I know, you don’t think what you are doing is damaging the Church, but that’s where you’re wrong. It’s not that your points aren’t right or valid. You’re wrong because you believe that griping about all her flaws will make her better. By airing all your grievances, you wound those who love Her and you.
You wound those sweet, saintly ladies who put on those events praying over those doily-laden tables for young women to fill those chairs. These women who aren’t silenced or frozen by a fear of being irrelevant show up and serve with you in mind. They do it because once upon a time someone did it for them. They do it because they desperately want to connect so they serve the way they know how. They model a level of fidelity and gospel-centeredness I’m not sure most of us Millennials can understand. It’s easy to love and serve a sexy church. But to love and serve a struggling one, that’s another level of Christ-likeness.
If you want to build community or grow in intimacy, just show up. Squeeze their hands. See their hearts. Pray for them. Ask about their stories. Hear the countless ways their hearts have been broken by the world and healed by God as they have walked with Jesus longer than we’ve been alive.
Maybe you believe that your thoughts will help the Church narrowly escape irrelevance. (By the way, Church irrelevance is a gross generalization.)
But you know as well as I do that nothing turns off our generation more than feeling as though we’re being manipulated. We want relevance, but hate it when you try too hard. Don’t try and make it all about me when it should be all about Jesus, we say. Our needs aren’t met, yet we disdain that our Churches are too inwardly focused. We can’t have it both ways.
Maybe you hope that your words will help the Church come back from the brink of extinction. (By the way, Church extinction is a theological impossibility.)
But here’s the thing, the Church’s existence doesn’t depend on Her success, relevance, statistics or Millennials. She has been preserved all these years by the grace and good pleasure of Jesus Christ. He sustains her. The Church’s challenges are not new. Believe it or not, generations have felt all your frustrations before. She has been irrelevant. She has been abusive. She has been wrong. She has been myopic. She has been manipulative, and yet He sustains Her.
