The writings of Dallas Willard are poignant if not pointed. Sharp words, kindly written, that cause even the most mature Christ follower to re-examine their discipleship. His most piercing words, at least for me, were not written but heard in an interview he gave. His quiet voice clandestinely hit me hard and remains the most haunting leadership words I have heard in 2009. Here’s the comment he softly spoke: “Maybe people are not coming to your church because they see it as too trivial to be truth.”
Too trivial to be truth.
Of course there is no church out there that thinks it’s not about the truth.
From the staunch bastions of Conservatism to the dogged Liberal landmark congregations; from the swaying Charismatics to the most staid Dispensationalists; from the solidly Reformed to the fluid Emergents – there’s no congregation and no pastor who does no think that what they are about, what they stand for and the shape of what they hold isn’t about the truth.
But the comment hit on perception by others of us trivializing the truth.
Do we trivialize the truth when we wrap it in three points each beginning with the letter “P”?
Do we trivialize the truth when we bumper sticker our theology?
Do we trivialize the truth when we Daily Bread our Scripture reading?
Do we trivialize the truth when we give 7 steps to a healthy family sermons?
Do we trivialize the truth when we tell God how great he makes us feel in our worship songs?
Do we trivialize the truth when our worship songs talk about me instead of Him?
Do we trivialize the truth when we stick it into a formula – say this and you’re saved?
Too trivial to be truth.
Do we trivialize the truth when we suggest that we have the truth all worked out??
Do we trivialize the truth when we keep the truth irrelevant to how we live and nothing in our lives has been changed for the past 10 years!
Too trivial to be truth.
It pushes you into the deeper questions of substance, authenticity, realness, mystery and depth.
It’s not about whether you use modern songs or classic hymns; media and drama or choir and liturgy.
It’s about something that is greater, deeper, ‘more than us’, being packaged traditionally, modernly, or even postmodernly, in a box that is too human, too formulaic, too all worked out, too one dimensional, maybe two dimensional.
Searchers of faith, seekers – know that the God shaped void in their souls need to be filled with God not our ideas about God or our explanations of God.
Maybe Willard’s comments help us understand why Americans by the millions have walked away from the church – we sit at 12.7% US church attendance on a Sunday morning, a drop of millions in a 25 year period!
If Willard’s words have hit me hard, they’ve caused me to ask new questions.
Not surface questions.
Not easy questions.
How do we clearly present the Gospel yet honor its depth and profundity?
How does a preacher bring help but not appear to have all the answers – which we haven’t got but sometimes have suggested otherwise?
How do we teach our doctrines but leave room for mystery and the unknown?
How do we honor the Word and the Spirit.
How do we explain faith when its sometimes unexplainable?
I guess as the church moved West – it moved towards answers, solutions and systems.
Willard’s comments continue the push back East – to where tension is willingly held; where mystery remains; and where the journey is as important as the destination.
Too trivial to be truth – maybe wiser words than even Willard knows.
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4 comments:
The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation and we must always remember that. We wont always have every answer but Peter said to always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us, with gentleness and kindness.
I know what you are saying, but its that we cant articulate our faith anymore, so we cant give loving answers. We have moved to a more alusive way of giving answers which at the end of the day makes no sense to anyone, even ourselves, so we are tossed about like the wind.
There are mystery and doubts, that we have, but we have lost our ability to feel scriture, so when God speaks to us through his Word we dont feel it and it doesnt help or change us. Its just another book and so we make it alusive irrelavent.
Yes, there are those in our churches that have made the gosple trivial, just like Demas did when he deserted Paul. Paul didnt try to anylize and make excuses for that and explain why Demas left or why 12.7% left the church. Maybe Paul had to many answers and that drove Demas away. Paul was convinced that the gosple had power to save so he moved on.
Both you and I have trivialized the gosple for which I must repent and have caused people to stumble, but does that take away from what we are called to do. Lets run the race and not look back or we will surely find ever reason to quit. Paul said that some preached the gosple for the wrong reasons, but at least it was preached.
We worry way to much about what the world says about us, we really dont like it when the world hates us. I am not against creating fresh ways to present the gospel, but make sure its the real gospel. Because the real gosple does change people and even the old way of doing things had real results such as the old Romans Road. dont always critisize the past and those who came before you and hopefully those who come after you wont critisize the way you do things.
I wonder if the answers and formulas have stolen the intimacy God wants with his children.
Most of my christian life, I have longed for what David May calls a Sacred Companion. I have met one or two, people who listen for God in me and dare me to follow.
As sinners, we take the Proverb to "train up a child in the way he should go," to mean teach him our own way, with disastrous results.
The thinker that has often challenged my comfortable christianity has been Rich Mullins. It's interesting just how influential he was to contemporary christian musicians, yet there hasn't been anyone like him.
His words definitely traveled East, to Bethlehem, Egypt, Jerusalem ...
To offer the full complexity of life isn't as satisfying to our sinful natures.
Sure, as humans we boil our experiences down, because we are finite. Where it backfires is when we stop there, or worse, accept others definitions and experiences as truth.
To offer an answer is to offer ointment for an itch in our intestines.
The soul thirsts, longs, itches for God. And God is far too creative in his grace and wisdom and wrath for us to manage.
Besides, looking from the outside, the church is about those on the inside. That's not any different from any other clique.
If you have to explain it, it's too late. Any clique, cult or church will say its inclusive and for others, because it's the right thing to say.
If people have to ask if you're christian, isn't the answer already implied.
Is the church christian? Is it christ-like?
A great Rich Mullins line from "Surely God is with us" - the whores all seem to love him and the drunks propose a toast.
I don't see whores and drunks singing the praises of the church.
why can we hear some are arguing about the bible???
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
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