It’s sexy among young people — my generation — to talk about ditching institutional religion and starting a revolution of real Christ-followers living in real community without the confines of church. Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churchless Christianity are unrealistic. It’s immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think romance preserves the marriage, when the couple celebrating their golden anniversary know it’s the institution of marriage that preserves the romance. Without the God-given habit of corporate worship and the God-given mandate of corporate accountability, we will not prove faithful over the long haul.

Lets first start with the word “unbiblical”. Mr. DeYoung says “besides being unbiblical”. Now ANYONE who has had a casual reading of scripture will soon recognize that the word “church” can never be a “confine”. Why is that? Well, first of all I am in the Church because I am a Christian. The scriptures are very, very clear about this.  So if anyone is being unbiblical it is Mr. DeYoung. If you are in Christ, you are in Church. Now if by “confines of church”. Mr DeYoung means the building, liturgy, bylaws, leadership, pews and meeting time, then that is fine. But don’t call that church. It isn’t. It is no more church than the Kingdom Hall up the street.

Next, if anyone in his camp read this post I don’t know why they didn’t tell him that there is no such thing as a “God-given habit of corporate worship”. Corporate worship appears no where in your bible, as a matter of fact, barely anything that goes on in a church on Sunday THE BIBLE deems worship. Now I am not saying that Luther, Calvin, Zwigli, Sproul and the rest of the Neo-Reformers don’t call that “worship”. The problem is the bible doesn’t. Sitting in a pew listening to a paid speaker recite something he has practiced all week to encourage you is NEVER called worship in scripture. This is a figment of Reformed Theology imagination. Next if somebody can explain what “corporate accountability” is then I can maybe address that, because the word carries no meaning for me nor can I find a reference in scripture to it, I haveto give him the benefit of the doubt.

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church — a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.

Now to say this “the best churches are full of gospel-saturated people”, is about as arrogant as saying, I have the smartest children in the world. The first question someone should ask is “how do you quantify that”, if they don’t just walk off and never say a word to me again. Listen, this statement is.. ummhhh… {sighing here, thinking of a word} bologna. It is a strawman at best. It brings value to itself by devaluing (needless to say with no proof) something else. It is like political sensationalism, it is use to incite disdain with no tangible way of proving rather it is true or false. It is hot air at high noon in July in Kuwait. It has no value. So if what I just said means a whole lot of nothing then you should feel the same way about that statement. So lets move on.

My generation in particular is prone to radicalism without followthrough. We have dreams of changing the world, and the world should take notice accordingly. But we’ve not proved faithful in much of anything yet. We haven’t held a steady job or raised godly kids or done our time in VBS or, in some cases, even moved off the parental dole. We want global change and expect a few more dollars to the ONE campaign or Habitat for Humanity chapter to just about wrap things up. What the church and the world needs, we imagine, is for us to be another Bono — Christian, but more spiritual than religious and more into social justice than the church. As great as it is that Bono is using his fame for some noble purpose, I just don’t believe that the happy future of the church, or the world for that matter, rests on our ability to raise up a million more Bonos (as at least one author suggests). With all due respect, what’s harder: to be an idolized rock star who travels around the world touting good causes and chiding governments for their lack of foreign aid, or to be a line worker at GM with four kids and a mortgage, who tithes to his church, sings in the choir every week, serves on the school board, and supports a Christian relief agency and a few missionaries from his disposable income?

This paragraph is a bit ironic. Here is what I mean. Mr DeYoung, Marc Driscoll and their many minions are the very rock stars that they are telling others not to be.  Book after book and conference after conference, the entire “listentomeism because I got the truth in a box” (this very post) proves my point. Many of the young people who have rejected the notions of the Sunday “pay your tithes because we know the best use of your money” mentality have no desire to be the man or woman up front. They refuse to pay a man to tell them about the bible and make decisions for them. These young men and women feel that they have been indwelt with the same Spirit that indwells these men and they can hear directly from God and need no mediators to do so. Does this mean they don’t believe in gifted leaders? No. If that were the case men like Frank Viola, Tony Dale, Jon Zens, George Barna, Milt Rodriguez and the like wouldn’t ever be heard. Women like Felicity Dale wouldn’t be considered one of the greatest ecclesiological minds around.

No, this means that things such as mutual encouragement, the priesthood of believers and an all Saints ministry is the important to these people and they don’t want to leave their spiritual maturity up to the paid professionals to hash things out, they have taken ownership of their faith unlike the guy who “pays his tithes and goes to the school board”. Also I believe when they settle down and have families they will probably join a school board

Until we are content with being one of the million nameless, faceless church members and not the next globe-trotting rock star, we aren’t ready to be a part of the church. In the grand scheme of things, most of us are going to be more of an Ampliatus (Rom. 16:8) or Phlegon(v. 14) than an apostle Paul. And maybe that’s why so many Christians are getting tired of the church. We haven’t learned how to be part of the crowd. We haven’t learned to be ordinary. Our jobs are often mundane. Our devotional times often seem like a waste. Church services are often forgettable. That’s life. We drive to the same places, go through the same routines with the kids, buy the same groceries at the store, and share a bed with the same person every night. Church is often the same too — same doctrines, same basic order of worship, same preacher, same people. But in all the smallness and sameness, God works — like the smallest seed in the garden growing to unbelievable heights, like beloved Tychicus, that faithful minister, delivering the mail and apostolic greetings (Eph. 6:21). Life is usually pretty ordinary, just like following Jesus most days. Daily discipleship is not a new revolution each morning or an agent of global transformation every evening; it’s a long obedience in the same direction.

I don’t know many people who are trying to be rock stars. Maybe there are some, but again this seems more of a strawman than actual facts. Most people who deflect from the traditional “confines” of the institution called church have no plans to be superstars. Many of the pastors who are burned out from being the “same preacher” have come because they want an environment where all of the gifts of the Spirit are functioning. Where all have the option (not all will) to teach, admonish, reprove, rebuke (Col 3:16-17) and edify. Many aren’t wired to sit back numbly listening to sermons, having the professionals sing polished songs only to have anything they have to say regulated in some “house group” (an ill substitute for the reason the church gathers). I have interacted with quite a few people and this “rock star” gunhoeness is nonexistent. Are some going to go and become the Viola’s and Dale’s of the future? Sure, the Holy Spirit always uses people in that way, but again this isn’t the plan, no more than it was the plan for Mr. DeYoung himself to become the spokesperson for the NeoReformed. I am sure when he set off for seminary he didn’t know he would be writing books and . But then again, since he points at other maybe this was always his goal…. (just kidding)

It’s possible the church needs to change. Certainly in some areas it does. But it’s also possible we’ve changed — and not for the better. It’s possible we no longer find joy in so great a salvation. It’s possible that our boredom has less to do with the church, its doctrines, or its poor leadership and more to do with our unwillingness to tolerate imperfection in others and our own coldness to the same old message about Christ’s death and resurrection. It’s possible we talk a lot about authentic community but we aren’t willing to live in it.

 I actually agree here. But I don’t know if the structure that Mr. Deyoung perpetuates will ever produce this type of community. If you look at this generation of young men and women (18-30) they are products of this system. Going to church, paying their tithes and leaving Christianity up to the professionals. This system has helped grow the number of seminaries exponentially, while men and women run off to some other place to get the “skills” necessary to serve. The suburbs with the tall fences, running away from others who weren’t like them, others who effected their net worth. This generation that Mr. DeYoung is so critical of, have experienced what Mr. DeYoung talks about and they don’t like it. To say their dislike for it is wrong, seems to be a tactic to prevent it from crumbling (which is happening thus the purpose of Mr. DeYoung’s post).

The church is not an incidental part of God’s plan. Jesus didn’t invite people to join an anti-religion, anti-doctrine, anti-institutional bandwagon of love, harmony, and re-integration. He showed people how to live, to be sure. But He also called them to repent, called them to faith, called them out of the world, and called them into the church. The Lord “didn’t add them to the church without saving them, and he didn’t save them without adding them to the church” (John Stott).

Again Mr. DeYoung uses this word “church” and tries to get a little emphasis by quoting Stott(one of my favorite theologians by the way). He is correct Christ doesn’t save them without bringing them into the church. Their Salvation makes them part of the church, just as much as our DNA makes us human. We can’t stop being human and those who God saves by His Sovereign Grace are in the church. One can’t happen without the other, it is as simultaneous as justification and regeneration. The same Spirit that regenerates us baptizes us into the Church. The ONE CHURCH. That is mentioned in scripture, yet geographically expressed (i.e The Church at Corinth).

There are people who are anti-doctrine, but that also happens in institutional churches. Just ask Olsteen, Jakes, Dollar and their minions. Doctrine is very important and I even go as far to say “correct” doctrine is important. I hold to the First London Baptist Confession and own 100′s of books on different theological positions but I am also anti-religion and anti-institution. Why? Because Jesus came to save us out of religiosity into relationship and out of an institution into a person (namely Himself). The bible is clear about that my friends.

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7). If we truly love the church, we will bear with her in her failings, endure her struggles, believe her to be the beloved bride of Christ, and hope for her final glorification. The church is the hope of the world — not because she gets it all right, but because she is a body with Christ for her Head.

I really like this paragraph and I believe it is the best of all. Why? Well simple. A man who has spent quite a few paragraphs beating up an expression of the body now flips and says the very people he has beat up should bear with the church! Did anyone catch this. What he is saying is that the church and all of her weakness is still Christ’s church and should be beared with, but for some reason the only people who should do the bearing are the people he disagree with, not himself. Just because you don’t like an expression of the church doesn’t make it wrong. And even if they are wrong shouldn’t you “bear with them”? Think about that.

Don’t give up on the church. The New Testament knows nothing of churchless Christianity. The invisible church is for invisible Christians. The visible church is for you and me. Put away the Che Guevara t-shirts, stop the revolution, and join the rest of the plodders. Fifty years from now you’ll be glad you did.

Finally, no one is giving up on the church, to do so is to give up on the Husband as the Church is the bride. Many (me included) feel that she is not all she can be and have decided to express her differently. Now there are some who vilify the “institutional church” , and wrongfully so. God works in spite of our error not because of our correctness. The church is still maturing, could this be a time of growth for her? Could she be a little clumsy because of this growth? For Mr. DeYoung to say his expression is right while others are wrong and yet demand tolerance and forbearance is the most puzzling part of this entire post. Yes lets not give up on the Church (though I don’t think that those who have been purchased Sovereignly by the Lamb’s blood can).