Thanks to Bill Reichart over at Provocative Church who reported about a new survey completed by George Barna's organization.
Here's an excerpt from the report:
"People were more than 50% more likely to say that their church’s congregation is their most significant group than to say that God represents their most important personal connection. That certainly reflects the interpersonal comfort that millions of people have developed at their church, but also indicates that people may have forgotten the ultimate reason for belonging to a Christian church."
The author of more than three-dozen books about faith, culture and lifestyles also noted that most Americans - even a large majority of born again Christians - struggle to think of God as a living partner in their life. "There’s an intellectual and even theological assent to the notion that God is real, He’s alive, He influences their life, and that they owe their eternal security to Him," Barna commented. "But when you get people at ease, rather than in a religious setting or in a theological context, and explore the relationships that define and direct their life, the born again public does not seem to share much intimacy with God. Perhaps one of the greatest gifts Christians could get this Easter is a deeper or renewed sense of connection with God, and a passionate determination to make more of the opportunity they have to know and be known by the living God." (emphases mine)
These are some disturbing and intriguing results. As I stopped to consider how I would have answered that survey, I really wasn't sure. I guess a lot would depend on how the questions were worded. If I thought that God was included in the group that the questioner was asking about, I think that I would have probably pointed to Him as my most vital relationship, but I also think that it would be easy to separate God from consideration in the question.
Personally, there probably isn't anyone that I talk to more than God. I'm really not bragging (trust me, I have no room to brag), but I have found that I have a constant stream headed His direction.
I remember one time I was angry at God and had determined that I wasn't going to talk to Him. Then I caught myself blathering on and on just like always. My mad self reminded my talkative self that we weren't talking to God, to which my talkative self replied, "Says you!"
Still, I understand the disconnect that many born-again, evangelical Christians experience. So often that conversation seems one-sided. So often our experience as born-again evangelicals is vastly different from the experiences of those that we read about in the Bible. Where is the power that we are supposed to have? Why aren't we changing the world? Why does it so often seem like when we pray we are talking to ourselves? WHY DO WE LOOK SO MUCH LIKE THE WORLD?
Oh boy. I'm afraid that the answers to those questions probably won't fit into one sentence - probably not even one blog post... written by someone really clever, who is really in touch with God, and has figured out that whole "walking on water" thing. (Er, in case you were wondering, that's NOT me.)
But where do we start to unravel this puzzle? Perhaps Barna's comment is a good starting place: "the born again public does not seem to share much intimacy with God."
Intimacy with God. That's a tough one. I have been a Christian for 20 years this month (happy birthday to me!) and I have yet to achieve a lasting, utterly fulfilling, truly deep CONSISTENT AND ENDURING friendship with God. I have had moments of it, caught the briefest fragrance of it during different seasons, but it is something that has eluded me. How does someone become a friend of God? How do you achieve that place of deepest intimacy where God speaks with you face to face as He did with Moses and Abraham?
Certainly it must involve spending time with God in prayer and in Bible study. That seems assured, but there are people who do these things religiously and are no more intimate with God than I am with the wife that I don't have. (The Pharisees of Jesus' time come to mind.) There must be more to it than that.
Of course, I have also experienced God by doing acts of charity and evangelism. This also seems a reasonable course, but then again there are many altruistic folks out there who are not in any kind of relationship with God and many evangelistic practitioners that don't seem to have a particular depth of relationship with God.
Perhaps another factor in this whole problem is our culture's addiction to entertainment, materialism, and hedonism. These things seem to cause more distraction than benefit. How many church folks wouldn't dream of missing the ACC basketball tournament, and wouldn't think twice about missing church to go? How many Christians allow work to become so all-consuming that they sacrifice prayer time or devotional or even family time to it? How many believers would rather spend 3 hours watching TV than 1 hour praying and reading the Bible? Our lives are so filled with stuff and activity that there is no time for us to be still enough to hear God's voice in our lives. When we do sit still we either fall asleep or can't focus our thoughts because our minds are over-stimulated.
One other key was also raised by Barna: "people may have forgotten the ultimate reason for belonging to a Christian church." We aren't supposed to go to church to develop business connections. We aren't supposed to go to church to meet boys or girls. We aren't supposed to go to church to do our religious duty for the week. Church is all about worshiping God and experiencing Him through the interactions that we have with each other, the songs that we sing, the prayers that we offer, and the messages that we hear. Yet I fear that worshiping God has taken a back seat to all of the other stuff going on.
Of course, I could push it a little further and suggest that the ultimate reason for being a human, let alone a Christian, at all is to worship God. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it:
Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.
(or as brother Piper says, "Man's chief end is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.")
We are saved to set us free from the bondages that keep us from fulfilling our purpose in life. It is time that we took full advantage of the grace afforded to us by Jesus' death and resurrection and pursue the enjoyment of God as we were created to do.
