Jason Clark

David writes… I’m all about guest speaking and guest blogging. Few days before guest blogging here, I had a guest speaker at Revolution. Now when I say speaker, I really mean more of a teacher/discussion leader.

The man I invited is someone I deeply respect. A man who has been a pastor most of his life and is now a mentor, author, teacher, and speaker. His name is Les Brittingham, and although we don’t agree on everything – that’s precisely the reason I wanted him to share whatever God laid on his heart for Sunday afternoon, and he said some things that revolutionaries who meet in coffee shop basements sometimes don’t want to hear (If you want to know a tad more about where we meet you can find a post on it in my new blog here . Yet it went over very well.

He’s talk was inspired by an article in Rev Magazine (www.revmagazine.com) (by the way Makeesha and I were asked to write an article for Rev for this next up coming issue due out in May I think) titled, “Is the American Church in Crisis?” Pardon for the ethnocentricity here but the magazine is written for American Pastors I guess.

Well, Les took some umbrage with this statement and laid out a pretty good case. So I now ask you… is the church in Western Civilization in crises?

If you mean the church institution/business/as we know, I would argue yes. At the same time, the church/institution/business/as we know will in some form, probably always be around for those who need this type of model. But it is true that with the exception of some mega-churches, the numbers are declining. The article points out the math that I won’t get into here. If your reading this, you’re probably already aware of that less people are going to church than any other time in recent history…dare I say the history of Christianity in free civilizations.

However, as this numbers decreases, the numbers of revolutionaries increase. I for one echo Michael Frost, when he says (and I paraphrase) that it’s a good thing that Christendom is fading, because in post-Christendom, the radical, revolutionary, reviving Jesus can appear.

This is pretty much what Les taught and we are thankful for the encouragement. But he was also careful to point out that the church as a whole, is the body of Christ and we can’t dis the head without dissing the body. We all are the body of Christ and though we may thoughtfully disagree and even criticize, we must be careful in our words and realize that Jesus is the head of us all. Words to live by no matter what side of Christianity you may claim.

David Fisher