Response to "What's So Uncool About the Cool Church"

Response to “What’s so uncool about cool churches.”

The article written by Matt Marino, an Episcopal Priest working in the “Canon for Youth and Young Adults” for the Diocese of Arizona, offers the premise that the relevant church and segregated youth ministries are, “killing Christianity.” If you have not read the article you can find it here http://thegospelside.com/2012/09/23/whats-so-uncool-about-cool-churches/

In his article Marino makes a few very good points, specifically concerning the actions of the first century church. Marino states, “The church went out to the highways and byways loving and serving the least, last and lost. In that body of Christ, Christians shared their faith with Romans 1:16 boldness, served the poor with abandon, fed widows and took orphans into their homes. The world noticed. We went to them in love rather than invited them to our event.”

While the previous statement is very good (and very quotable), overall the article itself proves to be misinformed and over-generalized - beginning with the premise of the article that “relevant” churches and segregated youth ministries are killing Christianity. I take maybe the most offense to this beginning statement because it boils two thousand years of a globally growing and passionate faith down to something that can be eliminated by American youth groups.  Regardless that it ignores global missions, underground churches in China and India, and the 77% of US citizens who claim to be Christians (and yes I realize that not all of those are true born again Christians), when did we start being able to limit what God can do through our perspectives of what is wrong with the world?

Marino states in his article three different statistics. The first argument, “20-30 year olds attend church at 1/2 the rate of their parents and ¼ the rate of their grandparents,” has no citation, seems vague, and seemingly inaccurate. After searching for a good bit I couldn’t find any similar statistics with hard evidence to speak for or against it, but since he cites his other two statistics and does on the first I am assuming he has no real evidence. The other two statistics that the article gives state that “61% of churched graduates never go back,” and “78% - 88% of students in youth programs will leave church and most to never return.” The article goes on to say, “Study after study after study suggests that what we are building for the future is…empty churches.” This statement is simply inaccurate, or at the least incomplete. While I don’t doubt that what he researched presents what the author thinks are accurate statistics there are also statics that say only 40%-50% of graduates and youth group attends will leave their faith when they leave for college (Fuller Youth Institute). Other stats show that 60% of those that leave will return to their faith and church in their late twenties (Wade Clark Roof and Lynn Gesch). Mathematically this insinuates that only 24% - 30% of those who graduate will not be in the future church, meaning that 70% - 76% will be part of the future church. While Marino makes a good point that anyone leaving their faith when they graduate is a MAJOR issue it is not the hopeless abandonment of the church forever.

The article continues and states that we are letting Market-driven youth ministries determine the future of what the church will look like. The author makes it seem that it’s bad to have things within the church that people like and if there is any similarity between church/youth ministry and culture then it must be negative (but more on this later). The article goes on to list eight marks of market driven youth ministries, which most large or “relevant” churches would fit into.

1. Segregation. The argument presented is that churches have segregated our children and youth and think that youth services are better than “big church.” The assumption with this argument is that the strongest place for a family to grow their faith is in the larger church service as a family. But what if the place to instill faith isn’t in the main service…what if it isn’t in the church building at all? Faith and discipleship for families has to begin in the home, not in the church building. The other side to this argument is that the reason churches separate by age groups (and genders) is because they want to teach each age group what is most relevant to them. While the article mentions the term “relevant” (in a negative sense) it fails to mention the opposite word…irrelevant. Often what is taught to adults in church is irrelevant to where teenagers and children are in their own walk with God.  It is also interesting to see what happens in churches that do not divide by age…the age groups self-segregate. Children hang out with other children, teenagers with other teenagers, and adults with other adults.

2. Big=Effective. Marino states “Big is (by definition) program driven: Less personal, lower commitment; a cultural and social thing as much as a spiritual thing. Are those the values that we actually hold?” This first part of the statement implies that large churches are less personal and have fewer committed people.  While I would agree that people can fall through the cracks…most large churches I am aware of strongly encourage small group ministries to create personal community.  Concerning commitment level, I have worked in various different churches, in different denominations, consisting of very large “relevant” churches and small traditional churches, but no matter what churches I have worked in I have found it at times difficult to get the volunteers and participants that I want or need. In every church there are going to be people with a low commitment level. It seems with this issue that everyone looks at the total numbers and not the ratio. I would wager (and no I don’t have any hard evidence to back this up) that the ratio of committed to non-committed would be close to the same in most churches.

Marino’s further comment about churches being as much a cultural and social thing as as a spiritual thing is an unfair statement that has little grounding. To assume that any large church or youth ministry that has a social or cultural aspects value those as equal to things of the spirit over generalizes all large churches together and undermines thousands of people who work hard to show Jesus to people on a weekly basis. I find this statement offensive as it assumes a negative position of the hearts of anyone leading a large church or youth ministry.

3. More Programs Attended=Stronger Discipleship. The article cites a Chicago church that previously had the mindset that the more programs that were offered the more people would grow in their relationships with God. The church recently came out and retracted the statement saying that they felt that there was no correlation between the number of program attendees and spiritual maturity. For the most part I whole-heartedly agree with the point that Marino makes here. To have programs for the sake of programs has become a bit ridiculous, but if no one attends anything then there will be zero spiritual maturity. At some level there has to be some kind of programming within churches but the shift needs (and has begun) to take place where the emphasis is not on the quantity of programs but the quality. The pastor I currently work for has helped changed my viewpoint by simply asking the question “Why?” What is the purpose of having that program? If it is a worthwhile purpose and the program achieves that purpose, then great!  But the purpose is lacking or the program is not successful then don’t do it anymore.

4. Christian Replacementism.  The article states, “We developed a Christian version of everything the world offers: Christian bands, novels, schools, soccer leagues, t-shirts. We created the perfect Christian bubble.” Regardless of the fact that none of the items in the list operate within a youth ministry (maybe with the exception of a Christian Band)… The last time I checked there were no Christian sex trades, or Church sponsored serial killer clubs. Those are things of the world. Bands, novels, schools, soccer leagues, and t-shirts are things of culture. The mistake that the author repeatedly makes is making culture and things of the world synonymous. It is the same argument of the spiritual vs. the secular. That there are Christian things and there are secular things. Christian things are good and all secular things are bad. This leaves a paradox because it leads to the same fallacy that the author points out in the first place, a Christian bubble. What if the bubble wasn’t about what you did, but how you did it? I love our church softball team…because we use it as an outreach to others. I love listening to LeCrae, who will be able to reach lost people with his music that I would never be able to reach.  I love ironic Christian t-shirts…they start some awesome conversations with lost people.

5. Cultural “Relevance” Over Transformation. The idea behind this mark is that transformational experiences have taken a back seat to culturally “relevant” church settings. The article then compares worship to a concert hall, sermons to a comedy club, and the foyer to a coffee shop. My first question concerning this mark is where does having high quality worship, a funny preacher, or a coffee shop in the foyer mean that churches don’t strive for transformational experiences?  Sometimes those concert hall worship services help to transform people, sometimes humor can get through to people in a way that hellfire, and damnation cannot, and sometimes people just need a cup of coffee and someone to talk to. Again we see the article’s prejudice against anything culturally “relevant” within the church, without a solid foundation to base the prejudice.  And on a side note…what youth go to comedy clubs? I know very few young adults who go to comedy clubs.

6. Professionalization.  The article states, “If we do know an unbeliever, we don’t need to share Christ with them, we have pastors to do that. We invite them to something… to an ‘inviter’ event… we invite them to our ‘Christian’ subculture.” I am not sure I have ever been to a church that has this mentality…and I have been in several churches. I have attended evangelical events but never have I seen a church give permission to let their people not share the gospel but instead let a pastor or priest do it.

7. “McDonald’s-ization” vs. Contextualization.  In the section Marino says that, “It is no longer our own vision and passion. We purchase it as a package from today’s biggest going mega-church. It is almost like a ‘franchise fee’ from Saddleback or The Resurgence.” I can understand the point that the author is trying to get across here and for the most part agree with this one, but what about the small churches who only have volunteers leading a ministry?  That volunteer may have a huge heart for students but lack the knowledge or skill to write unique curriculum for a situation. For the most part larger “cool” “relevant” churches are the ones creating the content that is sold not the ones that are purchasing it. So I am unclear how this mark fits into the overall theme that the cool “relevant” church and big youth ministries are killing Christianity.

8. Attractional over Missional. The argument present in this mark is essentially the Seeker vs Nurture debate. This issue really is a HUGE can of worms if you want to hear a good debate over it check out The Elephant Room 1 Session 1 between Steven Furtick and Matt Chandler https://vimeo.com/59137574 .

The article continues to offer the solution for what it considers market-driven ministry, “…instead of giving people what they want, give people what they need.” Marino goes on to say, “Where we have opted for a relevant, homogenously grouped, segregated, attractional professionalized model, the early church did it with a multi-ethnic, multi-social class, seeker INsensitive church. Worship was filled with sacrament and symbol. It engaged the believing community in the Christian narrative.” The problem with comparing modern churches to the early church is that you have to pick and choose. People pick and choose things in the church that they do not like and look back and the first century church and say “they didn’t do it that way.” Another side note, the sacraments and symbolism that exist in the church, including the Episcopal tradition, weren’t implemented into the church until the Gregorian Papacy…a few hundred years after the first century church that the article cites.  It is a good thing to be a “multi-ethnic, multi-social class,” church that is a “fellowship of the transformed, that goes out into the highways and byways loving and serving the least, last and lost. In that body of Christ, Christians shares their faith with Romans 1:16 boldness, serves the poor with abandon, feed widows and takes orphans into their home,” but saying that churches aren’t doing this because they are striving to be relevant and culturally aware is judging the hearts and minds of those in leadership of those individual institutions and illogical since the author is not in the staff meetings or involved in the ministry of all of those churches. Again the article over-generalizes all “relevant” and large churches when it is impossible to say that all of them are or are not one thing or another because it is physically impossible to be in them all.

The Episcopal tradition…the one most closely associated with the author and the article is a tradition of symbolism and sacrament. While I truly do love worshiping God in their services, the Episcopal, and it’s Anglican parental traditions, are two of the poorest attended traditions by young people (Pew Research 2013). While I don’t doubt that the traditions teach Jesus and the transforming power of Christianity inside their walls, I do venture to think that the traditions themselves are becoming irrelevant to young people.

The article consistently makes reference of “relevant” churches like it is a bad thing.  Relevance is a connection to the people and when churches become irrelevant to people regardless of how attractional or missional a church is, people will not be there. Within the article, modern relevance is thought of as something that needs to be disregarded. But if churches were never relevant to the people who attend them there would be no microphones, stages, offering plates, or even cups to hold the Eucharist.

Without cultural awareness there is no Christmas in December or Easter in March/April. If you want a pill to swallow…swallow this one…When the church stops being relevant to teenagers they will go to something that is relevant to them and the statistics will get staggeringly worse.

The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.  To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”

Paul states that he was willing to become all things to all people so the he could save people for the sake of the Gospel. We are culturally aware and relevant in the same way, so that we can save people in the name of Jesus.