CONFESSION- Part 1

1Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. 2He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God's house. 3Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. 4For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. 5Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house, testifying to what would be said in the future. 6But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
7So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, 8do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, 9where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. 10That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’ 11So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’” 12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” 16Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert? 18And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
(Hebrews 3:1 – 3:19)

This is a good place to make a couple of points. It might sound that I am implying contemporary Christianity and the modern church is so messed up that the active work on God in people’s lives is impossible. That is not the case at all and here is why:

1. God is not limited by the influence of institutionalism on the local church or by individual theology. God is actively working in the lives of millions, ESPECIALLY in the church. Most growing Christians continue to worship in the institutional church that may even have really bad theology regarding grace and spiritual maturity. The institutional church is still the hub of the greatest social services and evangelistic movements in the world. In fact, many of those who have left the church for “spiritual reasons” have floundered and struggled in their faith. The institutional church, with all its problems, is still so often a dynamic and transformational environment where God builds up leaders and changes lives.

2. However, there is a revolution happening among many believers. There is, by nature, a lack of formal organization, but there is a profound emphasis on discipleship, community, and service that is changing the lives of many who were active in the church and those who were frustrated by the church before becoming part of this new movement which has taken them out of the institution and into something very different.

3. And finally, spirituality is at an all time high. People are genuinely interested in spiritual meaning and existential value. Regardless if people have previously or currently considered themselves Christians or not or a part of the church or not, the renewed interest in issues of spirituality, spiritual disciplines, and God are opening a door for God to work in new ways unseen in centuries. This is not to say that spiritualism is necessary a good thing. It is actually often counter-productive to true spiritual formation. But it has provided a unique opportunity for those in and out of the institutionalized church.

Consider research gathered by the George Barna and others from www.barna.com. But before I get to it, let me address a few things that need to be understood. People across the board consider themselves happier than ever before in America. Quality of living is astonishing, medical care is constantly improving, greater opportunities allow greater job satisfaction and leisure activities, people have more free time to travel, and we are closer than ever before to equality for all races and sexes. Despite the overwhelming problems that exist within each of these examples, we are at one of the greatest times in history, at least as Americans. But to be fair, we are more capable of medicating our sadness by illegal and legal means than ever before, there is a growing divide between the rich and poor, our planet is facing environmental disaster, and for every type of crime or problem that is fixed, new ones take their place. Even though we live in a broken world, most people are relatively happy, at least at the functional level. This is the same for Christians and non-Christians alike. Proving the success of the church by asking a member if he or she is happy doesn’t mean much for three reasons. We are not called to happiness, but holiness. Everybody says they are happy. And very few mean it.

Here is what www.barna.com reports that supports what I have stated. I will begin with a 2007 article entitled American Lifestyles Mix Compassion and Self-Oriented Behavior. This survey shows Americans are willing to sacrifice for others, but exhibit as many self-oriented behaviors. Regarding thinking about others, seventy-four percent of Americans value recycling and forty-eight percent value helping their communities. When it comes to conversations about faith, the number dropped to forty-four percent that were comfortable with it. However, when it comes to indulging own interests, roughly a third were willing to exhibit their rage and say mean things toward others. A third of the participants were also willing to engage in sexual activity that doesn’t align with Christian values. Barna found born again Christians are more likely to volunteer for their church; however, they are no more likely than average to help the poor and homeless. Born again Christians were also among the least likely groups to recycle. In evaluating fifteen moral behaviors, born again Christians are statistically indistinguishable from non-born again adults on most of the behaviors studied. This means the only things that separate a good Christian from a good citizen is that the Christian won’t recycle. Commenting on this research David Kinnaman, who directed the study of American lifestyles, commented “The respect, patience, self-control and kindness of born again Christians should astound people, but the lifestyles and relationships of born again believers are not much different than others.”

Much of this isn’t new information. Many of us have heard that the divorce rate and premarital sex rate of Christians is exactly the same as the population in general. And ask any waiter who the worse tippers are and who is the rudest customer and he will tell you it is church groups and those coming from Sunday services. And on more person experiences, many of us can testify to the fact that the vast majority of those that call themselves Christians are anything but like Christ. I am quickly approaching wanting to abandon the label of Christian for myself because it seems to mean so little. Christianity is a culture in America. The title has much less to do with the radical transformation of the mind, body, and spirit as it does the culture norms and identification that comes from it.

In fact, in a different 2007 article entitled Survey Explores Who Qualifies As an Evangelical, thirty-eight percent of Americans are willing to take the label of evangelical, but when put to a criteria test only eight percent make the cut. I live in West Texas and do a lot of my writing at a coffee shop that tends to be popular among the Christian population (evangelical Christians usually) of the city. At any given time you can see someone reading a bible or overhear a discussion on scripture. I am going to assume those that I see here are the small percentage who are “walking the walk”, but statistically, it is much more likely that when there are fifty people at this coffee shop over forty would call themselves Christians, but fewer than twenty-five have connected that label with a personal relationship with Christ, and only four people would actually be doing anything at all that reflects that label in their personal lives. Of those four, how many do you think might be growing and maturing in an intimate relationship with Christ?

It is no wonder why there are an increasing number of people who want to steer clear of institutional faith. Barna estimates the number of unchurched Americans is nearing 100 million despite a rapid increase in spiritual interest. That means that one out of every three Americans is unchurched. In the same article a new book called “Jim and Casper Go to Church” is reviewed. A few of the critical discoveries in the book were that there is a relative indifference of most churched Christians to unchurched people at church services. There is an overt emphasis upon a personal rather than communal faith journey. There is a tendency of congregations to perform rituals and exercise talents rather than invite and experience the presence of God. There is an absence of a compelling call to action given to those who attend. And finally, there is a failure to listen to dissident voices and spiritual guidance to dig deeper in one’s faith. Something is radically wrong with our “Christian society.”

I am going to take one more article from George Barna called Barna Lists the 12 Most Significant Religious Findings from 2006 Surveys. I am only going to mention a few. I encourage you to go online and read the rest. The first finding is that even though most claim to be “deeply spiritual”, only 15% of those who regularly attend a Christian church ranked their relationship with God as the top priority in their life. Pastors on the other hand believe that 70% of the adults in their congregation consider their relationship with God to be their highest priority in life. This alone speaks volumes about influences of institutionalism on the local church. Another, “while just 21% of adults consider themselves to be holy, by their own admission, large numbers have no idea what ‘holiness’ means and only one out of every three (35%) believe that God expects people to become holy.” And “seven out of ten parents claim they are effective at developing the spiritual maturity of their children, but the Barna survey among 8-to-12-year-olds discovered that only one-third of them say a church has made ‘a positive difference’ in their life.” This shows that there is no doubt that faith is important to people, but that our actions don’t reflect that value. It also shows that there is a basic ignorance about spiritual formation among people and churches.