[Editor's note: the following excerpt is taken from Loving the Church: God's People Flourishing in God's Family by John Crotts © 2010, Shepherd Press.]
Instinctively, many people in Christian cultures know they should raise their families in church. Even couples who haven't been in church for years begin to think about it when children come along. In some countries where church is merely a formality, you can still see families walk through the doors on Sundays because they have a sense that they ought to be there. A sense of oughtness and raw instincts, however, only gets families through the church doors a few times in their lives. There must be a clear connection in people's minds about the significance of the church for their lives. When such connections are not made, other ways of thinking and living sever the ties between individuals, families, and the family of God. Though thousands of people still attend churches around the world, very few truly experience the connection between God's design for the church and living their lives within that design as God intended.
Christians give many reasons why they are not more involved in their churches. Some are doing Christianity their own way— without the church. Another group has never experienced a biblical church, so while they put in some time on Sundays, their real growth happens outside the church context. Hurts and fall-outs, have led some to retreat from their church family, like Rachael. Still others are trying to shape the church around their own wants and needs. And sometimes Christians just misplace their priorities. While there are many reasons given for the small place the church has in their lives, the common denominator is that they all misunderstand the value of the church as presented in the Bible.
Unchurch Revolution
The popular pollster, George Barna, published a book a few years ago called Revolution.1 This study tracks a recent trend in which professing Christians live their Christian lives outside a church family. While there is a wide spectrum covered in Barna's study, he defines true Revolutionaries as ones who truly love the Lord, read their Bibles, actively look for service opportunities, give, and witness. They get together with other Christians at the coffee shop or in Christian groups like businessmen's Bible studies, MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers), or a homeschool network. They listen to Bible teachers online or on the radio. They read solid Christian books. In their minds they have successfully replaced all the benefits of the church while removing the burdens. Barna admits that some are dropping out of churches for wrong reasons (like to have more time for themselves or to avoid spiritual accountability), but he seems genuinely excited by what he sees. One of his book's stated purposes is "to encourage people who are struggling with their place in the kingdom of God to consider this spiritual awakening as a viable alternative to what they have pursued and experienced thus far" (emphasis added).3 Barna's agenda is to motivate professing Christians to take their walks with God to the level of a Revolutionary. "Whether you become a Revolutionary immersed in, minimally involved in, or completely dissociated from a local church is irrelevant to me (and, within boundaries, to God)."4
Barna believes this trend will continue until there are more Revolutionaries than church members in just a few years! "I have concluded that by the year 2025, the spiritual profile of the nation will be dramatically different. Specifically, I expect that only about one third of the population will rely upon a local congregation as the primary or exclusive means for experiencing and expressing their faith. . . ."5 This is in contrast to his survey results from the year 2000, in which 70 percent of Americans answered yes to that same question about relying on the church.
