Experience and Truth in the "None Zone"

Having coffee with college kids at Tully's is one of the great joys of my daily work routine. I can down my daily allowance of caffeine (generally in a double tall, sugar-free vanilla latte) and enjoy a meaningful conversation centered around following Jesus. I'm sure this is what Jesus meant by discipleship. Well I had one of those moments yesterday with a young man who just got kicked out of his parents' house 3 weeks ago. He is living with his drug and alcohol consuming brother who is not a follower of Christ, although the young man I talked with is a believer. Believer is used intentionally because he would not say he is a follower right now. So here is how the conversation went...

When asked about how his life is going in relationship to his personal walk with God, I heard some tell-tale signs that mark many of his generation. "Well I haven't been to church in awhile". "I have a hard time with church as an organization". And, "I believe in God/Jesus and know I should be going to church, but I honestly don't like people when they are in that setting [church setting]". In one of my final inquiries, I asked him this probing question--"What is the reason or purpose we gather for church?". After a long pause, this young man says, "It's for us primarily. You know, to bolster our beliefs and reinforce that stuff." Interesting. We will come back to this in a moment.

Neue Ministries sends out a quarterly box of resources geared toward college age ministry leaders, and included is their 'book-a-zine', packed with articles that relate to my ministry niche. One article was reprinted from a Chicago based publication The Christian Century, which identifies the Northwest as the "None Zone". In the last U.S. Census the national average for responders who marked "none" in the field requesting info on their religious identity was 14 percent. But lucky us, in the Great Northwest the percentage is 25. In an interesting caveat in the article we are told to not be too concerned because Northwesterners are "more likely to seek individualized experiences with God outside the structure of organized religion." Well that's reassuring.

What is the purpose of gathering for church in an organized manner? Is it more important to have a personal experience with God, than to be attached to a formal organization? Is church for us anyways-so if we don't need it right now we can go without? These are the questions in the None Zone. People do sincerely wrestle with these questions, and though they may be the wrong questions in my opinion, these are the questions that are relevant and that we must answer today, if we hope to see folks established in the truth of all that God wants for them. So a couple of thoughts...

1. Church is for God. Ephiphany for me, but when the light bulb moment hit, it was clear. We don't gather for church to bolster our like-mindedness or to strengthen the faithful, although that is clearly an effect. We don't gather for church to be primarily a place to preach the Gospel. In fact, that is the job for us as the church individually, you and me, our job to preach the Gospel, in and out of church. Although this is often an effect of our services. No--we gather to glorify God, and to worship him. We exist for his pleasure, and church attendance is for his pleasure first; and we may be blessed in the experience as a by product. The opening of The Purpose Driven Life gets this right: "It's not about you". To get this right sets up a whole thread of right thinking.

2. Truth and Experience partner. Truth is the Senior Partner. Charlie Peacock wrote about this in a brilliant song, Experience, where he talks about the two:

We can only possess what we experience

We can only possess what we experience
Truth to be understood must be lived
We can only possess what we experience

There is a difference, a qualitative difference
Between what I know as a fact, and what I know as truth
It stands as a great divide to separate by thinking
From when I'm thinking foolishly and when I've understood

The facts of theology can be altogether cold
Though true in every way they alone can't change me
Truth is creative, transforming and alive
it's truth that keeps me humble, saved and set free

I like the emphasis on truth must be lived out. Experience will validate God's truth. Truth will measure the validity of our experience. In all of this however, I have come to believe that God's Word, his Truth, will be proved right and thus it trumps my present understanding and my present level of experience. In relationship to church, God has truth for us. He calls us his body, and he calls us to gather, to love one another, to use our gifts to encourage and serve one another, and to not forsake the routine assembling of ourselves for Him.

3. The desire of God is for us to be together. Ephesians 2 speaks of the Jews and Gentiles coming together in one family. It speaks of God, in Christ, gathering those who are near and far to him. In Christ, God reconciles all things to Himself. There is a "together" in the heart of God. Even if we don't like people, or church people, or even churchy people, God still is trying to gather us together. Ephesians 3 speaks of the purpose of God in connection with this gathering of the church, and Paul writes "His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms". It's the "mani-fold", the blending of all of us in unity as His body that has authority in the earth, over darkness.

To conclude, may I recommend reading Ephesians 2 and 3 in light of the topic. Also, see Glenn Packiam's insightful blog entitled, In Defense of the Institutional Church. You can find that here.