Reflections: So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore

I have finished reading Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman's book So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore (hereafter abbreviated SYDW) and thought I would share some of my responses to it. If you're familiar with the book, please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below.

SYDW gives a rather complete account of "what's wrong" with the church as it moves into the twenty-first century. For the most part, the authors advocate looking for Jesus outside the institutional church by seeking community with fellow believers.

SYDW can be broken down into three parts that correspond with shifts in the stories plot.

First, the book begins with a prolonged flashback where the main character, Jake, tells how he met John. John is the enlightened character who understands... well, just about everything (church, God, etc). When the two met, John sent Jake, who himself was a minister, down a path that eventually saw him leave his pastorate because of pain caused by harmful church politics and confusion caused by a poor theology of ministry. After he leaves the ministry, things begin to go badly for Jake.

The second part of the book begins after the prolonged flashback ends. Jake finds himself in the cafeteria of the hospital where his sick, asthmatic child lies barely able to hold onto life. John again shows up and gives Jake words of wisdom about what he needs to do -- namely stop worrying about how to provide for himself and his family; God will provide. In order to prove that God will provide, John essentially heals Jake's child with a prayer and a touch. Jake's life, however, continues in a state of disorientation until he stops playing the same old church games (i.e., until he stops worrying what others think of him). Once he stops trying to please everyone else, he finds happy rest.

The third part of the book, then, finds Jake happily going about his church-free life. There is a chapter in which a meal with fellow believers takes place, so for semantics sake, I'll say that he is without a church in the institutional sense. The book ends with this happy community sharing the good news of Jesus with itself and its children and finding ways to show others what Jesus is really like.

First, I will reflect upon some things that I found helpful from the book.

1. Too often, institutional church does manipulate and bestow guilt upon its members. I think this is unintentional, but as the authors of SYDW illustrate, manipulation and guilt are there... especially, for example, in children's ministry where rewards and punishments are doled out based on performing memory verses, etc.
2. Too often, institutional church becomes a distraction and a vessel for division among its members. When the focus is on "doing church right," we often miss the good news of the Gospel -- that is, we forget that Jesus freed us from guilt and shame in order to show the world how to live life as God intended it to be lived (Phil 2:5-8). This is especially true for people in professional ministry; the burn out that can come must be overwhelming and the politics of church can get very ugly -- certainly such things need to be addressed.
3. It is vital that we trust God to work in God's own time. A quick reading of the Minor Prophets will remind us that God is in control of everything and that God acts in his own time. However, God loves his people and suffers with his people when they are in pain. Thus, when Jacobsen and Coleman say that trusting in God means that we wait on God to act, I think they are correct in that assertion. However, as the authors of SYDW point out, it is not a passive waiting, it is a faithful waiting, and faithful waiting involves getting to know God through his Spirit.

While this book does have some valid critiques that the institutional church needs to hear, I think the authors go to far in their assumptions about the uselessness of institutional church However, in order to try to avoid misrepresenting them, I will include a few preliminary quotes from their book that should, perhaps, temper my comments.

[Jake states] "I think I'm only beginning to discover how the church has led me astray."... [John responds] "I don't think the church leads people astray. Those leading some religious institutions might, but let's not confuse that with the church as God sees her" (79).

I appreciate the authors mentioning the church "as God sees" it. Now they mean the community of believers outside the institution, but for me, it is important to remember that no matter how ugly and messed up the institutional church might be, it is still part of the body of Christ. As part of the body of Christ, serious introspection should be taking place or begin to take place so that harmful or manipulative tendencies can be removed and reconciled. And as people who are in the midst of the institution, we must trust that God is at work to reform and renew his people.

[John states] "Any human system will eventually dehumanize the very people it seeks to serve, and those it dehumanizes the most are those who think they lead it. But not everyone in a system is given over to the priorities of that system. Many walk inside it without being given over to it. They live in Father's life and graciously help others as he gives them opportunity" (93).

I read this to mean that it is possible to stay in the institution and still be part of God's life as he intended it to be. For me, this is an important point, the institution of church does not necessarily corrupt everyone or everything that is part of it. And again, God can be at work among his people even through the messiness of the institution.

[John states] "No institutional arrangement will ever contain all that the church is. Don't look for it institutionally. Look for it relationally" (154).

Here again I agree to an extent. Without relationship, the institution of church is useless. But when healthy, Christ-centered relationships are the focus, the institution will cease to be a negative manipulator-distractor of God's people. Thus, for Christians, our primary focus should be the relationship between Jesus and his church. When Jesus is at the center of all relationships, all other relationships will be formed by that centering relationship with Jesus. And I think it is important also to remember that the institutional church bears witness to Jesus, and through bearing witness to Jesus, the church bears witness to its "true essence."

Now, for my reaction to some of the more troubling aspects of the book:

1. For me, the book was far too individualistic. Even though it speaks of community often, it refers to community that takes place among individual followers of Christ. That is, the book represents the ideal church (i.e., a church without any institutional structure) as a group of individuals who just so happen to be in the same place instead of a group of people who intentionally embrace their communal commonality. Thus, for me, it is hard to see how any real community can be formed following the prescription given by this book. For example, Jake expresses fear that what John is telling him to do (trust in God to provide for him and his family), and John replies that it is up to each person to do what he or she "thinks best." John goes on to say that "No one is perfect, Jake, and when you give up trying to look like you are, you'll be free to follow him" (64). While this is sound advice, the assertion is that Jake will be free to follow God as an individual, being individually guided by God apart from the community of God's people. Such notions are not the witness of Scripture, which portrays the locus of God's work within the context of the community of God's people.
2. Through their desire to rid the church of the institution of church, the authors tear Christianity away from the Christian tradition. There is more of a call to simply go "back to the Bible," but not to get a pattern for worship, but instead to see a way of living in relationship with one another. The desire to live in relationship is a good thing that the church needs to pursue, but without a strong concept of community, relationships cannot begin to be formed. The authors assume that an individual who seeks to follow Jesus will seek out other followers of Jesus as part of a community, but those of us in the institutional church know from experience that this is not always true. The institution of church, then, provides a means for intentionally pursuing community. It is interesting to note that the authors see value and authority in Scripture (see pp. 78, 106, 142).
3. The desire to do away with the institution of the church was the most disturbing thing for me. The authors assume that the Christian Scriptures do not give any examples of what early church meetings looked like (106), but I think the New Testament does (or it at least assumes church structure). Off the top of my head, I think to "the Jerusalem Council" (Acts 15), in which a discussion about salvation takes place. In this case, the institution was a means for discerning the will of God [While this assembly most likely looked very different than the historical form of the institutions of our day, it was a meeting of the elders and apostles who discussed the matter of salvation. For an excellent treatment of Acts 15 see Luke Timothy Johnson, Scripture and Discernment: Decision Making in the Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 61-108]. The institution of church also allows for a place to worship in an intentional way. While the authors are right in pointing out that God no longer dwells in a building but in his people, it is important that we recognize the need for the sorts of affirmations made through worship -- especially the affirmations made through the sacraments -- and church provides a place to worship in such a way that allows for the affirmation and administration of the sacraments.

Jacobsen and Coleman suggest that living as community outside the institutional church is the best way to find God. I wonder, then, what is to become of those who remain in the institution. Would the authors simply say that they are doomed to live in a less than ideal representation of the people of God? Are the people left in the institution simply ignorant? These are questions that were left unanswered for me by this book. I wonder if more good would come through working with the church to reform the institution instead of simply leaving the institution and those in it to fend for themselves. If all the people who have Spiritual life "figured out" leave the institutional church, the institutional church and, more importantly, those who remain in it will be left without anyone to critique and lovingly guide them into the Christ-focused life of God. Simply leaving church, then, cannot be an option for those who would rather not go to church anymore. Instead, we must walk alongside those who want to go to church and always point our Christian family toward the love and freedom found only in Jesus Christ.

A few notes in closing: I did find this book helpful for pointing out the shortcomings of the institutional church, but the conclusion that the institution should be abandoned was too disturbing for me. Anyone who has been hurt by the church (and sadly, there are many) will find that this book can provide a way to see church without the harmful mechanisms of the institution. But such mechanisms need to be addressed, and I think that only by remaining in and working with the church to constantly critique and reform the institution can these mechanisms be stopped. I did appreciate the authors recognition that all this work (whatever form one advocates for the church) cannot be done by ourselves. Instead it is the Spirit of God at work in us to move us and to show us what we need to do in order to constantly be changed into the likeness of the Son, Jesus Christ.

Full citation of SYDW: Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman, So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore: An Unexpected Journey (Los Angeles: Windblown Media, 2006).