Some comments on Philip Yancey’s “Church Why bother?” (Zondervan: 1998)

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General:

Of the 3 sections … 1. Why Bother with Church? 2. What God Had in Mind 3. Reaching Beyond the Walls

… the first 2 are the the more interesting. His ideal church would attract many people that previously left .. or never bothered going to church …. but ideal is not reality. The book focuses more on the shortcomings of the individual than the shortcomings of the environment in which the God experience is supposed to be nutured.

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p. 18 “‘This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through” we used to sing.”

This reminded me of Larry Norman’s ground breaking album “Only Visiting This Planet” which has only been surpassed by the likes of Bob Dylan and U2.

pp.19 – 20 “The words they used suddenly seemed deceptive, like Orwellian Newspeak. They talked about Grace but lived by Law; they spoke of love but showed signs of hate. …. Christianity kept me from Christ. ….. Far fewer people attend church on Sunday than claim to follow Christ. …. they feel burned or even betrayed by a former church experience. Others simply ‘get nothing out of church'”

A fine description of most churches I have been in and my own experience!

p. 22 “The longer you stay away from church the stranger it seems, and clearly I had got out of the habit.”

There is a lot of truth to this! It was during recovery from serious illness in 1980 that I first experienced it. Going back to church was a drag. I had learnt so much about my relationship with God away from church due to the fact that I had alsmost died. (It tends to put your life in focus!) I realised how little help the church had been to me and how little it was related to the real issues of life and death that I faced. I also realised how important my God experience was and how central this was to my life … and still is!

p.23 “Christianity is not a purely intellectual, internal faith. It can only be lived in community.”

Yancey would say that this community is the institition of Church. I disagree on this point. The community is all those made in the image of God … which is all people. Christianity is lived with others in real life. As Yancey has previously pointed out : “Far fewer people attend church on Sunday than claim to follow Christ”. One meets these people outside the institution of church … and their community is far richer in diversity.

p. 24 “I used to approach church with the spirit of a discriminating consumer. I viewed the worship service as a performance. Give me something I like. Entertain me.”

This is Kurt Cobain’s “Here we are now! Entertain us!” which is typical of Gen X but no so much myself. I am a discriminating consumer. You want my money (tithes and offerings), what do I get for it? However, if church is about MINISTRY then let church MINISTER to me! By “ministry” I mean “help”. I am not looking for entertainment. I am looking for help in enhancing my God experience. If a church service is not helping me enhance my God experience then it is NOT minstering to me. It has failed in its ministry to me. If I can find help in enhancing my God experience outside of church …why bother with church? That is the crux of the matter.

p. 24 “What matters most takes place within the hearts of the congregation, not among the actors on stage.”

I totally agree! Sack the actors on stage (clergy, ministry team, the lot!). Get a more informal and intimate setting where people are seen as equals and talk about their lives, discuss matters of faith and celebrate God.

p. 25 “Church exists primarily … to worship God; if it fails in that, it fails.”

I disagree. Church is the ecclessia who are all in ministry (helping others regardless of boundaries). The commonality of the ecclessia is their God experience. The church service exists primarily to help people in their God experience. It either helps or it doesn’t help. If it doesn’t help, why bother with it?

p. 26 “In Russian Orthodox churches, priests do not even speak the language of the people, since few congregants can understand the Old Slavic specified for worship. …. What matters is worship: again, the priest, the icons, the church architecture, the incense, and the choir serve as prompters.”

I think Yancey has descibed something that he has not adequately followed through on. This is an example of what I have always been saying. The environment of worship (or enhancing one’s God experience) matters! People are individuals and different environments are required to meet the needs of the people … to MINISTER to people … to HELP enhance the God experience of people. This is the role of the church service. The very word “service” means help!!! If your church service does not help me enhance my God experience I don’t go. For some (Catholics?) the focus of enhancing their God experience is the Mass. For others (Protestants?) it is listening to a sermon. For Pentes it may be the wholistic approach that encorporates dancing, clapping and the emotions more fully. How is the enhancement of the individual’s experience of God catered for? The individual matters! One size does not fit all! What happens if you can’t find a size that fits? In the institutional church the onus is usually put onto the individual. “We’re not going to change to suit you!” Like Procrustes’ bed … the individual must be stretched to fit. How about making a better bed that suits the individual???? The onus is now not on the indiviudual to change to suit the church but the church changing to suit the the many people it has forced into Exile. I am one of those Believers in Exle. I am looking for individualised enhancement of my God experience. Yes, church is a community … but that community is filled with individuals. If a church is catering for one size fits all sheeple … I’m not in the least bit interested. I’d rather have root canal therapy.

p.27 “Little has changed to bring heterogeneity to worship – indeed, church growth experts caution against it.”

Diversity is required in the church service if it is to survive as a useful ministry (ie help) to people. Individulisation! The person matters, not the crowd.

p. 29 – 31 “…sometimes these visitors would sretch out on the pews and snore loudly through the morning service. …. senior citizens who are liable to drifty asleep if the preachers drones on too long.”

How often have I longed to do that! My friend had a poster of Jesus asleep on the front pew during a sermon. I have also written a poem about it. It is a vivid image of the worst church services I have attended.

p. 33 “Grace … God’s love comes free of charge, with no strings attached. There is nothing I can do to make God love me more – or less.”

This is the good news! This is the gospel! This is what Christianity is about! Now for the bad news ….. Church membership doesn’t come free of charge, with no strings attached … you have tithes and offerings … and mandatory time spent with the other members of this institutional church. There is plenty of rules to follow to make yourself more accepted in this community – more or less. I’m all for the good news and not the bad news!

p.37 ” ….. the ideal church I look for, is the exception, not the norm.’

Amen!

p. 38 “We are charged to live out a kind of alternative society before the eyes of the watching world, a world that is increasing;y moving toward tribalism and division.”

I agree! This means that change in the church is inevitable if it is to survive.

p. 48 “AA owns no property, has no headquarters, no media centre, no staff of well-paid consultants and investment counsellors who jet across the country.”

I agree with Yancey. AA is like church should be!

p.53 “…I suspect that all of us instinctively gravitate toward people like us and rarely step outside that circle unless something forces us to …. Or unless we meet such people in church.”

When one attends morning and evening church services, bible study, men’s group, prayer group, working bee, associated chriustian school etc etc etc ….. where is the time to ineteract with your non-Christian neighbours????? Very accurately some church buildings ae described as a “sanctuary” …. a retreat from the world so that you have no contact with it … and stick to your own Christian kind … unless “ministering to the heathen” ! Are the “heathen” valued for who they are (made in the image of God) or as tools for a potential rise in the church funds?

p. 54 “Mr Ponce provided for me a comforting male presence.”

An example of why US books sometimes need editing for Oz audiences! The words “ponce” and “comforting male presence” do not sit well together!

p. 55 ” I like to think of the church as one of those Emerg-Centres: open long hours, convenient to find, willing to serve the needs of the people who drop in with unexpected emergencies.”

It would be nice! However the truer picture is ” one of those Government Bureacracies : open inconvenient hours on a Sunday only, by appointment only, hidden complicated rules not explained at the beginning of the process, punishment mentality for failure to abide by the arbitrary rules set, ruled by the “divine right of pastor and board”.

p. 57 “… some human needs are still met in the midst of a loving community like a church.”

An interesting phrase! Most human needs ARE met in the midst of a loving community. The church COULD be like that. What if there is a more loving community outside the church? Where will people gravitate to?

p. 60 “Again and again I was struck with the enormous breadth of the Chrisian faith. It contains within it enough majesty and profundity to inspire minds like John Milton and John Donne, and Leo Tolstoy and T S Eliot …. “

This is not seen in the ordinary local church! John Milton was against censorship (Read the “Areopagitica”). Leo Tolstoy did not believe that Jesus was God and did not attend church services. T S Eliot was a rather vile man despite his great poetry … the greatest pieces written before his conversion to Christianity.

p.62 “Institutions are based upon, and held together by, status and rank. … In an institution, status derives from performance. … it grieves me to see local churches run more like a business institution than a family.”

Instituional church IS a business institution. That is part of the problem.

p.68 “God’s church consists of people, not buildings ..”

Exactly! So where the people are enhanced in their God experience, there is a church service! Where the people are not enhanced in their God experience , there is no church service … despite the gathering being called a “Church Service” and held in a building called the “church”.

Yancey has put forward a good argument for church … but not for attending your local church service.