Church — the one place you shouldn’t be surprised
I can remember sitting in church as a new Christian. I was in my second year of college at a very liberal university. I don’t remember how I found the church back then, as dial-up modems were still expensive and very few churches were online at the time.
But I sat in that worship center for 3 weeks, enjoying the preaching and the singing, being fed the Word of God. Over those weeks, I had heard people talking a bit when someone prayed, but I had grown up in the south, where everyone went to church and declaring your affirmation of the prayer out loud wasn’t anything new. It was on the fourth week that I sat near enough to someone that I heard them mumbling gibberish. It was rhythmic and repetitive, unlike any natural language, and disconnected from what the actual prayer being spoken. And though I liked the preaching, I was weirded out and began the hunt for a new church.
Looking back, I think I was lucky.
How many people attend a church for months, even years, before learning some weird belief that the church maintains? You already worked to build relationships, your family now feels at home, and then the blinders come off and you are forced to make a decision — can I live with this or do we need to go?
At our church, I am often asked to help our people find a new place of worship when work or school takes them away. Having done this for years, I am weary of the MANY church websites that offer the same basic 7–10 truths that Lutherans, Presbyterians, Reformed, Brethren, and Calvary Chapels can all agree on.¹ Where are the churches willing to be straight-forward about what they believe?!
Churches gather to edify and equip Christians for the work of ministry (Eph 4:12). The church then scatters to display and declare the excellency of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:9). Why are believers forced to guess what makes one church distinctive from another?
No one should be caught by surprise six months into their participation at a church, when the pastor starts a new series and they suddenly hear strange things about gender roles, prophecy, angels and demons, what happens when you die, psychology, etc.
To the Men in Charge…
Pastors — if you are not ashamed of what you believe and you believe those truths are found in the Bible, then why would you want your website to be so vague and noncommittal??
Do you feel your bylaws are broad, so your church cannot be more specific? Consider then what shall come to pass when you depart and the next man comes, limited only by these barest of theological truths. If you desire your church to be stable, then work to update your bylaws so that the doctrinal positions of your church are thoroughly described and upheld.
Serve your people by being explicit about what you believe. Help those looking for a church by making those same truths very clear on your website.
Surprise people with your love, but not with your doctrine.
¹ The examples linked to came by searching “____ church los angeles” with calvary chapel, presbyterian, etc. in the blank. They were each found in the first page of results, usually near the top.
