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The 8 and closing parentheses in my parenthetical “even “ditties” like 1st John 4:7 and 8″ got turned into an emoticon.

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As others have said, we don’t go to church, we are the church.

Some of the best “church” time for me has been in the homes of fellow believers, talking of the things of the Lord, sharing Scriptures, praying, singing encouragements to one another (even “ditties” like 1st John 4:7 and and singing praise and commitment to the Lord.

We are to make disciples, are we not? How long does it take to train up a disciple to the point where he can train up a disciple?

I have an idealistic vision of something like Star War’s Master Qui-gon Jinn with Obi-wan Kenobi as his Padawan learner. But in reality I see nothing approaching that level of commitment, though I have heard the phrase (Navigators?) something like, “Each one, take one” to disciple.

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1. It isn’t about the dress, it is about the message. The Gospel is Gods power to salvation, not the way we dress, the type of music we sing, worship style or setting. Most of us are missing the point entirely.

2. “Being all things to all people” does not mean that I must adopt their “culture”, dress, music etc. Otherwise we would need to be a drug user in order to reach the drug users, pornographers to reach those in pornography – wait don’t scream, I am taking the idea to it’s logical absurdity but hopefully you get my point. If we were to take what the “church growth” folks and post-moderns were telling us then the modern missionary movement would never have been successful, William Carey did not become an Indian in order to reach India.

3. Finally, most of what we see is in my opinion truly caving in to our increasingly post-modern culture, not an attempt to reach into it. It is moving away from anything “traditional” or “modern” to that which is different since all things “traditional” are bad. It is adopting a “minimalist” mind set about just about everything – and yes we are beginning to see it in their theology as well as many “post-moderns” and “emergent” folks are beginning to give up on scriptural authority, the whole trend about not knowing anything for sure…….

Well just some random thoughts from a guy who is not post-modern, who thinks that maybe, just maybe, when we come to God in worship, the fact that we are collectively standing before the Throne of Grace, that we puny, sinful (justus et pecator) creatures are standing before an infinitely holy God ought to have enough of a concept of the seriousness and gravity of that situation to see it reflected in our dress, our music, the setting, et. al.

Respectfully submitted.

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Since the comments will be closed in just two days, I wanted to note a couple of things that I think have been lost:

1. It was never really just about the “clothes” and externals, though that is what was the last straw, in a sense, and is what portion of what I wrote is being excerpted.

2. I repeatedly state in the post and in other comments on other blogs that I did not doubt the sincerity of the church I left, or that the people there were not “Christians” or that they were not the “true church” or any such nonsense.

3. This has nothing to do with what is fashionable in North Dakota — how that has reared its ugly head in various blogs is rather strange.

I really hope that those who have left comments or joined in the conversation have read the full post I wrote — including the comments and subsequent discussion, of which many links are provided to back at the original post — before jumping to any of the above three conclusions, or those that I have not mentioned.

I’ve had lots of helpful (and a few not so helpful, which I will treasure) emails from this post, and most people, whether they agree with me or not, are sincere in wanting to follow Christ. It just may be as simple as this: some ways we do church are going to attract many, and repel others.

What I described is repellent to me, and those like me. You’ll note I never said it applied to all people, because it may not be so to other people. As Geoff said, the goal is to point people to Christ. Some of the ways we do this actually hide Christ from some people. I wrote that post just so you would be aware of that, not so that I could inspire arguments on the proper suit to wear, where the skirt hem should hit, or that Jesus wore sandals, or that some guy says “sweet” Monday through Saturday but not on Sunday so that’s OK, or that I’m bitter and old.

I worry that a larger message got lost in the lesser building blocks it was made of.

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Could it be that pastors and teachers are being themselves on Sundays just as they are during the week? Are people sick of authenticity?

I think the generalizations of some of the comments above are unnecessary. You really can’t talk about a church or “big” churches in general unless you are plugged into that church and know the heartbeat of that church…right? Or are some of the comments based on hearsay?

Great thoughts and conversation!

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