Spirituality or Church?

The U.S. has been long known as very spiritual and ethical nation. Some would contest this fact, but in the end, their point isn't whether people are spiritual and ethical (at least in belief if not in practice), but their complaint is in the nature of their neighbors spirituality and ethics. It's important that we recognize the difference. Spirituality is on the rise, but church attendance is in decline. Why is that? I think there are two reasons: the rise of spiritual humanism and the need for personal encounters with God.

First, spiritual humanism. Atheism is not a major factor on the national scene. It has flatlined at about 4% of the population for a couple of decades now. On the other hand, spiritual humanism has been on the rise. This is the belief that life has a spiritual element, but we are in control of the content of that spirituality. We discover, define, and shape what is spiritual for us.

We are born into a world where we had no say in its composition. We didn't get input on the laws of gravity, the color of the sky, or the age of the earth (young earth distortions aside). We had to adjust to reality. Spiritual humanism sees spiritual life as less "real" than the rest of creation. If God is included at all, then God is seen as our servant, fulfilling our wants rather than guiding us into wisdom and love that moves us beyond ourselves. In essence, we see ourselves as our own gods and spirituality is a resource we can exploit.

Spiritual humanistic beliefs look a lot like debry picked up by a tumbleweed, bits and pieces of ideas picked up here and there but seldom thought through. In the end, it is the blind leading the blind, hoping to find some wisdom within, that will solve the problems of life. If the solution was within us already, I suspect the world would be a much happier place. Jesus' contention is that the solution must be found outside us, coming from the very real and self-defined person of God as Father, Son, and Spirit.

There is a second connection between the rise of spirituality and loss of church attendance. Spiritual implies a personal encounter with the spiritual. When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the Jewish temple that separated people from the presence of God was torn. Now ordinary people had personal access to God through Jesus. Many people today believe that Christian churches have rehung the curtain.

Over the last decade, lower church attendance has lead many churches to employ the tools of marketing. This has often placed the emphasis on tighter, more controlled church services, multimedia, and the size of their parking lot. These are all important, but not if there is no longer any space for authentic, personal experience with God. As I travel, I experience fewer churches where unscripted times of prayer are a part of services. Most worship has become a string of upbeat choruses with little pastoral leadership or variation to make worship an authentic encounter with God. Everything is focused toward the front of the church. We may have become too polished for our own good.

I believe that good teaching, knowledge of Scripture, planning and shared community time is essential. We do these things so we don't just waste people's time, but they mean nothing if they don't begin, point to, and end with personal encounters with God.

I left the church in high school because it seemed centered on nothing more than rules, philosophy, and self-help. I see a rise in that today, even among Pentecostals. I returned to church after I met a group of Christians who believed that they could intimately encounter Jesus and gave time for that experience in everything they did. Then there was a reason to gather.

For many today, they just want to protect the next generation, their youth, their sons and daughters, from the world. That's not enough. What's the use of protection from the world if they haven't encountered Jesus? Church should never be too safe or controlled. Don't make people choose between true spirituality and the church.