"Reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated"

So I stayed up MUCH too late last night, downloading a video clip (here) of a Charlie Rose show from last week, in which he interviewed Rick Warren (you know, the Purpose Driven Life guy) and Greg Boyd (one of my former Bethel College profs and pastor at the church I went to in Minnesota). As I mentioned below, Greg's new book, The Myth of a Christian Nation, has been getting major press since the New York Times ran a front page story on it in late July.

I have been doing my best to keep informed about how Woodland Hills Church is handling all the press attention, and have been praying too that as Greg gets a moment in the media sun, he'll have a chance to truly and sincerely present the truth and beauty of Jesus' Kingdom, without getting pushed into a defensive position (as so often happens when Christians do these kinds of interviews). Please pray with me. :)

Strangely, though, what I'm thinking about most this morning is something that Rick Warren said in the earlier portion of the program. Rick was responding to Charlie Rose's question, "what does Christianity look like today?" He said that Christianity is now found in greater numbers in Asia, Africa and South America than in the Northern Hemisphere. Rick went on to talk about the growth of the church in those regions, and what exciting things are taking place there. "The church in Europe is dead," he said, "and it remains to be seen whether America will go down the same path of secularism or experience a third Great Awakening" (I'm paraphrasing here).

My gut response to hearing, as I have before, about the exciting movement of the Spirit going on in Asia and Africa was, "get me on the next plane there!" In Christian circles, it is pretty fashionable to go India and Africa and Asia - and rightly, we should go wherever God leads. But I think we should be careful of making statements about where "the Spirit is really moving" or that "the church is dead." We are vessels of the Holy Spirit; we are the church. Though I know he didn't mean it, what I heard beneath Rick Warren's pronouncement (which is one I've heard many times) was a sort of "its okay to abandon Europe, let's go where people want to hear our message!" And so this “church in Europe is dead” statement becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Another thing I heard in Rick’s statement was an attitude I've picked up in my time working with ESI and other ministries. That is, that the Christians who go to "third world" or developing nations (a la Africa, India, the Middle East) are "real" missionaries, while life in Europe is far too cushy and Western to be "real" missions. It is very subtle, and I don't think anyone would actually vocalize this, but I think we still have a mental hierarchy in our perceptions of what missionaries are. Missionaries are like Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, living in huts in the jungle. Missionaries look different; they have 80s haircuts, eat weird things, don't watch TV or movies, don't ever swear or go dancing; they have lots of kids, etc, etc.

Clearly I’m exaggerating, but I have gotten enough questions about “what is it like to be a missionary” that I have learned to ask in reply, “what do you mean when you say ‘missionary’?” I think there is still a very prevalent image of a missionary as a “special” kind of Christian. I truly think that this kind of hierarchical thinking – that those who go to far-off cultures or uncomfortable locations are the real missionaries, while the rest of us are just ordinary Christian – damages the church’s ministry. Sometimes I get letters that encourage me in my work “on the mission field.” “Where is this field? At what point did I step into it?” I wonder. The border of the “mission field” doesn’t begin once you get your passport stamped on the way out of the United States. All of us are standing on the mission field, all the time, regardless of where we are. And I am only willing to accept the “missionary” title if every other Christian will accept it as well. I am not in any sort of special Christian category because I am here in Lithuania – I just happen to feel that my training and interests and heart is better used here, and so I teach and live and eat and play and cry and laugh and go dancing and ride bikes and watch T.V. and sleep, in another country, rather than in the U.S.

I think that when we put missionaries into a special category of service, it prevents Christians from examining their lives for how they might be strategic in the relationships they’re involved in, or how their gifts might be used in their neighborhoods and communities nearby. We think of missions as being something “out there,” done by other people, instead of as a way of living that is commanded of all Christians. (For those who like theology terms, this is what is meant by the 'missional' church. It means that I exist for the good of the church, and the church exists for the good and the purpose of blessing the world.)

And so when Rick Warren declares that the church in Europe is dead, I worry that my fellow-Christians in the United States will hear that as a reason to flock to more exciting, cutting-edge and exotic mission locations, rather than considering the work of God in a place where, yes, the lifestyle is pretty comfortable, but where people are just as spiritually needy and hurting (maybe even more so) as anywhere else in the world. It’s more glamorous in Christian circles to go to India, or Zimbabwe, than to France or Italy or even Lithuania. Be honest, we think that way, don’t we? I think we need to change our thinking into a more global mindset, and ask, first of all, what has God gifted me with, where is there need, and what does He call me to do here and now?

And the church in Europe is only dead if we refuse to ask the Great Healer to breathe new life into it. :)