Poinsettias and Easter Lilies
By Alan B. Ward |
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Many Christians around the world are what I might call poinsettias and Easter lilies. In other words, on Christmas Eve and Easter the population of beautiful flowers and churchgoers tends to rise significantly, only to drop off dramatically the next couple of Sundays. The problem with that approach to churchgoing is that showing up to church only occasionally such as on Christmas Eve and Easter makes it hard to appreciate the fullness and richness of the Christian story. It leaves one in the precarious position of trying to understand the Christmas and Easter stories out of context. It’s like trying to understand a news story based only on a short soundbite. You might jump to the wrong conclusions if you don’t hear the whole story. Similarly, if we try to make sense of the entire Christian story based only on what we hear a few days a year such as on Christmas Eve or Easter, we might come to the wrong conclusions about the what the story is really all about.
The lectionary we use in most churches today is designed to cover the whole Christian story (including our Jewish origins) in a three-year time-span. If we attend church regularly, it helps us to understand Christmas, Easter, and all the other individual stories in their proper context. On the other hand, when all we have to go on is sound bites or fragments here and there and not the full story, we’re left with a story that may make us feel good when we come to church but does not have the ability to produce lasting change in our lives. To understand and experience the full significance of the Christian story in our lives requires more than sporadic participation on our part. We must make a conscious decision to make knowing God a priority all throughout the year.
Unfortunately, however, the mentality of the poinsettias and Easter lilies is alive and well in our churches. The majority of Christians feel they can be a Christian and choose whether or not they want to “go deeper” and become a disciple—discipleship is viewed as optional. There’s no biblical precedent for being a non-disciple Christian, nevertheless the lifestyle perpetuates from generation to generation. Many of these people are good, honest. intelligent, hard-working people, but they’ve been taught that it’s okay to equate church membership to country club membership. That is to say they can pick and choose when or if they participate. They want a church that is there when they need it, provides religious services such as baptisms, weddings, and funerals, but overall, doesn’t require too much of them. When they serve, it is on their terms. When life gets busy or hectic for the non-disciple Christian and, “something’s got to give,” participation in the life of the church is often the first thing to go by the wayside.
Dallas Willard says that we must learn from Jesus how he would live our life if he were us, and that involves walking with God daily and surrounding ourselves with others who walk with God on a regular basis. There are no shortcuts to growth in Christ; you don’t have to earn God’s grace but you must put forth effort to obtain it. Simply put, like anything else we do in life, if you aren’t willing to put time into this Christian walk you’re not likely to get much out of it. We are very unlikely to experience the freedom and life that Jesus promises if we view church as an optional Sunday gathering and our attendance is sporadic.
We’ve come to a place where non-discipleship is the expected and accepted norm in our churches, and I doubt anyone will argue that we need to reverse that trend. The problem, of course, is that it’s much easier said than done. Right now, I would venture to say that most of us, even those of us who are leaders, feel funny challenging one another to be more committed. It just isn’t generally done these days. We don’t want to be rejected, and after all, we better be careful lest we have to take a plank or two out of our eye before we could see to remove a speck from someone else’s. And yet, somehow we’ve got to disrupt the culture of non-discipleship that currently permeates our churches because until we are willing to shake things up a bit, we are not likely to see significant transformation take place. If we’re going to change the culture of non-discipleship I think we’ll have to wrestle with questions like:
• Do our churches expect that members will be disciples?
• Once someone says, “Yes, I want to be a disciple,” do we have a program or curriculum that would help them progress in their journey?
• How do we convince people that learning about Jesus and the Kingdom of God is something worth fitting into their busy schedule? Can we convince them or is this part up to God working in the individual’s life?
These aren’t easy questions to answer. It may seem impossible to change ways of thinking that have become so ingrained in our churches, but as we remember this time of year in the Christmas story, with God nothing is impossible. Changing the culture of our churches doesn’t happen overnight, but with God’s help, it can happen. I think it’s what has to happen if our local churches are to survive and thrive in the years to come and discover their God-given potential. I pray my words get you thinking and talking amongst yourselves, and with the Holy Spirit, seeking answers to these and other tough questions.
Alan Ward lives in Baltimore, MD and blogs at Can These Bones Live Again? |
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