My View

Read an interesting post on a US emerging church site. This post was written specifically for Lutherans (which is my heritage). The post talks about a survivor mentality that longs for the times when there were “more lutherans than people”. A church that is into survivor mentality won’t engage in mission, because it’s hoping for a turning back of the clock to a christendom culture (when society in general was christian and supported the church).

I see quite a lot of this in my work with the Oasis network (see below for a brief description of Oasis in Finland). The church in Finland hasn’t yet come to a point of facing reality, and facing the future. The reasons, I think, can be illustrated by describing three groups of people:

1. Some simply refuse to believe that society has changed. They close their eyes and act as if the church was still “in the center of the village”, in terms of the church’s relevance in society. “The church has always been central to our culture, so how could it possibly not be in the future. After all, we have God backing us up, and there is no salvation outside the church.”
2. Some lament the changes, but can’t see any hope in the postmodern changes in society. I think the post that I referred to above deals with this group of people. They are longing for “the olden days”, and praying to God for a turning back of the clock.
3. The people who want change. They are for the most part leaving the church. Most of these just stop attending any church thing. They risk becoming something George Barna calls “backsliders” in his book Revolution. Another group are people who are drawn to another church, or to some alternative way of expressing their faith in a community. So the people who want change are for the most part not in the church anymore.

So where is all of this going? Is Barna right (I’ll get back to his book in a separate post soon) when he says that the local church will become less and less relevant within the next 20 years? He most certainly will be, unless the churches start taking the needs of a postmodern society seriously. The clock won’t be turning back. The church will need to find a way to foster discipleship, community and absolute truth in ways very different to the established ones. Now would be a good time to start. It might soon be too late.

(The Oasis network is a movement within the Lutheran church of Finland. The vision of Oasis in Finland is to inspire churches to look at new ways of doing church, fresh expressions of church, in a postmodern world.)