Sadly, a functional grasp of community was lost in most of the North American institutional Church long ago.

Years ago, when the disintegration was finally noted, the first, knee jerk reaction of the Church was to try and build that sort of contrived community. They did so with pretty much the tactics you are describing.

It was the failure of those tactics that sparked the, so called, ” Seeker sensitive,” Church where no one would be subjected to that order of public pressure. Those Seeker Churches have gotten big — but, statistically, they have been repeatedly proven to be a subway station where people pass through either coming into Christianity or, mostly, on their way out of the institutional Church.

Apparently, the pendulum is now swinging back…

I get why it’s happening — the Seeker model has not delivered — but I doubt the old model is going to work better then the last time…

People really aren’t interested in either the Patriarchal controlling institution any more then they are interested in the detached Broadway musical institution. It never was the window dressing that was the problem — it was the institution.

It’s sad really. Fixing it all would be so simple — if the leaders of the institutional Church could just figure out that it’s the institution itself that is the problem, realize that the internet has permanently obliterated both the need for and the interest in the talking-head model, punch the rewind button back all the way to before the Emperor Constantine and finally admit that the only way to save the Church is to throw the institution itself under the bus.

Trouble is, the non-institutional early Church model has been repeatedly proclaimed a failure because, while it wonderfully works to spread the love of Christ, it never works to form a stable institution — the same ‘highly stable and successful’ institution that is currently killing the Church.

Irony…

Cal

That’s the format for today, along with communion, including participating in foot-washing. The whole thing makes our skin crawl. Good thing it’s Mother’s Day & we’re heading outta town to see family…excellent excuse..