THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH
What is the future of the local church?

Compared to high-quality, high-budget, high-risk, high-hype events, a local assembly of less-then-celebrities rather pales. God seems to show up at the big events, but almost never locally. It is no wonder that we drift from loyalty to the local band of amateurs in favor of the famous gifted ones. It’s like a mom-and-pop shop trying to compete with Wal-Mart and Bigg’s. The high-quality, high-budget, high-risk, high-hype franchises can out-compete Mom and Pop on every level, except personally knowing you for years and building your loyalty through friendship. And with how many people can Mom and Pop sustain such a relationship? Sorry, but I am in a hurry today and need to save a buck and a minute by betraying our friendship and going to the Big Guys. And then it becomes habit.

At the same time, we have a deeply-felt longing for community, and the local church does not stack up so well there, either. My friends are the ones with whom I have much in common—same age, same station in life, same job or neighborhood, our kids play together, we are reading the same books and watching the same shows and enjoying our conversations. But at church, relationships are friendly-but-shallow with people with whom I share faith but little else. So increasingly, people are drifting away from the small groups and programs of the organized local church. Sunday night services were the first to go. Sunday Schools attendance has been in a freefall for some years now. Wednesday night Bible studies have been all but replaced with various elective classes and specialty small group ministries, but that is only the local church’s way of trying to keep the faithful, faithful. In the long run, people do not and will not continue to do things because they "ought" to do them.

There are dangers to the lone ranger, renegade, independent individuals who mix and match their own spiritual meals. There is no solid accountability structure to keep Revolutionaries in line. But there were and are dangers in the local church, too, aren't there? Power-hungry pastors who abscound with church funds, backbiting and infighting among members, unloving and incomplete systematic theologies. The accountability structures for Revolutionaries is like a bunch of sticks intertwined and laying across a pit; it may not have a solid frame, but if the sticks are plentiful enough and intertwined enough, perhaps it will hold your weight, after all. Since each individual must be the one to stand before God, I guess it is up to each individual to be sure they have found enough of a support system to prepare them for judgment.