James 24:7

I have to confess that although I do not know George Barna personally, he strikes me as similar to many I came to know in my masters and doctoral work: he wants to make the world safe for the social sciences.  Everyone fits into some neat category.  Social change is broken down into 7 neat trends.  The passions of complex people are broken down into 7 neat categories.  There is 4 of this and 5 of the other.  I suspect if you opened his head you would find  sizable data banks and Powerpoint software.  But then that's just personal stuff that probably says more about messy me than it does about him.

While I will say that Mr. Barna is pointing to something worth noting- that is, the exodus of many Christians from local churches into a hodge-podge of self-selected spiritual opportunities and experiences as well as the local church’s failure to generate more disciples than pew-warmers- I find his work to be maddening in its inconsistencies.  

For example, although Mr. Barna claims to respect the local church as one option among many, the blurb on the back of the book displays what I believe to be his true sentiment: "Millions of believers have moved beyond the established church...and chosen to be the church instead.”  Beyond the established church... Not simply "out of" but beyond.  Of course, that's just the publisher's marketing blurb.  However,  there is not doubt that Mr. Barna seems ready to jettison the local church for whatever self-assembled "portfolio" (his word) of spiritual services that the individual who has moved beyond the local church desires.

Another of Mr. Barna's inconsistencies has to do with his claim that these people who are moving beyond the local church are seeking to be serious disciples of Jesus.  However, the sub-text (perhaps even "sub" to Mr. Barna's own awareness) is that they are doing so according to their own self-selected needs and desires. Mr. Barna seems to uncritically applaud the juxtaposition of a commitment to radical Christian discipleship and a self-centered consumerist approach to faith.  He would applaud someone who says, "I intend to be a radical disciple of Jesus, the local church is of no help to me so I will put together a portfolio of opportunities and services that serve my particular needs."  The reason that Mr. Barna can do this is because (as far as I know) he has never questioned the legitimacy of the individual's felt-needs.  Whatever the individual thinks he needs, he needs.  Nowhere in this book does Mr. Barna address the issue of how those felt-needs are formed in a materialist, market-driven, consumerist culture.  Having a felt-need is all the legitimacy one needs to fill it.  So, if the local church isn’t helping me be a devoted obedient disciple, then, rather than work to improve the local church (and perhaps grow as a disciple in the process), I am free to go and find something that works for me. 

Frankly, a few of Mr. Barna’s assertions made my skin crawl.  For example, “I am not called to attend or join a local church.  I am called to be the church.”  I wouldn’t have any problem with that if he had used the 1^st person plural instead of the 1^st person singular.  How can I be a church?  The church is the gathering of the called out ones…plural.  I think he is trying to point to the need for each Christian to take responsibility for being the church but something in the way he puts that when coupled with his uncritical perspective on consumer needs hit me in the face like a wet fish.

Or, how about this?  In speaking of “niching” , which he defines as the practice of creating “highly refined categories that serve smaller numbers of people”, he writes the church landscape now offers these “boutique churches alongside the something-for- everybody mega-churches.”  If I thought of my little church outside of Atlanta as a “boutique church”, I’d quit tomorrow.  (Note the uncritical use of business terminology that Mr. Barna applies to the church.)  We try to resist being a crummy mega-church (i.e. a small church that tries to act like a mega-mama) but we are trying to be a church.  “Boutique?”  “Come on down to Atlanta and say that buddy.”

Now, having whacked on the book a bit let me add a couple of positive notes.  I think Mr. Barna is right on that the local church is doing a bad job of producing radical disciples of Jesus.  In agreement with Dallas Willard, I lay that burden to an over-powering popular theology that says in effect “the point of the faith is to get yourself saved from your sins at a point in time, be good, go to church, and wait for the glory train to come and pick you up when you die.”  That little bit of theological mischief has convinced a whole lot of Christians that discipleship is optional and that one need not be more religious than is necessary to get your soul saved.

Also, in the local church, we have somehow allowed a person to believe that having your name on a membership roll is all that is required to be a member.  Get saved at a point in time and get your name on the roll.  About all that does for Christians is insure them a reservation for a wedding or a funeral. 

Also, in the local church, we have too easily separated salvation from evangelization.  We have done a great job of convincing folks that when you get saved at a point in time, you have the option of being missional.  A whole lot of folks believe that since getting saved at a point in time is the real issue that they’ll go on pursuing self-interest and leave the missionary work to those folks who are either called or foolhardy enough to step out there and proclaim the gospel.

And, with Mr. Barna, I applaud anyone who is genuinely seeking to become a more serious disciple of Jesus.  I support Kingdom work even if it does not directly serve my little church and even if it doesn’t take place in a local church.  I have witnessed the powerful and beneficial ends that accrue to those who do take seriously the call of Christ and seek out opportunities for growth.

He does a pretty good job of describing the revolutionary character of Christ and of those who seek to follow him in this book.  However his uncritical understanding of felt-needs coupled with an insufficient ecclesiology and inconsistent understanding of discipleship and consumerism make this book a maddening read.

Oh, beginning the book with a conversation between a couple of ex-local churchers- CEOs on the golf course- didn’t do much for me either…but then I’m in a local church, not a CEO and failed miserably at golf when I did try it way back when.