Many people want to follow God without the work and pain of putting up with his followers (yes, it is a pain). Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluk respond to that trend in their latest book, Why We Love the Church. This CT interview gives a glimpse of DeYoung’s perspective:
What makes a group of Christians a church?
As a theological category, church could refer to just those who are Christians. But when we use the word church as in, “I’m at church,” “we are going to church,” “we are the church,” we’re talking about a gathered body with certain parameters.
In the New Testament, you get a good sense that the church looks a little different in Acts than it does in Corinthians and in Timothy. But there’s teaching. There’s singing. There’s praying. There are sacraments.
It’s important to remember that when you have two people at Starbucks who are talking about Jesus, that’s nice and that may be a group of Christians, but a church has order, offices, and certain worship elements.
How institutional should the church be?
It’s a mirage to think we are going to have something of lasting impact that isn’t going to institutionalize in some way. I don’t think we have to pit structure against the Spirit or believe that somehow the Spirit can only work through spontaneity.
I fall back on the historic marks of the church. The church needs to regularly gather in worship, in prayer, to hear God’s Word, and to receive the sacraments. It should be an ordered body where there’s membership, leadership, and discipline.
You say people are disillusioned with the church for many reasons. Which is the hardest for people to get over?
I think the personal reasons are definitely the hardest and most frequent. There are enough sinners in all of our churches, and we need to be willing to listen to people when they are genuinely hurt. But I think a lot of this “church is lame” stuff is really immaturity.
Hopefully people will look back and say, “We were kind of like petulant children getting tired of our parents and thinking that they didn’t know anything.” Then you get married and have your own kids and realize, “Maybe I didn’t always see everything as clearly as I thought I did.”