{"id":64422,"date":"2025-12-03T18:30:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T18:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/make-faith-plausible-again\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T01:35:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T01:35:06","slug":"make-faith-plausible-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/make-faith-plausible-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Faith Plausible Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cThe sons of Issachar \u2026 understood the times and knew what Israel should do.\u201d
<\/em>\u20141 Chronicles 12:32 (NASB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The church today faces a profound interpretive challenge. Nearly every denomination is shrinking, and in the past 25 years about 40 million American adults have left the church<\/a>. The impulse is to react\u2014to panic, to fix, to do something<\/em>\u2014but first we must understand the nature of the problem. Everyone knows we live in a secular age; far fewer understand what that actually means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding Our Moment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Philosopher Charles Taylor helps us name what has changed. He distinguishes<\/a> three ways the word secular<\/em> can be used. Secular1<\/em> names the distinction between sacred and secular spheres. Clergy attend to sacred vocations, while butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers pursue secular, or ordinary, work. Secular2<\/em> describes a society in which fewer people participate in religious practices such as reading Scripture or attending worship. Secular3<\/em>, however, marks a deeper shift: a world where the assumptions that once made belief seem natural have changed so profoundly that faith in God has become difficult even to imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We now live in that secular3 world\u2014what Taylor calls an \u201cimmanent frame,\u201d where belief and unbelief alike are lived as contested possibilities. The church makes a serious mistake when it assumes a secular2 context and responds to declines with marketing campaigns or engagement strategies. In a secular3 world, such efforts can make things worse, reinforcing the sense that Christianity is just another consumer option. The church no longer operates within a shared \u201cbackground of belief,\u201d where evangelism means reawakening lapsed faith. The challenge now is deeper; the plausibility of Christian faith itself has eroded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Argument to Presence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In a world where faith feels implausible, persuasion and presence must work together. This doesn\u2019t mean abandoning proclamation, but it takes recognizing that words require a lived context that makes them believable. The gospel becomes most compelling when its truth is joined to a community that makes it visible and credible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This requires a kind of faithful imagination\u2014the ability to inhabit spaces where the presence of God can again be sensed and not merely asserted. We need practices that help the church move from anxiety about decline to confidence in patient, visible faithfulness within public life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Forecourt: A Biblical Image of Hospitality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One such practice comes from Jim Davis and Michael Graham\u2019s recent book<\/a> The Great Dechurching<\/em>. Drawing on the imagery of the Old Testament temple in Jerusalem, Davis and Graham note that while God\u2019s presence dwelt in the temple where Israel gathered for worship, the temple also had a forecourt\u2014an outer area where anyone could draw near, listen, and experience something of God\u2019s reality. The forecourt was a place where cynics and saints mingled\u2014where the curious could explore and the convinced were called to embody the patient welcome of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davis and Graham suggests that the church today should create analogous spaces of hospitality\u2014 \u201cforecourt events.\u201d These are gatherings that welcome neighbors to come near without demanding premature belief: moments where friendship, beauty, and joy embody the reality of God\u2019s kingdom in the midst of ordinary life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forecourt Events in Practice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At my church in San Luis Obispo, California, we are learning to use forecourt events as a way of making faith imaginable again in a secular3 world. Our Christmas party at a downtown brewery, our children\u2019s Easter egg hunt, the Cinema for Cynics and Saints film series<\/a>, and the annual SLO Forum<\/a> on Faith and Culture create porous boundaries between church and city. These are not events for the sake of merely our congregation, nor are they stunts to get unbelievers in the door. They are signs of transcendence within an immanent world\u2014simple rehearsals of the kingdom that is already breaking into our midst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When framed this way, the measure of success changes. The goal is not attendance or conversion statistics but presence<\/em>. Our congregation is learning that presence is the crucial first step. When we show up, and when we invite friends to join us, we make the gospel visible. Our warmth, curiosity, and conversation make it believable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presence is the first act of witness. Faithful witness joins clear words with a faithful presence that gives those words weight and credibility. The church\u2019s task in a secular3 world is to become the kind of community whose very life gives credibility to its message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ordinary Acts, Eschatological Echoes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Every act of hospitality is, in this sense, an eschatological rehearsal\u2014a glimpse of the day when God will dwell with his people and make all things new. Forecourt events invite both believers and skeptics to inhabit, if only for a moment, that coming reality already breaking into our midst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of presence will not reverse statistical decline overnight, but it does something more significant: It trains the church to live truthfully within its time. It teaches us to resist panic and to rediscover confidence in the slow, embodied work of grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Pastors and Ministry Leaders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As you approach the holiday season, consider how your church\u2019s rhythms might serve as forecourt spaces in your own community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n