Okay, this post is my attempt at a little editorializing about what is called “church growth” amongst Evangelicals.

Here is the issue. There is a lot of talk about how post-modern young adults (18-35 year olds) do not relate with Evangelical churches as they currently do their ministry. The forms, the style and the priorities of traditional and even contemporary churches must, therefore, change in order to avoid extinction. A typical example of this talk can be found in an article for the Kentucky Baptist Convention titled “Church Must Radically Change to Reach Future Generations.” It presents the thoughts of Reggie McNeal, director of the Leadership Development Office at the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Here is a portion of the article:

“However, since post-moderns begin their thoughts with a connection to God, McNeal says churches will have to approach them much differently…McNeal says. “They’re not going to become institutional church people. If you’ve read (George) Barna’s latest book (Revolution), you know that church attendance is going to fall in half over the next 20 years. A lot of them are going to be these younger people who don’t express their spirituality through the institutional church.”

I should let you know that I have a serious problem with many of George Barna’s statistics and conclusions. I have noticed that invariably those who are calling for a “radical” change in the way that the church does ministry refer to Barna. I think Barna has an axe to grind; but, that is a subject for a different post.

You’ve probably surmised at this point that I think the idea that post-moderns can no longer relate to the church is a bunch of hooey. The reality is that the so-called disaffection of post-moderns is simply a life-stage issue for 18-22 year olds. If you would like to check out an in-depth analysis of why 18-22 year olds drop out of church you can refer to Lifeway Research’s excellent study: http://www.slideshare.net/daverudd/church-dropouts-faces-of-young-adults-ages-1822/

What you will find is that the majority of 18-22 year olds who drop out eventually return to the church. They return for the following reasons. 39% return because their parents or a family member encourages them. Another 34% return simply because they desire to and 24% return because “I had children and felt it was time for them to start attending.” I think this all comes under the rubric of “growing up.”

Now let me make it more personal. From the perspective of a “with-it, hip, post-modern pastor,” I am a fossil. I’m nearing 60, I write articles about medieval theology and I think most of the stuff that is jabbered about post-modernism is goofy. I am, perhaps, one of the least likely candidates to be able to reach 18-35 year olds. Yet, I believe my church does exactly this “with a vengeance.” How, you ask. Simple, we do great children’s and youth ministry.

Here is the deal. When so-called post-modern 18-22 year olds wake up one day and realize that they have a career, a mortgage, a spouse and a child in diapers, they come to their senses. Now they are suddenly interested in church—for their kids. And believe-you-me they want the cleanest, brightest, finest and most wonderful nursery or Sunday school they can find for their precious little one. Young adults may go to a church because it is a paragon of post-modernist worship with a hip pastor wearing jeans; but, they stay at a church because their kids like the children’s ministries.

I’ve shared this insight with young pastors from all over the nation but most of them prefer to ignore my advice and to attempt to be trendy. Meanwhile we keep expanding our nursery and building more facilities to accommodate our children’s and youth ministries.

Here is a very interesting scripture:

1 Timothy 6: 17-19 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. 18 Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, 19 storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

What is striking about this passage is that Paul does not condemn the rich, but he gives them instructions for the use of their wealth. This is a far cry from the error of a group known as the Apostolics that Augustine wrote about in his book “On Heresies.” He says that they, “most arrogantly call themselves Apostolics, because they refuse to accept into their communion those who practice marriage, and who possess goods of their own…” Of course, there have been many others down through church history who have believed that it is wrong to own one’s own goods or that it is wrong to be rich. Typically I have noticed that college-aged Christians in their imprudent idealism tend to believe that rich Christians are in some way ungodly or corrupt. I’ve also noticed that as they get married and advance in their careers, young people tend to change their ideology.

The central point I am making is that just as the use of food and our sexual capacities is not illicit in itself, but is only illicit when it violates God’s law, it is likewise the same with wealth. External possessions (what we call wealth) are necessary for human survival. We need them to support ourselves, for the upbringing of our children, and to provide for our daily food. We cannot escape this. Either we take care of our own needs or someone will have to do it for us. It follows therefore that the possession of wealth cannot be illicit in itself. What makes the possession of wealth illicit is when a man does not justly handle what he has. According to Paul, a man must not set the end of his will in wealth (“…nor to trust in uncertain riches…”). Rather, he must set the end of his will in God (“…but in the living God,”). Additionally, a man must use his wealth in a proper way for both the benefit of his family and others. This is why Paul says that the rich are to be “rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share.”

You’ve probably seen the cartoon of the guy who climbs to the top of a remote mountain to ask a bearded guru the purpose of life. The punch line of the cartoon varies but the point is that there must be some purpose to life that a few wise men have discovered. Christians usually note that the purpose of life can be found in Scripture even though there seems to be a lot of disagreement as to what exactly the Bible says regarding man’s purpose. Rick Warren, though, has sold millions of books based upon his “Purpose-Driven Life” concept. As he sees it, man has five basic biblical purposes. The Westminster Confession states man’s purpose more simply as “Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” This is similar to the Catholic idea of the Beatific Vision (beholding God in Heaven); which, is not too different from the Eastern Orthodox conception of deification (to be perfectly conformed with, and united to, the divine).

All of these Christian conceptions of man’s purpose, despite their similarities, have subtle differences. Identifying and understanding these differences can be very helpful as a way of grasping the fullness of God’s purpose for man. That being said, I would like to put in a plug for what I consider to be one of the finest summary statements about man’s purpose. As you can imagine, it comes from Thomas Aquinas. Yes, I know he is famous for defining the content of the Beatific Vision. But, check this out:

“The perfection of the human soul, however, consists in a certain abstraction from the body. For the soul is perfected by knowledge and virtue, and it is perfected in knowledge the more it considers immaterial things, the perfection of virtue consists man’s not submitting to the passions of the body, but moderating and controlling them in accordance with reason.” (SCG II: Creation, Ch. 78, 3)

Thomas’ statement is a somewhat more practical and less theological description of man’s purpose. He is describing the roadmap to glorifying God or reaching the Beatific Vision. As he sees it, the ultimate perfection of man has a lot to do with an “abstraction” from the body. Put another way, this means that man must focus his attention on higher things rather than bodily functions. This makes complete sense if you think man is more than a mere animal. The two higher things that man should focus upon are knowledge and virtue.

Specifically, the knowledge that Thomas recommends is of “immaterial things.” For example, he means that it is better for man’s purpose that he studies the principles or laws of nature rather than simply the individual workings of natural things such as trees. Studying trees is a good thing; but, going beyond the study of trees to discern the laws of nature and of nature’s God is a higher good. These are the immaterial things that sustain the natural world. By considering these things, Thomas believes that man perfects one of his highest faculties—his intellect.

The second way that man fulfills his purpose is by perfecting virtue. Virtue can be understood as excellence. For instance, the virtue of a knife is its sharp cutting edge. If a knife’s edge is sharp we say it is a good knife but if it is dull we usually say it is a poor or bad knife. The excellence of man is to use his highest faculties at their optimum level. Therefore, a virtuous life does not consist in expending man’s efforts on fulfilling all of his bodily sensations. Any animal can do this. In fact, animals often show more self-restraint in regard to their bodily sensations than do men. Thomas proposes that the excellent use of man’s bodily sensations and passions is to control and moderate them so that he can direct his life by reason rather than “feelings” or his desires. A virtuous life is one where a man appropriately controls his passions for a higher purpose other than pleasure-seeking. By doing this, man perfects his will. By the way, Thomas is not opposed to pleasure; he is just opposed to a pleasure-centered life.

There you have it; the roadmap to man’s highest purpose is to consider the highest immaterial things and to guide one’s passions in an excellent or optimal way. As a general roadmap, I think Thomas’ insights fit nicely into all the major Christian traditions albeit Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox.

As a communicator I know that there is a real advantage to shorthand terms and language because they are very powerful tools to get a message across to a large cross section of people. Yet, a big downside to the use of shorthand-language is that, by its very nature, it cannot convey the full content of a complex concept. For instance, Christians often speak of “accepting Jesus” or “becoming a Catholic” or “joining the church.” All of these terms are helpful ways of focusing the attention of people on the need for each individual to be saved from Original and personal sin. On the other hand, these shorthand terms are deficient in one very important matter and that is the need for personal repentance as a necessary component of salvation.

As an Evangelical, I have been concerned for years that the language that we use for salvation greatly underplays the role of repentance. One could very easily get the impression when we say “accept Jesus into your life” that when you become a Christian you just add a religious aspect to your life. Meanwhile, one’s priorities, attitudes and behavior remain largely unaffected. Fortunately, this is usually not the case because in most churches there is good after-care for new converts. However, over the past couple of decades I think the disadvantages inherent in shorthand-language have become a growing problem.

The reasons why repentance is so important are both obvious and subtle. First of all, repentance is declared throughout the New Testament. Jesus and the Apostles made it very clear that in order to become a Christian a person needs to repent of their sins. Furthermore, repentance addresses some key issues. For one thing it addresses the primary damage that sin does to humans. Sin disorders the mind. Sin turns a man’s mind away from God toward the pleasures, concerns and cares of this life. Secondly, repentance allows the grace of God’s forgiveness to overcome the guilt and punishment that is due for each person’s sin. Thirdly, repentance turns man from his sin to God so that the Holy Spirit might strengthen man to resist temptation. By sinning a man is morally weakened and made prone toward further sin and reluctant to do God’s will. Without repentance—which is to turn from sin—God’s grace of empowerment is moot.

Therefore, the first thing required in repentance is the right ordering of the mind, namely, that the human mind is turned toward God and away from sin. This is what Paul meant by “godly sorrow (that) brings repentance” (2 Corinthians 7:10) which causes a man to grieve about his sin and purpose not to commit further sin. This godly contrition is concomitant with God’s grace by which He removes and frees a man from the guilt of eternal punishment. Finally, because of God’s grace and love, the repentant sinner is united to God and empowered to live as a follower of Christ demonstrating a life of love and good works.

I believe that Christians would do well to brush up on the somewhat forgotten term, repentance.

Let’s think about habits a little bit. Habits are an interesting subject and a very important topic in Scholastic Theology. It just so happens that this week I saw Joel Osteen (pastor of America’s largest Protestant church) preach about developing good habits. He said a number of good things; however, I also think he underestimated the power of bad habits to diminish the capacity of a person to make moral choices.

Here is the basic principle I want to consider. Both the human intellect and human will have an unlimited capacity to act. For instance, the human intellect is capable of going on to infinity as it acts to understand things. We can see this in mathematics. Yes, of course, a person can never actually reach an infinite; but, the point is that intellectually the human mind can continue to reach out and attempt to comprehend infinitely. Likewise, the human will can proceed to infinity in its act of willing. An example of this is a thief who wills to steal something can continue again in his thievery.

The moral impact of this unlimited capacity to act is that, in moral matters, the human will can continue to infinity in its disabling of its own capacity to do what is right. The more the human will turns toward wrongful things, the more difficult it is to respond to proper and worthy things. The Scholastics called this the development of “vicious habits.” In other words, people can grow accustomed to sinning. A person can gradually and ever-increasingly decrease his/her ability to respond to their God-implanted capacity to know and do the right thing. Yet, even though a person can develop extremely vicious habits and turn themselves toward moral evil on an ongoing basis, this can never eradicate the God-implanted capacity to know and to the right thing. The reason for this is that God has implanted this capacity in human nature and that nature endures.