| |
Let’s face it, the faith mantra of our culture is that “spirituality is great – religion is bad.” I understand the reasons why this is so popular. It emphasizes relationships over rules. It seeks inward awareness over public rituals. It accentuates personal relevance over tired traditions. It favors individual freedom over domineering church edicts. Jesus felt the same way about the religion of His time on earth.
Before we haphazardly join the bandwagon and say good-bye forever to the residue of religion, let’s re-examine spirituality and religion.
Today’s spirituality may not be that great after all. Spirituality has become the new thing. Everyone seems to be spiritual. However, post-modern spirituality is not equivalent to biblical spirituality.
First, spirituality is not the same as Spirit-uality. Spirituality has been watered down to reflect someone’s generic interest and awareness of something bigger than himself (usually something sacred). This would include Christians, Muslims, Hindus, mystics, Wiccans, etc. In contrast, Spirit-uality means accepting the Holy Spirit’s presence into your life and allowing the Spirit to influence and empower you to be like Jesus. Spirit-uality is much more exclusive.
Second, today’s spirituality describes an individualistic, private faith while biblical spirituality depicts a communal faith. Faith is not for lone-rangers. True faith is handed down and encouraged within community. God wants you to be influenced by mentors and spiritual leaders. That has to happen within community.
Third, current spirituality distains “organized” religion. Who isn’t tired of religion’s business structure, membership requirements, picture directories, and over-sized budgets? However, just because something is organized doesn’t make it evil. Even within the most casual non-structured faith communities, someone has to lead and plan. There is a reason God wants elders, evangelists, servants, and teachers. You have a role to play within your faith community. We must return to a biblical model of spirituality.
Today’s religion is bad, but don’t abandon it. What do you imagine as religion? Rules, buildings, worship services, scandals, controversies, rituals, etc. Whatever you imagine, it is probably a far cry from James who said that true religion is taking care of the orphans and the widows.
We must return to a biblical model of religion as well. Mentoring leaders must replace church CEO’s. Participatory worship must replace the sit still, stare at the back of someone’s head worship. Apprenticeships must become the primary means of discipleship, instead of an education-based system. We must return to caring for the poor and needy. We need to free our church calendars so we can spend time with non-Christians. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Recreate biblical religion. Reform your church or start a new one. If you decide to start a new church, just remember this quote from Mark Driscoll, "I was twenty-five and certain that my church would be new, different, and essentially cool. I quickly learned that beginning a church was far more difficult than criticizing one" ("The Last of the Hepcat Churches", page 25 of The Relevant Church).
Jeremy Walden is a husband, father, and reality TV junkie. He is the leader of a great group of people in Auburn, Alabama who call themselves - Mosaic Family Church. He also owns Next Gen Publishing – an online resource company for youth ministers.
|
|
