Encouraging Words

BECOMING UNCHURCHED

A few months ago, I received a few catalogs from church marketing companies wanting to see the church glossy posters, mailers and door hangers that will entice the “unchurched” to break down our doors on Easter. Two things came to my mind:
1. Nobody at Hope looks like the smiling models on the mailer and,
2. I’m really tired of using the term “unchurched” to describe secular people.

The word “unchurched” always underlines in red in my spellchecker. Maybe that’s because the word itself is too “churchy” (a word which, incidentally, doesn’t get underlined). Apparently, a big chunk of the world doesn’t care that it’s “unchurched.” Is this a problem? Before you give an answer, think about the fact that the rates of premarital sex and divorce, for example, are almost identical on both sides of the steeple. Rather than changing the culture, the churched are often more adept at adapting to it. The old adage is apparently true – “Being in church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than being in a garage makes you a car.”

What is the goal of “reaching the unchurched?” Is it to make them “churched” or is it to make them a disciple. The word “disciple” is also a churchy or Biblical word. If we are going to follow Jesus’ command in the Great Commission of “making disciples,” then perhaps we should think of others who are not part of the body of Christ here on the East side. For example, what about:
• De-churched people who used to attend church. While some people leave for personal reasons, many de-churched people leave in a huff over something the pastor did.
• Re-churched people who became de-churched because of something the former pastor did but now that a new pastor has come, they hope things will be different.
• Roto-churched folks who drift from church to church depending on whose youth/children/ music ministry is “hot.”
• Mis-churched people who tell you how much better it was at their “old” church in another town.
• Mega-churched individuals who can only en- gage in “true worship” in a large setting where they can remain anonymous without having to get involved.
• Extra-churched people (usually men) who will tell you that they worshiped God on the golf course Sunday morning. They see yelling “Jesus Christ!” at a shanked five iron as an act of praise.
• Mal-churched – that one person who never misses church and sits in the same pew but never smiles.
• H2O-churched – that’s “Holiday, 2 Only.”

I’m sure you get the point that somewhere along the line we forget that Jesus never called us to make people “churched” but to make them “disciples”. It’s a radical idea, but I think that being a disciple of Christ means being “unchurched” ourselves, moving outside our building in order to participate in the hard work of loving people wherever we find them. Rather than get people to come to church, we should spend our energy to get the church to go outside and be with people in order to show them Jesus.

Don’t get me wrong: I think we ought to invite many people to be part of our worship on Sunday mornings. But the question we need to address is whether we’re inviting them to become “members” of an institution or challenging/encouraging them to become part of a movement that once changed the world and could do it again! If the Holy Spirit recaptured this passion, my guess is that being “churched” would mean something very different to us and the rest of the world!

Pastor Braun

Christ is risen!
Brothers and sisters:

It’s always a wonderful thing when the weather turns a bit warmer and spring is in the air. As Debbie , Lydia and I wind up our first year at Hope we have the pleasure of experiencing an Iowa spring for the first time. Unlike my native eastern Nebraska, I’ve discovered that Des Moines springs can be wet (back in Beaver Crossing we measure rainfall by hundredths of an inch, not in inches!) and teeming with life. Because of all the rain here, mowing the lawn becomes less of a task and more of an achievement (staying on top of it, that is). The beauty of it all, and something Debbie and I are blessed to experience, is the fact that THINGS GROW WELL HERE.
Last year Debbie planted a small garden. We germinated seeds back in our St. Louis apartment, carefully watered them and tended them, brought them over in our U-Haul to our house, planted them and enjoyed some produce late in the summer. This year we’ve tried to take advantage of the Des Moines environment on our acreage (being our first spring here). We’ve put down sod on the bare patches of our lawn, put in a new fire pit, planted some ornamental trees, planted some fruit trees, put in berries and planed a new (and much improved) garden. In all this working in our home I noticed something wonderful here: working in the dirt is wonderful. In some places on our property the top soil is close to two feet deep! There’s something simply therapeutic about digging your hands in the rich Iowa soil and tending to creation.
This spring has really got me thinking about man’s purpose on earth. Let me give something of a disclaimer here: most of my life I have not been interested in gardens and such. I always lived on acreages, and my mom and dad both are handy and have green thumbs (my dad has raised every kind of farm animal imaginable, runs a vineyard, multiple gardens, orchards and has even built a log house from scratch), but even being around this as a kid I never caught the itch to grow and build and the like. For some reason it never clicked. But as I’ve grown older and received greater levels of responsibility with work, family, and life I’ve come to really enjoy outdoors work. Which brings me to man’s purpose on earth. What were humans originally created to do? Looking at the book of Genesis the answer is simple: we were designed to be gardeners and park rangers. God made a vast creation and told Adam and Eve to tend it. Adam named the animals in creation and essentially gardened. Adam and Eve walked around Eden simply enjoying what God had made for them. This was man’s original purpose.
Lots has happened to man since then. Adam and Eve’s disobedience got them kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and they no longer simply enjoyed God’s creation; they had to struggle with it to survive. After the Fall, the earth produced thistles and thorns, and staying alive and content was a chore. This was the new reality: not so much a park but a wild zoo run amok. Things have been the same for us ever since. Thanks be to God, though, that Jesus came to earth. Jesus, our new Adam, obeyed God where mankind failed and now we know God personally and intimately. Through Jesus we have the promise of a new life, a life to come at the resurrection, when we will no longer struggle to survive but we will be free to simply enjoy God’s creation once again. A life that mirrors Adam and Eve’s original life, a life where we will live out our design as gardeners and park rangers of God’s new creation.
So this doesn’t mean that, while we wait for Jesus to return, we all need to plant gardens and grow green thumbs. In this fallen creation there is no way we can live exactly as God intends. Yet I challenge you all who choose to read this to get outside more. Take a walk through a park (it’s delightful that Des Moines has many city parks), stop to look at the geese and enjoy the looks of the trees and the smells of the flowers more. Realize that man’s original purpose was to tend God’s creation and enjoy it, and use these moments in nature to reflect on what God has done for you. But if you’ve been wanting to but haven’t yet, I challenge you to plant a small garden this year. It could be flowers, or vegetables or whatever, just get your hands in the dirt and tend the soil. It could be outside, inside in a pot, even out on the deck or on a patio. If nothing else, consider buying a hanging flower pot (remember that these need lots of water). In all things, remember that God is in control, trust in Him, and enjoy the blessings God gives. And may the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in this very same Christ Jesus.

Peace:
Pastor Jurchen