Then the LORD appeared at the Tent in a pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the Tent. And the LORD said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your fathers, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and difficulties will come upon them, and on that day they will ask, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is not with us?’ And I will certainly hide my face on that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods.
“Now write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it may be a witness for me against them. When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their forefathers, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant. And when many disasters and difficulties come upon them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten by their descendants. I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath.” So Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites. (Deuteronomy 31: 15-22)
Yesterday my friends Andy and Carey McClure watched their dream breathe its last breath. Yesterday Mountain Ridge Community Church, a church they felt led strongly enough by God to move several hundred miles away from family, friends and comfort to begin, closed its doors for the last time. I mourn with them.
Unfortunately, they are not the only church in that town to close its doors. Several other churches, even the mega-church plant that had thousands of dollars of support, closed its doors over the last year. So there is something about Erie, Colorado that makes it difficult to bring a word of hope to its people. Something in Erie is causing churches to die.
I’ve been to Erie on several occasions. It’s a typically beautiful Colorado small town at the base of the Rockies just southeast of Boulder, home of the University of Colorado. It’s location, just a half hour north of Denver, makes Erie a great place for people to relocate and slow down the pace of their lives from the hustle and bustle of the big city. It is also a place near where technology companies are relocating and bringing jobs. So from all outside appearances, Erie is a great place to live and raise a family. So what is it about Erie that kills churches?
I think I know the answer. It is the thing affecting most of America and Europe and Israel: apathy and complacency. Much the same as what God told Moses would happen to the people of Israel when they entered into the Promised Land, our wealth and relative safety have lulled us into a spiritual slumber. We have forgotten that God provided all that we have; we have not achieved it on our own. Erie is just at the forefront of what will ultimately take over our nation; Erie is in an advanced stage of narcicism.
Most pastors, if they are honest and not afraid of losing their paychecks, will admit that we are a fickle group, we Christians. We have gone from the “whither thou goest” attitude found in the Bible book of Ruth, to the fulfillment of the warning in Isaiah 30:10 “They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.”
Erie, like the rest of us, wants it easy. Give me something more than this life, but I don’t don’t want to die for it. Take all the poverty out of the world, but I don’t want to get my hands dirty. Stop the war and the fighting, but I don’t want to put down my weapons. Bring peace, but I don’t want to give up my grudges.
Again, if you pastors will admit, people pick and choose churches like they do cars: they want the most bells and whistlesthey can find and they want it for free. Give me a free nursery for my children, but I won’t volunteer. Give me concert level music of whatever genre, make me feel good, but don’t make me pray or change my life. Andy and Carey can tell you personally of people who told them they were changing churches because there weren’t enough high chairs in the nursery. No, the people didn’t offer to buy more.
One pastor who was blatently honest told a friend of mine: “I pastor the largest church in [town name]. For now. I have been the pastor of the smallest church, the fastest growing church and now the largest. All the same church. I know one day in the future when they get bored, or disagree with something or don’t like something, I’ll pastor the smallest church again.” That shows where we have “progressed [?]” to.
I think also about Randy Alcorn’s latest novel, “Safely Home.” This is a book based on actual accounts of the persecuted Church in China. It is estimated that there are some 30 to 100 million Christians in China. Some estimates range as high as half a billion, but I think that is optimistic. There is an official, recognized Christian church in China. But it only spews the party line of utopia if the people sell themselves to the Party leadership, work hard, and raise loyal communist children. But most Chinese Christians do not buy into that and face jail sentences, torture and death for meeting in secret home churches or holding, much less owning a Bible.
These churches meet in secret, in the dark, often long before the sun rises. They meet in the dark so they are not seen by the Secret Police. They wrap their Bibles in special linens to protect it because they cherish it so dearly. They would rather die than sell out to the lies of the Party and reject Christ.
Their faith, like many other Christians in unwelcoming societies from India, to the Muslim Middle East, to Darfur is the faith of martyrs. It is a faith most of us Christians here in the U.S. will never have to experience. It is a faith that holds out hope in a hopeless land. For them, survival only exists in Christ. The recurring theme in the book is, “Is this the day? Will I die today for my faith?“
I think it is obvious that this faith is the faith of the Disciples, the Apostles of Jesus. This is the faith of the early church, of its great theologians whom we call the “Early Church Fathers.” This is the faith of Polycarp, Athanasius, Ireneus and Augustine. For them all other things are “rubbish that [they] may gain Christ.”
It is with this faith that I struggle most, for I myself am going to be the cause of the death of my church and many others like it. I am too wrapped up in my life and my security and my stuff to live like a martyr.
Yesterday, Mountain Ridge Community Church died. Its people wouldn’t get involved. I wouldn’t get involved except to pray from here in North Carolina. I wouldn’t die that others might live. Are we too far gone to save ourselves from the fate of Israel? Am I? Lord, give us faith.
January 23, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Manhattan closed churches video
January 28, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Protest March Manhattan closed churches video
February 13, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I have the privilege of pastoring a church in Erie for the past 6 years and I have lived there since 1993. I know the McClures, have prayed frequently with Andy, and have watched the ministry of Mountain Ridge at its high points and its lows. So I grieve the loss of this servant to the Church as well.
However, I don’t believe that Erie is an impossible or even an inordinately difficult field in which to minister. It has all the characteristics of any postmodern city, but in my experience it’s still a hopeful place to serve the Lord. Our own church has seen some surprising life transformations and our work continues to grow at a slow but steady pace.
I am curious about your source of information. In the 16 years I’ve lived here, I haven’t seen any big-dollar mega-church plant started here. There have been a few attempted church-starts that have fizzled out, but probably no more than you might expect in any other community of 14,000+ people. My own rural hometown (population 500) in a very churched part of the country has seen just as many churches close their doors. In fact, there have been several good churches started here in the last 10 years that are healthy and growing. Furthermore, Mountain Ridge Community Church continues to meet in our city. You’ll find them every Sunday morning gathered at the Erie Lion’s Club. I think their committed core of Christians would be saddened to hear your assessment that they just “wouldn’t get involved.”
So please don’t write off Erie, cities like it, or those of who feel humbled and privileged to serve in places like this. Pray for us instead and the God whose Church cannot be thwarted just might surprise us all.
Matthew Boardwell
Life Song Church of Erie
February 14, 2007 at 12:24 am
Hey, just another Pastor from the God fearing town of Erie Colorado. I believe we are to walk by faith. I have seen great things happen here in the name of the Lord. Churches continue to be planted, souls come to know Jesus, Lives are, as I write this, being changed. The Pastors of the community are coming togeather, a new bible collage has started out of Living the Truth Ministries Church. The Gospel is being preached, the sick are being healed, the captive are being liberated. I don’t know what Erie your talking about.
In His Service,
Joufully serving,
Pastors Carl & Roxanne Gerdes
Living the Truth Ministries
Erie Colorado
720-272-2026
July 1, 2007 at 6:34 am
There is no doubt in my mind that Christ anticipated a mixed batch of responses to His Gospel, all of them claiming allegiance to Him. (See Matt 7:21-23; 13:1-15; 24-30; 31-32; 36-43 for starters).
This might seem disconcerting to those who unrealstically expect otherwise. There never was (remember Judas, Annanias and Saphira?) and never will be, (until Christ Himself sorts the genuine from the spurious), a so-called “pure” church of Jesus Christ. To hope for it is a self-made delusion.
Jesus was pretty clear when He said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they shall ever perish, no one can snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-2
He knows better than any of us who is genuine and who is not. I am prepared to leave that issue to Him, while at the same time I ensure the integrity of my own obedience to Him remains intact.
I served in the pastorate for twenty years and am now getting involved in personal evangelism and publishing. The church can become an ugly place at times, and I am ashamed to say, that there have been occasions when I was the root cause of that ugliness.
It seems necessary to remind us (Christians) that we still live in a world dominated by narcicism, and that we Christ followers are still called to demonstrate the destructiveness of obsessive self-love through our unquestioning obedience to, and love for Christ.
There is a whole lot wrong in many churches, but there is far more chaos and destruction going on outside of its influence. That’s where I choose to be active. Right in the middle of the mess. That is where I can and am required by Christ to carry His presence. (Remember, “Go into all the world . .?)
If life truly has no meaning in and of itself, then we are all deluded. But if life does have ultimate meaning in relationship to God through Jesus Christ, then we are engaged in to most vital work people can ever engage in, regardless of how imperfect we do it sometimes.
I do not mean to excuse nor overlook any deliberate wrong. There are times when we all have to stand up and be counted, or admit that we are moral cowards. I admit that I do have huge differences with some believers, (just as they have with me) and there are some Christians that I simply choose not to associate with, nor work alongside.
But, I have also found that the grace of God is far greater and penetrates my life far deeper than any experience that I may find myself in, regardless of whether I think at the time that they are good or bad for me.
Written out of love and concern for the body of Christ.
Roy D Oosthuizen
(The Wesleyan Church, South Africa)
July 1, 2007 at 11:08 am
Roy,
Thanks for your post. It is truly obvious that you are moved by the One we all server imperfectly. It is that service, that willingness to be in the midst of the mess we call life, and do the best you can in His name that is the very life of the Gospel.
Please don’t misunderstand my blog. I am not condemning the people of God. It was my point that our own entanglement in the “weeds” of life that keep us from walking with our eyes open to the needs of people; the pure Gospel lived out in our communities.
As a fellow pastor, I know the limitations that our members put on themselves as to why they do not or cannot “get involved.” I don’t even claim to be perfect at it myself. But the point is that we Western Christians, and especially American Christians, can get so caught up in chasing the Capitalist Dream that we forget that we have a job to do in Christ that is bigger than those dreams. Not that those dreams are wrong in their proper place, but misplaced they are.
I was just rereading Acts 2-5 this morning. Again I was struck by the selflessness of the early believers. I realize that there is not a great deal of detail to see the “other” side of their lives, the imperfections, but I think the story of Ananias and Sapphira will suffice to show that anyone, even a believer, is capable of holding back.
When the majority of a church’s members limit their involvement, limit their generosity and are unwilling to express the hope of the Gospel in their actions, that church is dead. Isn’t that the point of the lesson when we look at the Church in Sardis of Revelation 3? Even though there were still a few who were true to the Saviour, the church’s lack of action showed it was dead or dying.
I lament over what has become of the Western Church, not all of the churches, but the body as a whole. We, I include myself and my church in resuscitation, find ourselves so caught up in the frenzy of gadgets, that we have lost sight of the simplicity of serving the least of these. We throw dollars, but not blood and sweat against the flow of destruction in our societies.
The key to the expansion of the Gospel in the first centuries of its existence was its direct involvement in the local communities in which the believers lived. Acts Chapter 8 draws a great word picture. It tells the story of how people would put those in need of healing on mats in the streets of Jerusalem hoping the shadow of John or Peter would fall on them and they would be healed. That’s a great story! But Jerusalem at the time had a population of between 500,000 and 1 million people. There are streets and alleys all over the place. So statistically, what were the chances that Peter and John would go down any particular street at any particular time? Slim at best. So why did the people do it? It doesn’t make sense… unless. Unless they knew that even if the Apostles didn’t walk by, the believers would still get involved. After all, there were thousands of them, maybe upwards of 10 thousand. Apparently, the believers had a reputation. They got involved. That is the Church full of life.
So while I say that the Body is sick, I know full well there are some, dare I use the term “remnant”, who are just as involved as those early examples, the exceedingly greater majority is content to do their church thing and go home to watch golf or football or something. When that latter group overwhelms an individual church, it dies or is dying.
May our lives be yet transformed by our Saviour’s amazing grace and we wake up to the white fields that need tending.
YBIC,
Frank