It isn’t news to anyone that we live in a time of radical individualism. Selfishness and an emphasis on “treat yo’self”-ism, aka the self-care movement, are the most recognizable vices produced by people living out the spirit of this age, but there are others as well. Tribalism of the worst sort, the constant “you’re either with us or against us” banter of Interwebs beefs, is another, as is the sort of wreckless Trumpist “America-first, the world be damned!” mentality that is popular among our friends and family members. Don’t get me wrong, our responsibility as Americans is to first take care of America and its citizens, but to do so requires that we neither give away the farm to our world neighbors nor so irritate or disenfranchise them as to position our country as an enemy of would-be or historic allies. For Christians, this is further complicated by the fact that we are first citizens of the Kingdom of God and second citizens of our countries, a reality that demands our allegiances lie first with our brothers and sisters baptized into the Triune Name regardless of their nations and secondly with the state.

But there is another and even more troubling consequence of the individualism of our age, especially in the United States: church membership. And by “church membership”, I mean the whole of covenantal life, that is, not only pledging to be part of a local body of believers but also the faithful living out that life together as a distinct body. The life of Christ is only found, received, nurtured, and shared with the world in and through the Church. This covenantal reality, with a specific mission, history, laws, code of conduct, blessings, curses, calendar, and promises for perpetuation is not ours without the Church or our faithful participation in her robust life. The problem is that individualism has robbed us of the grace of the Church, with the doctrines of the Reformation wrongly understood and applied to embolden individual Christians to view themselves as free-market consumers and local churches as third-party service providers who should all vye for the “spiritual business” of believers. This kind of approach is further emboldened by a low-church disregard for Church authority (see the Westminster Standards’ treatment of the Fifth Commandment) coupled with the radical pessimism on one hand and craven leveraging of sin on the other (e.g. “Well, I know I’m not honoring God’s Word in this area of my life, but my church isn’t faithful in…”).

All of this isn’t to bash on individual Christians or to throw more criticism on American culture. But the reality is that the Church in America and possibly the world isn’t the mature source of life that God intends for it to be, the effects of which are felt from the heights of the cosmos to the lowly experiences of the simplest men, women, children and even the created order itself. The Church not being the Church as it should is an existential crisis, not in the greater scope of history, but for those who are geographically and relationally within the bounds of those diseased portions of the Body. So what needs to be done?

First, we need to repent of making Church-life, beginning with worship, about us. We show up and worship God in the Spirit and truth and serve one-another and fellowship at times appointed by our local churches because God commands it. We commit ourselves to the worship and work and fellowship of a local church not because they have a program that we feel we need but because their worship and life are submitted to and incarnating, even if imperfectly, what the Bible actually says is pleasing to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Church is for you in the sense that it is the greatest good you or anyone in your life could ever have, but it is only that greatest good if it is not about you but rather our Triune God. A local church that organizes or operates by any other standard is simply a large idol, and idols not only bring about misery, but ultimately death.

Second, we need to live in the reality of the mutual gift-giving life of believers and their local churches. To be a gift to anyone, we must receive and grow in the true life of God. But here is the glorious consequence: you and I and our brothers and sisters, as we are rooted in Triune life, become the life of Christ to one-another. That may sound like a lot of theological-ese, but simply put, we come to the Church (and churches) to receive and give Christ. God doesn’t need me or you or anyone, but it is the glorious truth that it has and continues to please God to makes us instruments of His grace, first to the Church and second to the world. Come, find your fulfillment in Christ through His Church… and stay to be that fulfillment to others as Holy Spirit so fills you.

Third, we have to be faithful to God’s covenant—the blessings and the curses. In practice that means that we need to be Christians that are faithfully, actively engaged in discipleship, and discipline as a normative part of that. Over the years I have seen dozens of Christians join and leave faithful local churches not because of sin but because of their unwillingness to deal with sin. Sin is a reality in the Church, and though we have been declared saints (“My holy ones!” says God), we recognize that the yoke of Christ is a life-long commitment to being renewed in His image, putting off sin and putting on righteousness in every area of our lives, i.e. “all of Christ for all of life”. The world has no answer, no hope, when it comes to sin, but we Christians have the very cure and hope and all the promises of righteousness in Christ Jesus by the Spirit. Yet, instead of submitting to the ongoing practice of Matthew 18, repentance, and reconcilliation, Christians regularly either sin by commission or ommission by not submitting to or committing themselves to the process of dealing with sin in the Body for Christ’s glory and the restoration of their brothers and sisters. Don’t get me wrong, discipleship and discipline are not easy, but they are not only good, but commanded by Christ Himself.

The story of the American Church, and our local churches, is not complete, and so may God the Father pour out His Spirit on us that reformation might not only extend the life of the Body here but so make us fruitful trees for the life of the rest of the world.

– Pastor K