Dr. David W. Manner is the Associate Executive Director for the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists. He blogs at http://kncsb.org/blogs/dmanner . You can follow him on Twitter: @dwmanner.
Most potential homebuyers decide whether or not to check out the interior of a house or take it seriously as a home prospect for their family based on its curb appeal…how it looks from the street. Statistics show that a positive curb appeal brings more people through the front door and gives them a healthy first impression. Conversely, poor curb appeal excludes certain people from looking further and those who actually do look will automatically discount its value.
Whether the perception from culture is justified or not, their view from the street is that we in the evangelical church are like the grouchy old man who is constantly yelling, “Get out of my yard!” Religiosity topics we assume as absolutely necessary to the Christian debate such as Calvinism vs. Arminianism; Complementarianism vs. Egalitarianism; Republican vs. Democrat; Traditional vs. Contemporary; Conservative vs. Moderate; Mega-Church vs. Micro-Church; Connectional vs. Missional; and even Organ vs. Guitar are all contributing to our poor cultural curb appeal.
The Evangelical Church is losing ground with culture when we spend an inordinate amount of our time publicly debating issues that in the end won’t really matter. There is value and even necessity for healthy biblical, theological, doctrinal and even historical debate. But if those debates continue to depreciate our curb appeal and cause culture to drive on by, then maybe it’s time to consider a home makeover.
10 Ways The Evangelical Church Has Lost Its Curb Appeal
- We unite around what we are against rather than what we are for.
- Dogma instead of the church is now at the top of our organizational chart.
- Those formerly inclusive guardrails are now exclusive litmus tests.
- We have blurred the lines between commandments and amendments.
- We claim theologically and philosophically to be racially diverse, yet still segregate practically and relationally.
- Fundamentalism has become our primary method of evangelism.
- We no longer encourage or even allow critical thinking.
- Friendly fire is contributing to our net loss.
- We appear to hate the practices of culture more than we love the people in it.
- We are justifying meanness in the name of guarding religiousterritory.
We’ve been hearing these things for quite some time, and we now have evidence which shows that we are losing our curb appeal, and as a result of the things you’ve listed. Actually, if you look down that list, what has happened is that we are failing to be the Church of Jesus Christ, and we are distracted by a lot of things that make us what we don’t have any business being. We are gathering in larger groups, but there are fewer and fewer of us who are gathering, though I think the mega-church culture prevents us from actually seeing the reality of the decline. Pick up some genuinely researched statistics, not denominational public relations stuff, and you’ll see it pretty quickly.
We have a lot of religious theater, and with lighting, nice sound systems and carefully and expensively designed worship centers, we can create a good look and feel without needing the presence of the Holy Spirit to have an emotional effect and draw a crowd. You can go through the motions, but there’s no real conviction, so people drift from place to place to find a look and feel that they like.
David: A lot of these resonate as true with me, but I wouldn’t mind if you fleshed these bullet points out a bit, just so we know exactly what you are talking about.
There are quite a lot of assertions there. They do need to be backed up a bit. Some may just be perceptions, and not reality.
By the way, Jesus lost his curb appeal a few times himself.
John 6:66-67
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?
Matthew 19:21-22
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
“The Evangelical Church is losing ground with culture when we spend an inordinate amount of our time publicly debating issues that in the end won’t really matter.’
The Christian church was never built on gaining ground with the culture or curb appeal. It is built on the offense of the cross.
Rick
Bill Mac and Stephen, here a few follow-up thoughts to a couple of the points in response to your comments about fleshing these out.
Most of the bullet points begin with what we deserve, have earned or prefer…in other words we begin with selfishness instead of Micah 6:8 doing justly, loving mercy and walking humbly. When we begin with guarding our religious territory we must then publicly defend that territory causing us to unite around what we are against. That often surfaces as meanness. What we are for is the belief that prayer can change things we can’t. So what if we spent as much time praying for those with whom we disagree as we spend vilifying them on social media sites.
Defending those rights has blurred the lines between amendments and commandments. We are depending on legislation to accomplish what only God can.
We say we hate the sin but love the sinner and yet the sinner rarely sees that love. They usually just see the hate the sin part and consequently drive on by.
Friendly fire contributing to our net loss means more churches are dying from the inside out than as a result of the moral decline of culture. Internal selfish relationships are killing more churches than the external persecution from culture is.
Just a few thoughts to give a little more context to some of the bullet points.
So do you have evidence that these are the problems that keep the church from growing? Or is this what you think the problem is? I know there is plenty of evidence about church growth, and I think all of these are legit, but also know many who don’t exhibit these.
I’ve seen evidence that it is often the churches with the clearest stand on membership requirements etc. having among the best growth.
I’ve also seen examples of churches with strong discipleship and participation demands demonstrate strong growth.
And, I’m not sure most unchurched know about the “Calvinism vs. Arminianism; Complementarianism vs. Egalitarianism; Republican vs. Democrat; Traditional vs. Contemporary; Conservative vs. Moderate; Mega-Church vs. Micro-Church; Connectional vs. Missional; and even Organ vs. Guitar” debates, with the exception of the Republical/Democrat one. And that one is bad enough!
I wonder if the problem isn’t really one of lukewarmness and lack of engaging others with the gospel on an individual basis.
Yes, our attitudes on many of these fronts need to change. But are these the problem or the symptoms?
The post appears to group some issues that are not comparable in terms of the level of concern they should be given. Perhaps that was not the intent, but it is a little confusing. For example, church organs vs guitars is hardly an issue carrying the same import as complementarianism vs egalitarianism. And churches should be racially diverse, but they should not be theologically diverse on first-order doctrines.
Also, the Church does not sit atop the organizational chart, Christ does (Eph 1: 20-23).
Some issues, like the Calvinism vs Arminianism issue, are issues that should not divide us. But I think the C v A debate happens more in blog discussions than in the actual churches so I’m not sure that it has much influence on “curb appeal”. Other issues, like lordship salvation or Biblical inerrancy, are issues in which the Church must take a stand and are examples of where “curb appeal” must take a back seat to speaking the truth in love.
Speaking of “curb appeal”, consider the curb appeal of this command:
“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” (Luke 11:23, NASB)
Could it be [as i add my voice to those with the same idea] that a major problem with our churches is the emphasis many of them have made is to even have curb appeal? i say yes.
The idea that we must draw them to a building to get them to hear the Gospel instead of giving them the Gospel first and let that be what draws them into our fellowship.
The latter idea focuses on making individual evangelists out of every member and the church a place for believers. The former idea makes members just people who invite others to church so the staff can evangelize them.
Thus our churches become filled with Christians who can not even articulate the Gospel very well and who can defend it even less. Everything is geared to bringing people to the building [curb appeal] when we should be equipping each other to go out and be witnesses in our neighborhoods, at our jobs, in the grocery store, and wherever we go no matter what we are doing.
Soon, I think, there will be a time when our buildings can not be used, our meetings held in secret, and our witness forced to be by individuals to individuals. isn’t this what happens in China? Isn’t this what happens in a few other places where open talk of the Cross can be followed by the deportation of our ‘humanitarian workers’?
And while it may never happen in the USA, it might.
I told my kids that our home is to be a place to escape the ills of the world, not a place to come and hurt each other. Now that they are grown, it still is a place where love and peace reign, and where the hate of the world is kept out.
Our churches should be the same. I don’t mean we do not speak of the ills of the world, but as a hospital is a place to be cured and not meant to be a place to get sick or injured, our churches should be a place where it is there as it is in Heaven: where God’s name is hallowed, where sins are confessed and forgiven, where daily needs can be met, and where we can strength and wisdom to overcome the temptations the world offers.
It is to be a safe house from the world, a training center for the troops, a gathering for His family, and an altar to give Him the sacrifices of our praises in worship.
In other words, our church is to be appealing to believers.
For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
We are to be like Him.
Mike,
Amen!
What a great post!! Very insightful and completely on point.
I’m struck by the fact that sinners came flocking to the Savior, but rarely today do we see them flocking to His church. The “curb appeal” that Jesus lost was with some of the most “religious.” He didn’t mind losing such curb appeal with them. In fact, much of His ministry was a deliberate act to lose such curb appeal. However, His “Come who are weak and heavy-laden and I will give you rest” did appeal to the hurting masses. His holiness didn’t cause Him to withdraw from sinful society but to thrust himself into the middle of it. Sinners were drawn to His person, not repulsed by Him.
A+