I should preface all this by saying that this post was informed and inspired by a recent segment on Issues, Etc titled
The Decline of American Evangelicalism, where he interviews Dr. David Wells, author of The Courage to be Protestant. You can listen to it
here. I’m probably a little behind the times, but I’ve only in the last few months heard the term ‘self-feeding’ as it relates to christianity. The church growth gurus, including Bill Hybels, have come to the conclusion (from their REVEAL study) that the church growth movement has been inadequate in making disciples of Christ. Their new ’business plan’ in Hybels’ own words is this:
We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and became Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own………Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions.
There are several things that trouble about me these statements. The first is the concept of ‘changing the way we do church’, as if church were a man-made institution that are we free to ‘do with’ what we will. As Todd Wilken (Lutheran pastor and host of Issues) has frequently said, “We did not invent church, nor are we free to reinvent it”. I guess the fundamental question then must be asked. What is church? Ask ten christians that question today and you are likely to get ten different answers. But really, what is church? What is its’ mission and purpose? Can we make it into anything we want? Should it be culturally relevant? Should it be ‘marketed’? Has it become just another casualty of modern capitalism? Arthur Just was recently on Issues talking about true christian worship. He reminds us that from earliest times, even in ancient Judaism, worship was centered on teaching followed by eating (what we call Word and Sacrament). These structures of worship continued even during the time of Jesus in the feeding of the 5000, the Last Supper, and in the Acts 2 church;
Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, and to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Furthermore, for nearly 2,000 years, christian worship centered around Christ, His word and His body and blood given in the Sacrament. It has never tried to be culturally relevant…..until the last hundred years or so. Christianity is counter-cultural. And I don’t think we are free to decide ‘how to do church’. It is Christ’s institution where He makes disciples through the washing of water combined with His word, in Baptism, and where He feeds His flock with His Word and Sacrament. That is church. And though the specifics of how congregations do that may vary, the essentials should be the same. We are not permitted to start with our own clean slate and reinvent it in order to grow some super size church. It is His church and He will grow it, if we let Him. And I reluctantly say that what we ‘grow’ on our own, with our marketing schemes and fancy programs may not be church at all, despite what the sign says out front or how many people show up to participate.
Then there’s the concept of self-feeding. I think I understand what he means by the term but I don’t think it gives an adequate picture of what’s happening in personal bible study. I opened my Bible this morning and read the first seven chapters of John. Was I self-feeding? When the shepherd leads his flock to green, fertile pastures and they begin eating, are they self-feeding? Maybe in some basic sense of the word, but let’s not take credit for what He is doing for us in His word. He is feeding us with Himself. We are the recipients of His most holy mercy and grace in the forgiveness of our sins.
And when these ‘growth-driven’ churches have all but abandoned the true preaching of God’s word and the administration of the Sacraments, is there any surprise when their own studies fail to show those methods effective in making disciples? Christ gave us the formula Himself when He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and lo I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
And where has He promised to be? In John 6:51-63, he says,
“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews said, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them…..The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
When many of the disciples heard this, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”
His words seem so clear. He has given us our sustenance. In His very Word and in His very body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. I agree with the disciples. This teaching is difficult and there isn’t one Sunday when I approach the rail for communion that I wonder, ‘Can this really be true’. I can only accept it on faith. I can only take Him at His word.
So, as I see it, it comes down to this. Will we feed ourselves (through programs and self-help seminars and shwanky church growth methods) or will He feed us? That is the question. My attempts at ‘self-feeding’ over the past twenty years have brought nothing but despair to me, obscuring the all-availing work of Christ on my behalf. My time spent in ‘seeker-sensitive, growth-driven’ churches left me hungering and left me wondering if there wasn’t more to christianity than I could seem to muster up on any given day. I have been receiving regular communion and regular law/gospel sermons for almost three years now and the difference couldn’t be more stark. I am not more spiritual now. Not by a long shot. But I am much more keenly aware of my sin and of my utter dependence on the nourishment that Christ gives us when He gives Himself in Word and Sacrament. He is the very bread of life. And when you eat of it, you shall never hunger.
