Jim Michmerhuizen
Beginning in 1940, I grew up in Niekerk Christian Reformed church in Holland Michigan, and have lived a variety of lifestyles in the 83 years since then.
Jonathan Austin's essay has made a powerful impression on me. I am preparing a response; I hope he has an opportunity to see it, ideally to dialog and perhaps continue in conversation.
Some scraps of information about me can be found online, at such sites as:
https://michmer.net
https://thebachworks.com
Posted in: How the Church Growth Movement Has De-Churched Christians
How can we -- the church -- reconfigure our conduct, change our path, avoid the continuing degradation of our fellowship in Christ?
What have we been doing wrong? Mr. Austin's essay hits a bullseye, I believe, and the two comments so far as well. What I will have to say in this comment is only a footnote; I mean to relate Austin's general thesis to additional social currents, contemporary popular discourse, and even, possibly, current philosophy.
I'll try not to fall into superfluous detail.
In the course of reading the gospels, for the umptieth cycle of your life, have you ever noticed when Jesus engages with individual persons, and when he preaches something like a sermon, to a crowd? (I've been interested in this distinction for a while now, and reflected on it in depth.)
There is all the difference in the world between how we would talk to a crowd, and how we would talk to an individual person. When the rich young man comes to Jesus in Matthew 10:17, we need to picture Jesus staring into the man's eyes for minutes on end before replying to him.
The circumstances that Austin points to are founded -- over a period of centuries -- on a stereotypical set of practices in systematic theology. For centuries, it seems, the church's experience of God has been congealing into a Theory: something that is true for everybody. But it is not a theory. It is a narrative. It is a narrative that invites us to participate in a story, not merely to think and talk a certain kind of language.
THAT is what has to change. The language of the megachurches does not address itself to individuals. It only promulgates a theory, or a range of theories, and insists -- just as rigorously as if it came from a physics textbook -- on belief in its propositions.
I wish I knew how to change this path. I don't. I can do no more than to trust the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
But it may, indeed, be changing.