Post-denominational-ism

Hey! Are you Lutheran? What's a Lutheran?

Exactly.

We are entering a generation in which denominations are not predominately known by young adults. People no longer find denominations significant for belief in Jesus Christ; in fact, some find denominations restricting to their faith.

It isn't even that strong to say that this generation is post-church. I've been talking to Pastor Weber and he was saying that people who are considered "regular attenders" are now only attending church once a month! What has happened to cause this extreme?

When churches see that word they are scared. They are afraid that the more and more people don't attend church the less people they will be able to reach. Well, there are two things flawed, 1. You mostly reach people outside the church walls and 2. There are more people today that consider themselves spiritual and even believe in God than there will ever be in the pews on Sunday morning.

Why is it so difficult to get people who believe in God and who are spiritual into the church doors? I think we are asking the wrong question. Maybe we should be asking how can we as Church (capital "C") reach to those who are spiritual and believe in God but don't have a firm community of believers?

This is what stems from the Acts 2 Church post I made earlier, we have people who believe in God and want more, but they don't have that sense of community. We are called to be a fellowship of believers. Let's not close our doors to those who may not think like us.

I have grown very fond of the idea of post-denominational-ism and post-church because it means that people are finally finding true deep meaning in their faith rather than spouting what everyone else is saying. The one difference however is the support network that we have in the church buildings. This extends outside the church building as well. I have a hard time believing that if Jesus came back tomorrow, that He would be happy at how exclusive some of our church bodies are. We may not claim to be exclusive, in fact, I know that we don't claim to be exclusive; but it is through our actions that people will come to know Christ.

Jesus put it best in saying that "you are the light of the world, a city on a hill" let us let God's light shine through to those people who are at the point of abandoning church and show them what true community is.

1 comment:

  1. I am a huge fan of accepting people regardless of how they came to faith or anything else. I don't know that post-denominationalism is the way to do that though. Specific denominations are like specific cultures, with their own thinking, histories, songs, values and so forth. Striving for an existence "post-" that culture reads to me like when people used to say that they wanted to be "colorblind." Real love isn't in denying differences or even acceptance, but starts in honest conversations about what differs between the "them" and "us" (whatever that is), owning yourself and recognizing that what is each us, is not the authoritative source. We can be wholly ourselves, culturally/historically/liturgically, without being disrespectful or condescending to others.

    Sorry about the short comment, I got to run. But thanks for the opportunity to think about this stuff!

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