By Mark W. Christy, PhD

Christianity, for far too many people, has been reduced to little more than keeping a pew warm on just enough Sundays to keep up appearances. This cold indifference by these pretenders is only being magnified by the faithful who do attend regularly only to be inundated with theologically light and emotionally appeasing sermons and worship services where pleasing people is the primary motivator and the preaching of the cross (suffering in the name of Christ) and self-discipline are all but absent. Much like the Billy Graham crusades in the last century, these churches place extreme emphasis on a simplified (and too often reductionistic) gospel that is designed to win decisions for Christ. These decisions are counted as victories for the Kingdom of God and heralded as God-given blessings (i.e., success and affirmation) to the church.

In such an ecclesiastical framework where decisions are weighted to the point of absurdity despite the potential of the deciders to be self-deceived, the average Christian has few places to turn so as to discover what real Christianity looks like and how to measure their progress in the maturation process. All too often, if they look at their church peers, they will find them to possess an uninformed, biblically questionable, skin deep faith. This would of course assume that they had any meaningful relationships with their fellow churchgoers. Such an assumption would be quite a leap given the sporadic attendance of many, the increasing preference for attending an impersonal one-hour worship experience as an anonymous member of the audience, and the general lack of vulnerability even in small groups where the common prayer is for some person (who no one has met) who has cancer despite the models of prayers given by Paul which focus on spiritual growth and evangelism.

Should well-meaning Christians give up on finding discipleship opportunities among the gathered believers, they can of course turn to the pastoral staff. When they do, they are likely to run into a bureaucratic brick wall where meeting a member of the pastoral staff can require weeks of waiting for a time slot. Even should they succeed in having a moment with the pastor, they will find a one-off time with someone is hardly enough to facilitate significant spiritual growth such as Christ’s disciples experienced after spending countless hours with the Lord who personally taught them and modelled the faith before them. Such personal discipleship at any level of church is often heralded but hard to demonstrably observe let alone participate in. For those faithful saints who tarry and toil even with the dereliction of their pastor and fellow church members, there is still the Bible. According to Paul, the Holy Spirit will renew Christians’ minds as they fill themselves with God’s Word (Rom 12:2). As the Word of God, it has the power to teach, reprove, correct, and train in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16). With this in view, the faithful believer can stand in the midst of the most troubling times and become a light even among those whose light has grown dim.