Page 2 of 5
I offer these observations first as a personal confession. Slumber would not be far off the mark in describing my own vision and heart toward the world at times. Busy with life, preoccupied with ministry, absorbed with what is personal, local, immediate—it's easy to feel like there is not enough of me to go around as it is! So the thought of deliberately seeking to engage beyond these aspects of life can easily be neglected. Left to my own devices, I can live quite contentedly inside the bubble of my middle-class American life. Little in my world, apart from the presence and power of the gospel itself, would ever really demand or expect that I look beyond it. In clearer moments, I know this is a kind of sleepwalking. I write as one who is still just awakening, yet who is eager for others to join in imitating those who are truly awake.
Beyond my own personal confession, my observations of other Christians and churches and the absence of any strong evidence to the contrary convinces me that the church is largely asleep—even if it doesn't look like it. For example, I recently stood on the grounds of a remarkable church: vibrant, thoughtful, committed, engaged, creative. It was the first day of an enormous, richly choreographed vacation Bible school program. Amid the swirl of activity I watched the children in color-coordinated orange T-shirts dance and follow the worship band, whose faces were also projected larger than life on two huge screens up front.
Suddenly I felt that these hundreds of children were being put spiritually asleep—asleep to the God of the still small voice, to the God who suffered for the sake of the world, to the God who said, "Lay down your life, take up your cross, and follow me." Don't get me wrong; I do not doubt for a moment that the VBS leaders intended just the opposite. They were simply trying to find the best means to communicate to the children. But instead, what seemed evident to me was that this church, one that would by most measures be considered awake, was running the risk of investing astonishing energy in breeding and nurturing a yet more excellent sleep. Why? Because the primary message of its building, its programs, and its ministry announced that it was first and foremost an institution that was wealthy and white. The church's sociology was the primary message. The VBS production featured everything money and time could buy and was so central and primary that the gospel felt small and incidental in comparison. It felt like an instance of Jesus "in distressing disguise," indeed possibly beyond recognition.
Even more unnerving, I had to acknowledge that this could just as easily and just as well be said of the vibrant church that I pastor. My church's subculture is different, but not on a global scale. We have just finished a major building campaign and have enhanced our facilities substantially, with many years of effort and much expense. The privileges of churches like these can shroud the gospel in such middle- and upper-class consumer-oriented style and content that salvation subtly becomes more about providing a warm blanket of cultural safety than about stepping out into the bracing winds of spiritual sacrifice. Such patterns in a church's life can easily, if unintentionally, lead to a focus on consolidating and extending power instead of identifying with the powerless. The former is a lot more like a comfortable bed to sleep in than the latter. No wonder we don't want to wake up, let alone get up and get going in the work of justice.
