem is when worship becomes a performance and the congregation becomes an audience. We stand when instructed, watch the people under the lights and judge the experience by whether we liked the songs.
The problem is not preaching, either. The Church needs truth courageously taught. The problem is when preaching becomes another weekly lecture—interesting enough to hold our attention but not demanding enough to change our lives. We take a few notes, nod at the right moments and forget most of it before Sunday lunch.
Music was meant to help us worship God together. Teaching was meant to prepare us to live differently. When the music becomes the show and the message becomes the lecture, the Church becomes an event we attend instead of a body in which we participate.
We arrive as an audience, watch professionals perform Christianity, leave a little money on the way out and return the following week to see whether the program has improved.
That may keep a religious production operating, but it does not make the Church alive.
We confused emotional movement with spiritual transformation. We mistook information for discipleship. We assumed sitting in a room together made us a community.
Meanwhile, the Church became very good at counting people and less certain about how to care for them. We knew how many attended, how much they gave and which service they preferred. We did not always know whether their marriages were surviving, their children were struggling, their faith was growing or they had anyone to call when life fell apart on a Tuesday afternoon.
To be fair, the Church did not do this to us by itself. We helped.
We wanted church to be convenient. We wanted the sermon short, the music familiar, the seats comfortable and the demands reasonable. We wanted enough truth to reassure us but not enough to rearrange us. We wanted Jesus as Savior but remained less enthusiastic about Jesus as Lord.
There is little value in blaming the age, the culture or the people who stopped attending. Those things are beyond our control. What remains within our control is more uncomfortable: what we accepted, what we encouraged and what we became.
We became consumers and then complained that the Church felt commercial. We became spectators and then wondered why the Church lacked participation. We avoided meaningful relationships and then accused the Church of failing to create community.
The Church did not die because the world became too powerful. It died because too many of us became comfortable being weak.
And now we stand beside the casket, searching for something kind to say.
Perhaps the kindest thing is the truth.
The Church was never meant to be a weekly event we attended. It was meant to be a living body in which every person had a purpose. Worship was not supposed to be watched. Teaching was not supposed to be merely heard. Faith was not supposed to be something we practiced for an hour and stored until the following Sunday.
A good eulogy does more than remember the dead. It instructs the living.
So what should we learn from the death of the Church?
We should learn that a full parking lot is not proof of spiritual life. Good music is not the presence of God. A gifted speaker is not a substitute for discipleship. A crowded room is not necessarily a family. Activity is not life, and reputation is not reality.
Jesus once spoke to a church that had a reputation for being alive but was dead. His words were not cruel. They were a diagnosis. And a diagnosis, however unpleasant, is still an act of mercy when there is time to respond.
“Wake up, and strengthen what remains.”
That does not sound like the end of the story.
Christians make unusual funeral guests because we believe dead things can live again. We believe stones can be rolled away, dry bones can stand and people who have lost their way can come home.
Perhaps what has died is not the Church Christ established. Perhaps what has died is our comfortable imitation of it. If so, we do not need to preserve the body. We need to let God breathe life into us again.
Today, we can bury the Church as a concert, a lecture and a weekly religious appointment.
Then perhaps we can become the Church again.
Why This Series
That brings me to the purpose of this series.
I do not intend to spend the next several articles standing beside the casket and pointing out everything the Church did wrong. An autopsy may explain why something died, but it does not teach the living how to live.
Diagnosis without treatment is just a better-written obituary.
The purpose of Church: Pews, Problems & Promise is to identify the problems honestly, offer practical resolutions and encourage each of us to become the men and women God has called us to be.
I am not writing as someone standing outside the Church and throwing rocks through the windows. I am part of the Church. I have benefited from it, been disappointed by it, served within it and contributed to some of the very problems I will address. This will not be an argument about what they have done wrong. It will be a conversation about what we have allowed ourselves to become.
Throughout this series, I will keep returning to three questions: Is the Church spiritual? Is the Church useful? Is the Church nurturing?
The Gospel at the Center
Before considering those three questions, we need to be clear about what holds them together: the Gospel.
The Gospel is not an inspirational message about becoming a slightly better version of ourselves. It is the good news that Jesus Christ came for sinners, died for our sins, rose from the dead and offers forgiveness, reconciliation and new life to those who repent, believe and follow Him.
The Gospel is not merely the invitation that gets someone through the church doors. It is the truth that should shape everything that happens after we enter.
Without the Gospel, being spiritual can become little more than chasing an emotional experience. Being useful can become ordinary community service with a religious name attached to it. Being nurturing can become encouragement without truth, comfort without correction and therapy without transformation.
The Gospel keeps all three in their proper place. It brings us into the presence of God, sends us into the world to serve and teaches us how to help one another become mature followers of Christ.
The Church does not exist merely to help good people become nicer. It exists to proclaim that dead people can be made alive.
If the Gospel is no longer at the center, the Church may continue to offer music, lectures, activities and advice—but it has forgotten the reason it exists.
Is the Church Spiritual
That sounds like a ridiculously easy question. It is a little like asking whether a restaurant serves food. Yet it deserves an honest answer.
A church can mention God repeatedly without helping people encounter Him. It can sing about the Holy Spirit without depending on the Holy Spirit. It can teach the Bible while producing people whose lives show little evidence that they have been changed by it.
Being spiritual is not the same as being emotional. A moving song can give us chills. A gifted speaker can make us laugh, cry or feel inspired. None of those things is necessarily wrong, but emotion should not be confused with transformation.
The evidence of a spiritual church is not simply what happens in the sanctuary. It is what happens in us after we leave. Are we becoming more loving, patient, courageous, honest, disciplined and forgiving? Are we learning to hear God, obey Him and trust Him when life becomes difficult? If Sunday does not change Monday, we may have attended a service without actually being spiritually served.
Is the Church Useful
That word may sound too practical for something sacred, but Jesus was remarkably useful. He fed hungry people, healed the sick, welcomed the rejected, defended the vulnerable and gave hope to people whom respectable society had discarded.
The Church should matter beyond its own walls.
If a church disappeared from its neighborhood tomorrow, would anyone besides its members notice? Would anything be missing other than Sunday traffic? Would fewer hungry people be fed? Would fewer marriages receive help? Would fewer children be mentored? Would the lonely have one less place to belong? Would the community lose a source of courage, wisdom and compassion?
A living church should not exist merely to preserve its building, fund its programs and increase its attendance. It should make the place around it better because it is there.
Is the Church Nurturing
The Church was never supposed to be a crowd of strangers who sit in the same room once a week. It was meant to be a family that knows us, challenges us, cares for us and helps us grow.
Nurturing is more than being friendly at the door. It means noticing when someone is missing. It means knowing when a marriage is struggling, when a young man needs direction, when a woman is carrying more than anyone realizes or when an older person has quietly become invisible.
It means doing more than preaching to people. It means discipling them.
A nurturing church does not merely tell people what to believe. It teaches them how to live. It helps boys become good men and girls become strong women. It helps adults become better spouses, parents, neighbors, leaders and friends. It creates relationships in which wisdom can be passed down, hard questions can be asked and truth can be spoken without love being withdrawn.
We have had plenty of preaching. What many of us have lacked is someone willing to walk beside us long enough to help us put it into practice.
The Promise
These three questions—Is the Church spiritual? Is it useful? Is it nurturing?—will guide this series.
We will discuss the problems, but we will not stop there. Criticism is easy, especially when someone else is expected to do the changing. Each article will also ask what can be done and what responsibility belongs to us.
The answer will not always be another program, a larger budget or a new person on staff. Sometimes the answer may be that we need to pray differently, serve someone, mentor someone, forgive someone, invite someone into our lives or become the person we keep waiting for the Church to provide.
The goal is not to make people angry at the Church. The goal is to help people become alive within it.
We will examine the pews. We will confront the problems. But we will never lose sight of the promise.
Dead things can live again—and that revival may begin with us.
