The church going forward ~ the four Cs

The violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 by “Christians” waving bibles and Jesus flags should cause every American to pause and consider the relationship between church and state that is a core value in the U.S. Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights. It seems that many in the Christian Church in the U.S. have forsaken the teachings of Jesus for what is being called “Christian nationalism.”

This is particularly disturbing since the assault occurred on the Christian holiday of Epiphany that celebrates the visit of the three “Wise Men” to worship Jesus. We need to take stock of where we are as a church as well as where we are as a nation. There are alternative forms of Christian community that we need to explore.

Welcome to follow ~ a community!

Why “follow”, a verb? Why a community and not a church? That’s where the 4C’s come in.

For several years now, we have been able to identify three basic types of Christian churches in North America and Europe.

The most predominant type is the “club” church. Club is the first C. A club church is inwardly focused and exists to serve its members. It is much more self-centered than Jesus-centered. Worship is built around member preferences and is non-challenging, because the focus is on making as many members happy as possible. That’s really important when the success of the church is measured by counting “nickels and noses” (butts in the pews and dollars in the offering). The goal of the church is to survive and grow by making new members, not by making new disciples of Jesus.

The second C belongs to the second most prolific type of church in the West, the “cause” church. A cause church is outwardly focused to the extreme. It is much more cause-centered than Jesus-centered. The cause church can be focused on everything from gay rights to traditional marriage preservation, pro-life to pro-choice, gun control to second amendment rights. Time and money is invested in the cause, not necessarily in following Jesus. All of the energy of the members is focused on the “cause”, because the cause has become god. No one realizes that eventually the cause church will become irrelevant, because the cause will go away as society evolves.

The third type of church is the rarest and most authentic. This is the Christ (or Jesus)-centered church. It looks a lot like the church described in the Bible in the Book of Acts, chapter 2. The third C is for Christ. The emphasis in the Jesus-centered church is on following Jesus and living like Jesus. Jesus never invited us to worship him. He always invited us to follow him.

The fourth and final C belongs to community. For more than 60 years in the U.S. and longer than that in Europe, the church has been in decline. In response to declining attendance, declining income, declining power, declining prestige, and declining relevance; the church has acted more like an institution than a movement. It has hunkered down and built walls. The instinct to survive has overcome the courage to let go and let God.

We chose the verb “follow” as our name because we are tired of just talking about following Jesus … there has never been a better time to take action. If not now, when? We chose to be a “community” to differentiate ourselves from the dying institution of the church. “follow” is a different way to be church . . . without a building or members.

Welcome to follow ~ a nurturing community that gathers to follow Jesus by praying, learning, and caring for others.

Stan Norman co-leads the follow community with Gerri Harvill. After 45 years of working for a paycheck, reaching Social Security age has allowed Stan to work for and follow Jesus. Stan and Gerri co-authored a book in 2019: “Recovering from Church and Discovering Jesus: A Twelve-Step Program,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and iTunes.