same building. What is the cause of this decline in church attendance today? Countless reasons are given. For some, it may be a part of their general distrust of all institutions like the government, the news media, etc. Many persons are just not interested in going to worship on Sunday. They had rather use the time to relax, participate in recreation, visit family or friends, shop, sleep late, travel, watch television, go to the mountains or beach, or dozens of other reasons could fill the page. The “nones” and many of the millennials seem little concerned about institutional religion. They may claim to be spiritual but not religious, certainly in the sense of attending a church service on Sunday morning. In a 2018 survey, the number of “nones,” those who don’t affiliate with any specific faith tradition, now are tied with Catholics and evangelicals in the largest religious groupings in our country.1 Some have vacated the church pews because of what they call the “two-faced” version of the Christian faith among many church goers and the moral contradictions in their everyday living. Another reason for others is the attitude some say that the church has toward the LGBT persons, the role of women in the church and society, and the sexual immorality of many of the religious leaders, priests and ministers, in the church today. Referring to the early Church’s anointing at Pentecost, Barrie Shepherd raises the question of what has happened to that “bright descending light” in this question:
But that bright descending fire
that melted hearts to kindness sent them
out across all gulfs to spend themselves for
others’ sakes, what put it out? Or why has it
flamed fainter, ever fainter with the years?
Is there a sacred oil can yet rekindle such a spark?
Or are we doomed to batter one another with
the truth through the encroaching dark? 2
This book is one minister’s efforts to challenge the institutional church to finds ways to ignite that Pentecostal flame again, to discover how the Church can be “re-born” again, to reach out to the non-churched today, also to re-engage its own church members to take seriously the challenge of sharing the good news of the Gospel with others. Christians must be rekindled in their enthusiasm for sharing the Gospel and restore their commitment to following the Great Commission of our Lord. As someone has said, “The church is always one generation away from extinction.” Is this going to be that generation? If church members will take seriously their commitment to follow Christ, then once again the church may be able to move “like a mighty army.” This may cause the church to face many changes in structure, organization, leadership roles, the status of professional ministers, ways and times of worship, places to meet, breaking of denominational barriers, the ethical standards of its ministers, and even re-evaluating some of its doctrines.
Will the Church have the will and courage to face this challenge? If the Church is going to survive, it must respond to its call to Christian discipleship. Brian McLaren’s recent book, The Great Spiritual Migration, is a summons for the church to move away from a status-quo, dogmatic, rigidly established system of belief, and narrow religion to one that is an open and daring spiritual journey that focuses not so much on one’s own personal religion but one’s neighbor and the world itself.3 McLaren has presented, in my opinion, a summons that beckons to all Christians who take seriously, or should take seriously, the call to be a disciple of Christ. I affirm his challenge.
In most of the chapters in this book, I have been open and upfront in my challenge for the Church to respond to the summons from Christ to discipleship. I reach back to the foundation of the Church Christ established, and seek to guide us forward from our initial commitment to Christ into our present walk with him in service and love. I do not believe that one can be an authentic believer in Christ and not worship, share the Good News with others, support persons in need, and strive to grow in our faith. In several of the chapters, like “Is God Over Thirty?” “An Open Letter to Bill as He Leaves for College,” and “Going Home Again,” I invite the reader to “overhear” the message, to use Fred Craddock’s phrase. Sometimes the indirect approach may be more effective than a direct one. But I have not hesitated to be very direct in my summons for the Church to rise and respond to Christ’s call to a servant and pilgrim discipleship. I have not given up on the Church. I believe Christ is still working in the hearts and minds of persons to follow him into the unknown, challenging future with the message of Christ’s love and redemption. I hope to see the Church enlivened and rekindled to proclaim the Good News and live out the servant ministry Christ has call us to undertake. I commit my life to that end. I extend again my words of appreciation to my fellow minister and friend, Rand Forder, for reading this manuscript in its early stages.
1 “Number of nones equals evangelicals, Catholic,” Christian Century (April 24, 2019), 17.
2 J. Barrie Shepherd, Between Mirage and Miracle (Eugene, Oregon: WIPF & Stock, 2012), 37.
3 Brian D. McLaren, The Great Spiritual Migration (New York: Convergent Books, 2016).
1
Let God Kindle
a Fire Within
One of the haunting memories from my childhood, and one which has been reinforced repeatedly by my parents retelling the episode, was an experience I had as a small child. One day I walked into the woods near where we lived. I had taken a box of matches with me which I had seen lying on the stove. I had decided to build a fire like the ones I had seen other people start. I gathered some sticks and leaves and placed them in a small pile. Then I took a match from the box, struck it, and put its flame against the leaves. Instantly the leaves began to burn, and soon the twigs burst into flames. They began to burn and burn and burn. And soon the whole woods was on fire!
At that point, I did what any small child would do. I ran for home. I could hear the sirens of the fire truck off in the distance. Someone had seen the fire and called the fire department. I ran up the steps of our house and went upstairs into our attic. I sat down in a rocking chair there and began to rock back and forth. My mother did not have to ask me: “Who started that fire?” She knew who had done it. The fact that I went rushing from the fire up to the attic and did not bother to go see the fire engines was very revealing to her. She said that this was one of the few lessons from which I did not have to have some other reinforcements to enable me to remember them. Later as I became older, I learned through Boy Scouts how to build fires properly in the woods.
We have all had some experiences with fire. Some of you may have been the victims of a fire in your home. A hotel near the church I was pastoring in another city, burned to the ground. While I was away at college, I heard that a large part of the downtown section of my hometown burned down. We have seen pictures on T.V. of the walls of flames that have consumed so much of our national forests and a whole town in California. As a congregation, St. Matthews Baptist Church, where I served as pastor, experienced the loss of its church buildings by fire before I began my ministry with them. We all know something about fire. Images and memories of it fill our minds.
Fire as a Powerful Symbol
In the Bible, fire is used as a powerful symbol. In the Old Testament Moses encounters God in the flames of a burning bush which is not consumed. God led the children of Israel at night with a pillar of fire. The children of Israel on Mt. Sinai worshiped God. Some scholars believe that Sinai was a volcano or maybe some thunderstorms were constantly at its top. But the Sinai concept of God as fire had a tremendous impact on the children of Israel and their understanding of God. Elijah departed this life
