Enough Already

Mark Tidsworth, Pinnacle Team Leader

Have you had enough yet? The hand-wringing, complaining, blaming, and whining….

After a while it gets so old, turning into a noisy gong or clanging cymbal.

With the demise of Christendom, the time when the church was favored and blessed by culture in this USA, some people in churches are caught in cycles of unhelpful and unhealthy responses. They feel dethroned, recognizing their faith no longer occupies the position of cultural affirmation and privilege it enjoyed a few short years ago. Feelings of rejection, bewilderment, confusion, disappointment, and resentment rise up, taking over, turning their churches into toxicity pools. Perhaps I’m being a bit extreme with this description; or maybe not. (To learn more about healthy and unhealthy responses to the Postmodern transition, see Chapter 2 in my book Shift: Three Big Moves For The 21st Century Church.)

Even while some seem paralyzed in their anxiety, there are more and more Christ-followers who are now over it. They are done; done spinning their wheels, wishing for the good old days. They are done and moving on. So how do we help those who are stuck in worn-out paradigms, wishing for the past to return?

Well, there are so many answers to this question. The essential shift toward a more hopeful narrative is the result of two polar opposites held in tandem.

The past, when Christianity was the golden child of American culture, receiving so many cultural affirmations and privileges, IS NOT returning.

And

The Church is now positioned to make its greatest contribution to this world’s transformation yet.

First, we have to let go of the fantasy that the past will return. Too much has changed. The culture which made our previous expressions of church popular and numerous is either gone or only alive in cultural enclaves. Church-as-we-have-known-it is fading fast. Sure, this is a hard one for many to accept, or to even understand. Yet, accepting this recognition opens the door to this second realization.

The church is positioned to make its greatest contribution to this world’s transformation yet. Remember the early church? They went about living their faith with no illusions about using the power of cultural popularity to strengthen them as organizations. They were clearly a counter-cultural, minority spiritual movement in their day. Yet, they also changed the world! Their faith journeys weren’t about privileges and popularity, but about the exceptional power of love. They believed their world needed the transformational gospel of Jesus Christ, literally giving their lives to this story.

So how about us? Have we had enough yet? Are we done yet? Are we ready to move on, caught up in the beautiful Way of Jesus? Are we ready to join God’s ongoing movement, designed to bring resurrection where there was only death? Or, do we want to take our toys and go home, refusing to play in a world that underappreciates us, not treating us in the manner to which we are accustomed?

So many of us are thinking “Enough already, let’s get on with it…turning our focus to living in the beautiful, life-giving Way of Jesus.”