Innovate Needed?

Does the church need innovation? Innovation means "to introduce something new; make changes in anything established." Is the established practices of the church a bad thing? What is the church doing wrong? Is it doing anything wrong?

Really, to answer any of that, you have to start before it. To say it needs innovation is to say that something it is doing is broken, outdated or wrong. Some say the church has to become "relevant" to appeal to the lost community. Pastors have become professionals wearing hip glasses, Armani shirts, who throw out U2 lyrics or quotes from artsy movies, and give practical steps to make your life cool. It's painful to see seminary students and pastors falling for this need to wear the right clothes, watch the right movies, and put on the appearance that "Hey! I'm just like you." Some get so obsessed with this that its unnatural. You can tell they are trying to look relevant. How about just being yourself and stop trying to look like Ryan Seacrest or Rod Bell?

Are our services in need of innovation? I was sucked into the church growth/seeker sensitive movement for a decade. The emphasis was best described as "preach the gospel in any way...except preaching." Too much scripture was avoided. Proof-texting became an art form. Now, musical performance and drama became necessary to have any success preaching. Pastors spent more time on art preparation than sermon preparation. The congregation became an audience. This is seen as innovation. Question: Was our preaching not drawing enough people? Did we have to start entertaining because the Bible was too boring? Was our preaching and reliance on the Spirit to do the work ineffective? Can God reach people today WITHOUT the arts?

Innovate our image? It seems we have turned into the source of social causes. I'm all for reaching the homeless and poor. I highly encourage the church to be involved in reaching their communities. But what has become the priority in this? Is it meeting practical needs? Is it spiritual needs? We honestly celebrate when we paint a house for the elderly, yet walk away without sharing love and the gospel with them. We hand out blankets for a night, yet we don't make an extended relationship with them and share Christ. We're so obsessed with meeting the physical that we let the spiritual become secondary. Jesus is the cart, social needs are the horse.

Does the church need innovation, or new ways of doing things because the current ones aren't working? Let's start with the need. Do we need to be hip? Do we need to be sensitive? Do we need to be broad in our beliefs? No. No. No. Our churches have become bloated like a steroid injected athlete: tons of muscle, but unnatural and unhealthy. We have massive buildings and numbers and a massive amount of spiritual unhealth and illiteracy. 75% of our generation couldn't tell you if Obadiah is before or after Daniel. They don't know what atonement means. They don't know what a convenant is. All they know is that they "feel good" when they worship and have a self-help sermon. Our congregations can't defend their faith because most of them DON'T KNOW WHAT WE BELIEVE! Doctrine and theology isn't popular and doesn't fit in a three point sermon with movie clips.

The church doesn't need innovation. It needs instruction in the Word, infiltration into the world, intelligence from the pastor, intensity from the congregation and it needs integrity of its teaching. We need Jesus. We need the cross. These things will not draw crowds unless God wills it. But that's just it. When did Jesus ever promise crowds? The path is narrow. The price is steep. The suffering, intense. Stop the cheap gospel.