The Swing of the Pendulum

In my brief 46 years, I have watched as the pendulum of church "fadology" has swung back and forth. Actually, it is more like a pendulum which swings as it simultaneously orbits the central pole of God's ideal for the Church.

I am not an authority of church history in any regard, and the following observations are purely subjective, but I find it fascinating to see how various stages of church development bring out the best and worst of the body of Christ.

I can recall in the 70's the surge of Charismatic churches. Theological debates still reflect the tension between those who believe that the same miraculous gifts that occurred in the First Century are valid and should be experienced today, and those who believe that those gifts ceased to exist as the apostles faded from the scene and the Church became established.

Regardless of your stance, this phase brought a much needed resurgence of Holy Spirit awareness. A Church that had run on the power of business models, hard work, structured programs, and educated leaders (none of which are necessarily negative factors), was awakened to the need to surrender to the control of the One who made the Church the Church in the first place - the Spirit of the Living God.

In the early 80's the church growth movement kicked into gear, and we were bombarded with tactics, strategies, programs, etc. for making the church "user-friendly." I was working on my master's degree in the 80's and remember reading far more church growth books than I cared to read, and most of them saying the same thing. Most of it was fairly common sense.

This phase tended to swing the Church away from dependence on the Spirit of God for growth, but also provided church leaders some insight into practical ways to use our minds and abilities in tandem with God's Spirit to unleash the Church to impact communities and the world.

About the same time as the church growth movement was stirring the thinking of pastors, another wave began to rumble toward the shores of Christendom. The explosive popularity of worship and praise music not only renewed the worship of churches, but created an entirely new genre of music which became, and continues to be, highly lucrative. The long-lasting wave of praise and worship emphasis in the Church has not only enabled the creation of some great music (and a lot of sub-par stuff too), but has opened up much needed dialogue about the theology of worship. It has also driven us as the people of God to re-discover our Old Covenant roots. Ancient Judaism was a culture deeply trained in honoring the majesty of God in multi-faceted and creative ways. These practices are valuable for the modern church.

Over the last ten years the fascination with post-modernism has not only alerted ministry leaders to the change of our culture, but has lead to another phase of church development, specifically the birth of the emerging church. For some helpful insight on what the "emerging church" is, read this article by Gary Zustiak in a recent edition of the Christian Standard.

As I write this, debate rages (not an inappropriate term for some of the tense discussions) about some of the theological peculiarities of certain leaders and churches within the emerging church community. Some of those concerns are well-founded. But many of the themes of the emerging church are also helpful in regaining balance within the Church.

A renewed emphasis on pursuing social justice, caring for the environment, and discussions about topics like the relationship between the Church and democracy, and the myth of redemptive violence have been healthy movements toward giving attention to issues long-neglected in the Western Church especially.

I recount this brief, personal history of the Church simply to illustrate that:

• Holding too tightly to any "fad" of ecclesiology is risky, for it will likely fade into obscurity when its weaknesses, or even heresies, are discovered.
• The Church is an organism. Change is a part of our reality. Foundational truths can never be sacrificed without distorting the Church, but the flow of new ideas will help us explore areas of neglect.
• The swing of the pendulum is a necessary movement, lest the Church become cemented to one extreme. Our human tendency is to be attracted to extremes. We discover an area of weakness, and, instead of seeking to restore balance, we completely abandon the previous extreme - including the worthy aspects of it - and embrace the new extreme. Most of the phases through which the Church has passed have been healthy, in that they have brought refreshing and needed correction in times of error.

I have been blessed by every wave of church thinking through which I have passed, but I am often tempted to think that the latest one is finally "it." I assume that the Church has finally arrived. Hold on. Another wave is coming. And it, too, will be a thrill to ride. Learn to enjoy the ride, but remember it is a merely a wave. The wave is a periodical ripple of the ocean. It is not the ocean itself.