http://www.amazon.com/You-Dont-Want-Church-Anymore/dp/0964729229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273775451&sr=8-1
I have just read a book with a provocative title: So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore by Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman. Let me begin by saying that the title of this book does not reflect my feelings toward my current local church. Actually, in many ways I feel that the church I attend has managed to avoid some of the pitfalls described in it, which seem to plague larger congregations. But, as the authors describe, the "church" as an institution always seems to get tangled up in problems as it drifts from being a community sharing life together as they walk toward Jesus, and shifts to being a group wrapped up in its own propagation and preservation.
The instigator of change in the life of the book's main character, Jake, is the elusive John, who could be described as a cross between "The Ghost of Christmas Present" and Neo from Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian trilogy. The fact that the mysterious John doesn't appear when Jake wants him, but rather only when he needs him seems a little forced. And his condescending attitude toward Jake, making him seem like a childish fool who doesn't "get it" (often times outright laughing at him) makes me wish that John were a little more like Neo. This would have helped to affirm one of the tenets of the book, i.e. that we are fellow sojourners, some a little further down the path. ("Don't look for leaders as you've come to think of them. Think of brothers and sister who are a bit further along the journey than you are.") The writers' style, when it came to John's character, unfortunately, seemed to reinforce the modern church's view of the ignorant being led by the "expert."
There were, however, many helpful insights to be gleaned from the book, conveyed via the all-knowing John:
"'The Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands.' . . . People can get very touchy about their buildings, especially if they think God dwells in them."
"Once you build an institution together you have to protect it and its assets to be good stewards. It confuses everything. Even love gets redefined as that which protects the institution and unloving as that which does not."
"You're missing what every writer of the New Testament proclaimed - even though God does not orchestrate our sufferings, he uses them to bring freedom at the deepest core of our being."
"We find his love in the most broken place of our lives. As we let him love us there and discover how to love him in return, we'll find our lives changing in that relationship."
"The more organization you bring to church life, the less life it will contain."
"Our life in God, shared together, expresses itself as the church. It is the overflow of his life in us." The pervasive image of the church are something we "are" rather than merely a place that we "go" is quite convicting yet encouraging to me. We who have been raised in the church sometimes find it hard to think this way. We tend to think of the physical structure as the underlying reality, but perhaps this is backwards. I have witnessed many churches struggling with the very issues that arise when people emphasize "going to church" over being the church.
But I'm not quite sure that I can accept the full implications of the book's message, since it seems that the authors advocate abandoning the traditional "church" because it is beyond repair (Jacobsen even wrote an article, "Why I don't go to church anymore!" which appears in the appendix). Even house churches are spoken of with caution because they run the risk of becoming too organized, too institutional. They encourage a very free understanding of what it could look like to "be the church" which is highly relational (a good thing!) but which seems almost as intent on rigorously rejecting any type of structure as it does on following Jesus.
Clearly, I have mixed feelings about the book. But sometimes it is that very type of book which changes me the most. I continue to process these ideas and let them challenge my thinking. Who knows . . . maybe I'll give up a little of what I've held onto as the status quo and grow a little in the process.
