There are a lot of things people outside the church often look at and wonder why the Church does what they do. There are also, however, some things apparently that the rest of the world looks at and simply admires. Pippa Evans and Sanderson Jones, two UK stand-up comedians, admire the "sense of community" found in many churches all across the world. They felt that camaraderie should be shared, even among people who don't believe in Christ. Their solution:
the UK's first atheist church. The assembly is to meet every first Sunday of the month and will be complete with a speaker and music. The speakers will talk on themes appropriate for the time of year of course; their first meeting was to be all about New Year's resolutions. Evans said, "We just want people to feel encouraged and excited when they leave."
Rev Saviour Grech, Catholic parish priest of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church in Amwell Street, Finsbury, said: “How can you be an atheist and worship in a church? Surely it’s a contradiction of terms. Who will they be singing to?" Now, it could be just me, but this is like creepy close to what we do (or are doing) in churches all the time. Think about it for just a moment. We, as Christians, go to church to be a smaller part in a bigger body, "the body of believers". I know my church wants people to feel encouraged and excited when they leave, and I don't know about where you go to church, but my pastor definitely talked about "A New Beginning" (for this New Year) in his sermon just yesterday.
Whats the point? The point is that church, the Church, has a HUGE, major difference in it that if we are not careful can be overlooked: Christ.
This is probably more of a "I'm just sayin'" type of posts...but I'm just sayin' we can start to look a lot like that atheist church if we're not careful. We can start looking like a lot of worldly things. This is my first encounter where the world has looked at a structure of the Church and said, "yeah, that looks really good...I just don't like that Christ character you are all talking." They have adopted what we have going on this time, not the other way around. It's kind of startling actually. But give it another thought, let it sit maybe just for a moment.
What happens (or at least what happened in my head) is that we can see scary similar things happening in our congregations: We talk about a theme every month (or so often. How many people's preacher is doing a 'series' right now? That's what I thought), we have some music, and we want people to leave feeling encouraged and excited. The same question that Rev. Saviour Grech asked can be asked of us as Christians to somewhat check ourselves out, who are we singing to? My answer for the new atheist church is maybe they're singing for themselves (to show off what they can do), or maybe they're just singing just to sing. People sing; Christians don't have a patent on singing in large groups (while all facing the same direction). Go to a non-Christian concert. If we're not careful we might end up in the same place, not focused on what is being sung or who the attention is going towards. If we're not careful we can sing words like "take my life and let it be all for You, and for Your glory" and not have it mean a thing. If our goal is for people to simply leave encouraged and excited then maybe we need to kindly be reminded that Christ needs to be in there somewhere. They can be encouraged, they can be excited, they can also leave having been discipled or ministered to.
My first thought when reading the article (linked above) in this new "church" in the UK was, "that's not going to work out very well". And then I had a very scary thought almost immediately afterwards: "what if it does?" What if this new atheist church works so well that it takes off and starts some crazy movement of atheist churches all over the globe? What if the very thing that was designed for the believers of Christ is done better by a body of people who don't believe in Christ. I've been in churches before where people get hurt or offended and leave - either to go to another church, or just leave the Body altogether. I've heard people talk down about their own church or voice 'prayer requests' for people while also casually gossiping. There are some hateful and not Christlike things that happen inside the walls of Christian churches. What if the atheist churches are better at being a community than we are? Of course, we could play the 'what if' game all day.
It just seems to me that some people might look at this new atheist church, point their fingers and say something like, "this is horrible, I can't believe these people would do something like that!" when in all reality something very similar happens all the time (yet our Christian churches have the name of Christ attached to them). Instead of just giving our church a bad name, we give Christ a bad name. Before we start looking to this atheist church and saying "shame on you for doing this," maybe we should look deeply at our own churches' set up and make sure that we aren't doing the exact same thing (in the Bible the word for this would be hypocritical, Jesus was the only one to use this term because He was the only one who was not a hypocrite).
What I mean by all of this, is that our worship services need to be more than a pep rally. We can sometimes get off in our own 'worship style' that we forget that we are there to worship Christ. Too much of "worship" gets attached to the actual service itself. We call it worship service, we say things like "it's time to go to worship" or "after Sunday School, we usually go to worship". Worship then becomes something that you go to, or something that you "have" (as in, "Are we having worship this Wednesday). And then what can get really confusing to people on the outside, is that after we use this language and teach it to them, we then drop the bomb that "worship is a lifestyle." -"Whoa, what? I thought it was just a service that we had like once or twice a week, not something that you do at work or at home!" Yeah, we see the confusion. So when worship becomes confined to the walls of the church and the days on a calendar, it's pretty easy to see how we can simply do what we always do and sometimes fail to include Christ anywhere in it. If anything, the atheist church proves to me that people can do what we do as Christians, only without Christ (at least as of now, we don't know what the outcome will be in the future...they could only last for like 6 months or something and decide that it just isn't worth it). Our lives as Christians shouldn't be able to be lived without Christ. This obviously doesn't apply to everyone within Christendom, but I feel it is an important reminder to us all...especially those of us in Church leadership roles of some kind.
While it may not be the exact same as going to an Atheist Church, doing ministry without Christ (or even going to church and forgetting why you are truly there) can look a lot like it...and might even provide similar results.
Imagine, if you will, the atheist church in the UK that grows and becomes big enough to get a building that looks very similar to that of a church building. They start to meet every Sunday morning and even have smaller groups that meet before their larger meeting - they call these groups like, Family Life Groups (FLGs for short) or some other hip name. This "church" operates as a non-profit organization and takes up money during the meeting. They have a guy who leads the music portion of it. They give to good, humane causes like the ASPCA, Red Cross, Toms Shoes...anything that isn't like openly in support of Christianity. They do things like give of their time to the local homeless shelter or community volunteer organisation that does random things throughout their city. They have a staff: a childcare coordinator, a student leader, a co-founder and a main speaker. They even have elders or grass-roots founders who helped start the group, and you can become a member whenever you feel like it. In all aspects of how it functions, including the business side of things, and for all tax purposes, etc. this would be functioning as an Atheist church.
We should be careful to never be like this, we should be all about Christ and making His name know. Our main focus should not be on the good that we do in the community, the number of members that we have, or that we have the most epic worship service ever (laser lights and smoke included only if you go to the 'contemporary' 11:01 AM service). Our main focus should be Christ. He is what sets us apart from the rest of the world. He is why we do what we do. He is the name we are spreading (not Such-n-Such Church of ____ City). He is the one glorified and praised.
We are His Bride, we shouldn't be able to shut up about how obsessed we are with Him and how much He loves us. The things we do should flow from that simple fact. The things we do should be a result of our obsession, and not a way to prove to everyone that we're obsessed. Again, not all are equal offenders in this.
