The Unfinished Church
Tracey D Lawrence with E. Glenn Wagner

On a recent trip to Bermuda I came across a tragic story that crystallized my current thinking regarding the church. In the 1870s, a magnificent gothic structure was built that would become St. Peter’s Church in Bermuda. Evidently, it was to have been an architectural testimony to the grandeur of God. An enormous amount of planning and work went into this building; it was undoubtedly the object of many people’s prayer over many years.

The tragedy is that on the eve of its completion, the building project was abandoned due to “parish in-fighting.” It never became the testimony to God’s glory as initially hoped for. Now it’s another tourist attraction, open daily from dawn to dusk. Admission is free. It’s gone from being a place of worship to a tourist curiosity. It’s now a relic of another era that has no bearing on life in Bermuda today. Rather than being known as the outward symbol of the great faith inside its splendid walls, this building is an almost laughable religious token, reminding its passers by that Christians can’t get along even when attempting something great for the God they claim to worship.

This building in Bermuda is now just an unfinished church, paralyzed by its past, neutralized in its present, and capsized from its future. It will never inhabit the praises of God’s people, never declare to the world the power of the crucified and risen Christ. Its purpose was literally cut off at the knees—all because Jesus’ followers could not get along.

The Unfinished Church in Your City

In every town, in every community, in every city there stands an “unfinished church.” Jesus has given his church a clear mandate to function as a loving, unified body. Our love for one another is to be the testimony of our allegiance to Jesus (John 17:23). The world, when peering into our windows, is to conclude that the Kingdom of God is one and that love reigns in our midst. The ancient creed had it right when it said there is “One holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” A foundation of the historic Christian faith, the kind that was able to thrive in the face of severe adversity, is whole-kingdom unity. A radical new unity, not only across denominations but also across ethnic, social, cultural, and geographical boundaries, is the only thing that can assail the forces of darkness in our age and clearly present the victorious Christ with credibility. In the midst of our ethnic and cultural diversity, Jesus’ followers are to display an unbroken unity based on our common love of Jesus. Our common love of Jesus now must supersede all relics of the past.

Radical unity is the building we are to construct inside whatever walls we meet in, and is to encompass the entire Kingdom of God. Until that building is built, the church in our cities is unfinished. The Unfinished Church exists when we have interesting relics of our past to display to culture, but do not have a present and visible unity and love between Christians and churches now. As much as I personally appreciate the study of church history and the history of doctrine, I am more aware than ever that the pre-Christian culture does not need our history lessons, interpreted and costumed church tours, or our abiding evidence of disunity (that makes its way even into many of our churches’ names). It needs a unified message backed up by a visibly unified community of Christians. Until this is accomplished, we have an Unfinished Church.

Why The Unfinished Church?

I call the disunited church The Unfinished Church because disunity cannot enable Christians to be fully engaged in Kingdom revolution. Although a group of people may have built a building, begun some programs, and even established a presence in its community, until it functions in whole-kingdom unity, it is still under construction. There are many churches in our country more than 200 years old that have stopped, or at least seriously slowed down construction because they’ve never risen to Jesus’ call to be in communion with all the saints.

The Unfinished Church cannot inhabit the praise of all of God’s people. It’s powerless to serve as a foundation for the proclamation of the Gospel so long as it is preoccupied with in-house disputes. Its unfinished walls and roof, its barren arches, have turned her into merely one stop on a cultural tourist map for curiosity seekers. They walk around, unruly children in tow, muttering to themselves, ‘How foolish to be almost done, to come to the eve of a fulfilled vision and dream only to see her abandoned due to pride and strife.’

Even more, as long as we continue in prideful disunity, we are not finishing God’s plan for his worshipping community. The Kingdom of God on earth is to reflect the Kingdom of God in heaven. A primary aspect of the City of God is that its inhabitants are in perfect unity as their gaze is fixed on the supremacy of the enthroned God of the Universe (Rev. 4:5-11). There does not appear to be disunity in heaven, debates, denominations, “camps,” “wings,” sects, haves, have-nots, races, nations, or even anybody who cares about such things. John’s vision of the people of God encircling the throne oozes a profound unity, a complete abandonment of all earthly concerns and trivial matters, and a total fixation with the glory of the one, true, and living God and the Lamb who sits upon the throne (Rev. 21:22-24).

The clearer our vision of the great God becomes, the more unified we become as his worshippers. In his book, Let the Nations be Glad, John Piper said that worship fuels mission. He said, “Mission exists because worship does not.” But there is also a link between worship and unity. Disunity exists because true worship does not; there is a direct link between beholding the greatness of God and unity among God’s people. The more fervently Christ’s church is focused on the glory of God in worship, the more unified she is.

I am not suggesting that we abandon doctrinal purity. I strongly believe that the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3) is to be guarded with great care. The church is the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Ti. 3:15). What I am suggesting is that many if not most of the issues (style, preference, technique, temperament, age, affiliation, church governance, politics, race) we have allowed to divide us have nothing to do with the faith once delivered to the saints and should no longer be standards of unity. The greatest standard of unity ought to be our common worship and adoration of God. In light of where we as a community of worshippers are headed, we must begin to live out a radical new unity now that alludes to the absolute unity we will have around the throne of God. Unity is eschatological!

What Will We Face?

There will be great difficulties in finishing the church. The path to whole-kingdom unity is not jaded. The challenge is that most people still view church with a tourist mentality. People are not typically longing to lay their personal preferences aside and focus on something other than themselves, which is the prerequisite for unity. Here are some of the dangers.

Tourists don’t want to loose the attraction. A disunited church, although ineffective, is really comfortable. The Kingdom of Man is addicted to classification and is entertained by debate. For most, life is only interesting when there are two sides in opposition to each other. The legal system, politics, war, sports, reality TV, and especially religion are interesting to people because there is a good fight going on. People love tension; they love to take sides, and are often willing to give their life for their cause of choice. If the church lived out a radical new unity, we would lose our entertainment capacity for the cultural interpreters.

Tourists like options. If there’s anything tourists like more than a good fight, it is options. Just like most cosmopolitan cities brag of their dining options, lodging options, shopping options, and activity options, we like to brag on our church options. “Whatever your fancy, we’ve got a church for you.” It appears to me that many church planting strategies actually use “optionality” as a cover/façade for arrogance and fragmentation. I was having lunch with a young church planter, excited to be moving to our city and that he had found a building. The facility was less than a mile from the church I was pasturing and several other excellent churches. When I asked the young pastor why he chose this city and this area, he got real excited and said, “because God has shown me that there isn’t a strong, evangelical church in this area that is reaching the lost.”

We had a lengthy conversation, especially since he was asking me to mentor him. He had made the tragic mistake of making assumptions based on the name on the door, rather than a relational knowledge. The more unified our churches become, the less options people will feel they have because there will be a noticeable commonality to our churches. Not in style and demeanor, but in purpose and vision.

Attempting to finish the church in our cities means that we must put our attention on something that is far bigger than our own little church. Our church’s purpose and vision serves only to support the purpose and vision of the collective community of churches in the city, and in the entire Kingdom. Yes, the local church has its distinctive purpose, but should not be divorced from the purpose of The Church in its city and around the world. This is a problem I have had with the utilizing corporate methodology within the Household of Faith. Corporate vision and mission statements serve the purpose of distinguishing one company from another. Finding your niche, standing out, and breaking the noise are typical motivations for branding within the corporate realm. Corporate branding rides on the goal of telling the public, “What their product can do that no other product can.” But if there’s anything we do not want to do in the Kingdom of God it is to be categorically distinct from every other church. Our aim ought to be to find commonality with other churches, similarity with believers in all times and in all places, and a vision that is aligned with that of other churches in the our city. Churches are not meant to function as offerings on the stock exchange. We are meant to be an absolute monopoly in the spiritual world.

The city and historical society are quite happy with this tourist attraction. The tourist industry thrives on cultural texture. Interesting stories, historical significance, little-known facts, secret scandals, heroes and scoundrels, and anything that adds to the uniqueness of a place are the things that a good tourist industry is made of. It is no different with the church. There is nothing more interesting to many people than knowing that, “This church is a break off of Trinity Church which was a break off of First Church.” Whatever the reasons for church splits, people find them interesting and will readily identify with them. The Finished Church, however, will have less texture (splits, grooves, bumps, dissimilarity) and more tapestry (interconnectedness, similarity, common form, common function). This makes for boring tourism but it makes for revolutionary Kingdom advancement.

A New Leadership for a New Unity

Finishing the church requires a new order of Christian leadership. No longer can the church afford leaders who are preoccupied with the past, experts in history, and who are interesting tour guides. The leadership capable of finishing the church must be those who have the capacity to break norms, disappoint the conservative or liberal party, and pursue a thoroughgoing spiritual revolution.
There are at least three kinds of leaders in the Kingdom. Each has its strength but only one of them has what it takes to finish the church in our cities.

The Pacifist Pastor. The Pacifist, rather than take initiative in finishing the church, will wait and see what will happen. The Pacifist says, “There’s no sense in stirring things up. Our job as pastors is simply to care for our people. If God wants to change things, he’ll have to do it Himself. It’s not that I am against it; I just do not believe there is anything I can do about it personally.”

The Gradualist Pastor. The Gradualist slowly makes changes by tweaking what is, but being very careful not to upset the tourist trade, the city, or the historical society. Careful strategy, long-term process thinking, systems, and organization are the code words for a gradualist. For the majority of my ministry, this is the camp that I have fit into.

The Anarchist Pastor. The Anarchist says, “Now is the day. Now is what time we have left.” The anarchist is the revolutionary of the kingdom of God. It is my heart cry that the current and coming generation of pastors will more identify themselves as Kingdom revolutionaries than pacifists or gradualists. I say this because the Kingdom of God is not an evolutionary organism that slowly morphs things over time. It is a revolutionary force that pursues and advances the extension of God’s kingdom and subverts the kingdom of Satan. The finishing of the church requires revolutionaries and subversives. We no longer need leaders committed to paying homage to historic fiefdoms; we need revolutionaries who are courageous enough to help overthrow anything that stands in the way of kingdom advancement and usher in a new order, in the spirit of a new love, in the power of a new unity.

I saw what revolutionary leadership looked like when I recently visited the church in China. In their hostile environment, the Chinese saints do not have the luxury of being anything but revolutionary. There is no option to unity. There is no room for naval-gazing. There is no alternative to singleness of purpose. In many ways, the Chinese church is a model for what church leadership must look like in every city in America.

This is the kind of revolution that Jesus spoke of when He said “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it” (Mt.16:18). This is the kind of revolution Jesus prayed for when He prayed that “we would be one, that the world would know that there is a God who loves them and sent His Son” (Jn.17:21). This is a revolution, the vision of which is so grand and so great that it will compel us as pastors to take many of our traditions that are dear to us and lay them aside in order to accomplish something far greater.

After all, wasn’t Jesus a revolutionary?

Jesus the Revolutionary
It was Jesus who said,

“Let me tell you who you are. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:13-16 from “The Message”).

Jesus expected his followers to be more than tokens of interest to secular culture. We are meant to be change agents, bringing about the kingdom of God on earth in eager expectation of the kingdom of God to come. We were never meant to be identified with conservatism (conserving the best of days gone by) as an ideal. We are commanded by Jesus to be future-oriented (revolutionary) not history-oriented (conservative).

We should be thankful that Jesus and his followers didn’t join the conservative party. They didn’t start a not-for-profit organization; they didn’t petition the Sanhedrin to return to traditional values; and they didn’t form a sub-culture that affirmed conformists and condemned immoral outsiders. Rather, they chose the more risky and vulnerable adventure of touching the world on its raw nerve—right in the middle of its ugly sinfulness, blasphemous idolatry, and repulsive perversion. For Jesus and the disciples it wasn’t about preservation it was about presentation—presenting the message of Jesus’ exchanged life to a hurting humanity.

Conservatives didn’t start the Christian faith, nor did liberals or libertarians. Rather, it was unconventional people with an unconventional message that was delivered in unconventional ways started the Christian faith. And such profound unconventionality is nothing short of a revolution. We need such revolutionaries today. We need people who say, “What has never been accomplished for the Kingdom before and how can I accomplish it?” We need people who say, “Who has never heard about Jesus and how can we reach them?” We need people who say, “I am willing to break stride with the pampered majority, and risk it all for even one person who needs to hear the Message.” We need people who say, “I am willing to immerse myself into the pain of godless society so that I can gain their ear and win their heart.”

We see Jesus’ revolutionary spirit in his:
• Encounter with a woman caught in adultery (Jn. 8:4-11),
• Conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4:4-26),
• Lodging with despised Samaritans (Jn 4:39-42), and sinful Tax Collectors (Lk.5:27-31;19:1-9),
• Dinners with theological enemies (Lk 7:36),
• Personal interactions with women who had lived sinful lives (Lk.7:36-50);
• Delight in children (Lk.18:15-17);
• Loving affirmation of widows who could not give a lot of money (Lk.21:1-4).

In each of these cases, Jesus had a conservative party saying he should not do this. This was not upholding the purity of Jesus’ traditional past. But Jesus pursued the future, not the past, and entrusted his followers with the same task.

Our cities desperately need the New Unity of the Finished Church. They need revolutionary pastors who have the courage to join arms with those that history has said they are not supposed to join arms with, in pursuit of spiritual revolution.

Are you willing to be a revolutionary for the Kingdom of God?




Chapter 1. What’s Up With The Church?

The church has settled into a destructive pattern of division that has stolen our heart. Rather than focusing on the transformation of our cities, many churches are more concerned with defending and propagating denominational distinctives. This chapter will address the issues of fragmentation, disintegration, distraction, and degradation within the American church.



Christians have not always presented a pretty picture to the world. Too often they have failed to show the beauty of love, the beauty of Christ, the holiness of God. And the world has turned away. …Must Christians continue to stand with arms folded, going on in their old sweet ways, presenting to men a tarnished image of God—a shattered body of Christ?—Francis Schaeffer.
Ashamed of Our Past

I recently attended a Christian seminar featuring a new, up and coming speaker in evangelical circles. He shared the uniqueness of his church body. Clearly, you could sense his great passion for the unchurched in his city. This pastor’s church attracts many people within the arts community, and I’m thrilled with the impact he is having. He told a story of a gentleman he met on a plane and found out he lived rather close to his church. He did not tell this man that he was a pastor. “I’m a writer,” he said. This artist thought that was a very valuable occupation and they began to relate on the level of both being artists. They were able to communicate with ease and related on many levels beyond being an artist. Still, this pastor did not tell him that he was really a pastor of a church. Instead, he said, “Hey, a bunch of my artist and writer friends get together on Saturday night at an old theater downtown. How about joining us?” His new friend thought it sounded like fun. Well, he went and had a great time. The pastor says, “Hey, we happen to be meeting next Saturday night as well. Come back and join us.” The man agreed to come again. This continued for a few weeks and finally the man approaches the pastor and says, “Hey, you tricked me! This is really a church, isn’t it, and you are one of those…those preachers!”
While I greatly admire and appreciate this pastor’s heart for the lost and for the artist community, I am saddened that we often feel like we have to trick people into going to church. Behind all of this is the fact that we are all a bit ashamed of the world’s perception of the church and the behavior of the church throughout history. Like it or not, we are all heirs to the same divided, distorted and disturbing past and present.

This pastor’s story made me wonder what negative experiences he may have experienced. It also made me wonder what negative encounters the artist had with Christians or the Church. We all have had our disappointments with the Church and some of us have been severely mauled by churches with the personality and temperament of a pit bull. Sometimes church polity wins and takes precedence over people. Sometimes building committees result in friends becoming enemies. Sometimes protecting the history and culture of the church becomes more important than caring for people. And often, we forget that all believers are a part of the body of Christ and the biblical mandate to love one another is just not evident. Sadly, the fragmented and fractured state of the church has impaired our witness to the world. We haven’t done such a great job of living out the greatest commandment: loving God and loving our neighbor. Until Christ’s love truly unites us, we will remain as the Unfinished Church.
Are We Doing Church Right?

In this postmodern era, the church seems to be struggling with its identity. Who are we? Should we try and be something else? And, are we doing it right? are often the questions of church leaders. And, we seem to be all coming up with different answers. Such questions have led to new kinds of divisions, even within the church building. The Church of America today is very diverse, but not very united. We have megachurches, mainline churches, Catholic churches, house churches, seeker-sensitive churches, Gen-X churches, emerging churches, and churches that don’t want to call themselves churches, all within Christian orthodoxy. If you feel like a Saturday night service might be more convenient, you might choose Church A. However, if you like Pastor Steve’s preaching, you may opt for Church B. The choices are endless within most communities.
Diversity in and of itself is not a bad thing. God delights in the diversity of His people and His Creation. How boring the church would be if we were all alike. But when we fail to see that our diversity should be connected to our unity as believers, we become divided. This may have no malice or spirit of divisiveness behind it. Rather it happens, sometimes innocently, due to our programs and agendas to draw more people. I believe that the diversity among God’s people and His flocks should enhance our oneness and glorify God (such as is evident in Creation), rather than divide us.

Unintentionally, this has contributed to our fragmented image, affecting how we love each other and the world around us. The reality of our relationships is that most churches within the same community don’t know their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. For many of us, we choose our relationships out of convenience and forget we are connected to a greater community beyond our man-made buildings. While we know that the Church is not really a building, and that walls cannot separate us, sometimes it appears we have altogether forgotten.

What unity does Christ require of the Church? I don’t think we can avoid the question much longer without some severe consequences. We should be driven by not only what the Lord calls us to do together, but also we should want to be together. It is our union with God that creates union with others. The cross broke down the barriers between Jew and Gentile. The Gentiles, who were far from God were brought near through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:13). Paul was willing to give up his life to keep the unity of the faith. The Apostle says, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:3-6)
Divided by Consumerism

Part of the fragmentation we experience as believers comes from the consumerism mentality that has poured out of our culture into the Church. We like our choices and conveniences. There are more than 300,000 congregations in the United States alone. There are 700 “ecclesiastical options” in the city where I live. Wow, now that is variety! And for the most part, we are not connected to one another except for loose denominational ties here and there. Our commitment to the Church and to each other is often conditional and casual. Scholar George Marsden sums up the common sentiment of American Christians: “One of the striking features of much of evangelicalism is its general disregard to the institutional church. Except at the congregational level, the organized church plays a relatively minor role in the movement. Even the local congregation, while extremely important for fellowship purposes, is often regarded as a convenience to the individual. Ultimately, individuals are sovereign and can join or leave churches as they please.”

So far, we have not been able to resist the cultural tide and have given into to the social pressures around us, viewing the church as a commodity. We add new programming, build bigger buildings, and offer more options for families, hoping to foster great levels of commitment. We say this is necessary to stay relevant to our times.

This mindset reminds me of Kyoto, Japan, the home for an unusual place of worship called “The Temple of the Thousand Buddhas.” There are a thousand likenesses of Buddha, all just a little different from one another. Buddha worshippers can come in, find the one that resembles himself or herself and worship. We are in a similar mindset here in America in our approach to God. We know how to make God into what is comfortable for us.

Let me give a more specific illustration of how consumerism can cause unnecessary fragmentation. A hot topic for many churches is worship. We want exciting, attractive, quality “worship” on Sunday mornings. But biblically speaking, worship should be unceasing—it is not a few songs you sing on Sunday before the sermon. We have made worship to be something that suits our musical tastes, rather than defining it as our outpouring to God. As believers, we are to continually offer our lives as worship to the Lord (Romans 12:1-2). But we seem to be arguing about worship in terms of music and the order of service: Should we sing hymns? Should we sing longer? How long should the sermon go? What happened to the doxology? Do we need more upbeat music to reach younger generations?

I do not want to dismiss, however, the efforts to reach the people God has placed in our communities. All the style questions and varieties can be used to serve others. The language a local church uses should minister to the attitudes and life context of its members and broaden community. But it is important for the Church to know the place of such tools, not making worship reduced down to something temporal and not about Christ. Diversity and style shouldn’t divide us or keep us from loving someone that has other preferences.

For example, I have younger emerging pastor friends tell me that the main reason why they leave the “mother church” and plant another congregation is because the senior pastor and the older members do not value their methods or the people they are reaching. They feel leadership is communicating, ”let THOSE people go have their own church somewhere,” rather than showing a willingness to deal with the complexities of diversity. The younger generation sense their expression of worship and style is not valid or a heart-felt need important enough to the rest of the Body. We aren’t doing a good job of understanding the benefits of diversity. I believe the reason behind some church planting is pride, sectarianism and lack of love for other peoples. There is a balance. Diversity should be acknowledged and celebrated, but our differences are not to be celebrated above our commitment to Christ and each other.

In Harold Best’s book Unceasing Worship, he asserts that worship should be unifying event, not something reduced to our style and preferences. When we continue to divide over stylistic preferences, we see how shortsighted and selfish we are to keep the body of Christ segregated. Best encourages the worshipper to celebrate the diversity of the Body rather than continue to segregate believers from one another by age, stylistic preferences, and any other demographic labels. If we weren’t all so divided on Sunday morning getting our personal fixes, maybe we would see what a diverse group of people can do for the Lord when we are not bound by something as low as cultural preference, but rather bound by God enjoying one another’s company. Best asserts that there is a natural synergy among us that we fail to see that is across time and all cultures. The cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11 that surrounds us. The underground church in China. The inner city church in East L.A. “…Charismatics join with sacramentalists, grape juice mixes with wine, drum sets harmonize with pipe organs, formality links with informality, rich unit with poor, and so on throughout the past, present and future world of the redeemed and the assembled.” Through all the examples of our separateness, we should start to feel cheated! What a rich heritage of diversity we have.
In my book, The Church You’ve Always Wanted, I mention the mystery guests that come to church for a variety of reasons other than to just be the body of

Christ. Perhaps you’ve met some of these mystery guests:
--The Church of Networking—Make contacts to expand your business
--The Church of the Significant Other—Find that special someone. Hey, it’s better than a singles bar.
--The Church of Social Service and Need Fulfillment—No need is too great or too small.
--The Church of Heavenly Investment with Earthly Dividends—For the amount of money I contribute, I expect a significant return.
--The Country Club Church—Gather to celebrate that you can gather together and that others can’t…at least, not with you. Caters to the right kind of people. Long-term members get the best tables and the best parking spots.
--The Church of Heavenly Fun and Sanctified Pleasure—Keep me and my kids occupied so they don’t get into trouble. If you can’t fill my nights and weekends with fun and excitement, then I’ll have to take my business/membership elsewhere.
--The Church of the Self-service, Spiritual Garage—Gives a periodic oil change (or anointing).
--The Church of the Mega Mall—Has what the other churches don’t—and, quite frankly, does it a while lot better. Whatever you need it has it, tailored and fit to your specifications. Bring the whole family—it’s your one-stop shopping center. If you can’t find it, the church will create it for you, since its job is to keep you happy in Jesus’ name. It won’t threaten you, guilt you, worry you, or overburden you. It wants your time here to be enjoyable, so that you’ll come back and do business again.
--The Church of the Latest (and Largest) Program—Presents one extravaganza after another: musicians, preachers, concerts, dramas. The one with the newest, most expensive, and largest attendance wins.

These are to just name a few reasons why people might come to your church, so even our motives are diverse and fragmented. I’m sure you can think of a few more to add to this list. Many people are unsure about the Church. What is it really all about? We have not been clear that we are really a universal body of people who exist to glorify God. In the midst of all the demand for new product from the church, we have forgotten who we are and that we belong to God and each other. Part of our fragmentation is due to the fact we have created church for ourselves, and not for the glory of God. Too much variety has segregated us physically and spiritually.

We have, particularly in the West, a strong sense of individualism. We value our uniqueness and protect our personal choices. But often we do this at the expense of celebrating our connected community in Christ. Even Jesus during his earthly ministry needed community to speak truth. He asked , “Who do you say that I am” (Mk. 8:29) There is no doubt Jesus knew who He was but perhaps needed Believers to affirm this in community together. This seems to be a missing element in world of the modern church. As Christ indwells His people, we must affirm those who embrace Christ and also declare, “who do you say that I am?” Do you recognize me as a part of the visible Church who loves the Christ who died for all sin and rose from the dead?”

Further, the more segregated we are, the less impact we will have on our culture. Segregation also promotes a separatist and elitist mentality that does not allow us to fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Over the past 80 years, we have witnessed a gradual moral decline and a lack of Christian influence in society. The breakdown of the Church has led to its declining influence and caused Christianity’s critics to continue to assert, “you hypocrites!”

Divided by Our Distractions

God knows His people and His Church throughout all ages. He had specific words for the seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, commending and correcting His people. Some theologians consider these seven letters to be a preview of church history, moving in a downward spiral. Others interpret these to represent various kinds of congregations that exist from John’s day to present. Historically, they were all real churches in Asia Minor, and we may see ourselves in each of them. These churches all had to face the evils of their day in order to preserve the Church. The Ephesian church survived through severe hardships and God acknowledged their perseverance to uphold sound doctrine in the midst of pagan idolatry. God spoke to the church of Smyrna specifically about their afflictions in a very hostile Jewish environment. To the church in Pergamum, He esteemed them because they remained true to Him, despite the fact they were living where the official center of emperor worship originated. God mentions the church of Thyatira as a persevering body, one of love, faith, and good deeds. The church in Sardis was located at a place of great wealth and fame. He wanted this local body of believers to live up to their reputation of being “the church that is alive” and wanted them to revive what was dead spiritually. For the church in Philadelphia, He promised to deliver them in the hour of their trial. Laodicea was the wealthiest city in Roman times and was known for its banking establishments and its medical school. God knew they were lukewarm; therefore He rebuked their spiritual poverty and blindness. All these churches were different, struggling with the distractions and temptations of their day.

Two thousand years later, we can see ourselves in these fledgling churches. Like Ephesus, we have lost our First Love, causing us to forget how to love one another. We have adopted a spirit of competition between our brothers and sisters, rather than learning how to be co-laborers for Christ. Our choices and preferences have dominated our thinking. Like Laodicea, our wealth has blinded us. Somewhere along the way we started to rely on the church buildings and costly programs to attract the nonbeliever rather than the real, raw, power of God. Yet, we also know that we do have some good deeds, and we have persevered like Smyrna, Pergamum, and Thyatira, though severely fragmented and disjointed. We need to acknowledge that there is a problem with the state of the Body of Christ. We are fragmented, degraded, distracted, and will continue to disintegrate if we do not change. What do you think He would say to your own church body?

Tracey D. Lawrence with E. Glenn Wagner

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