What is the Heart of the Church?

What is the heart of the church, and how do we tend it?

In 1979, a young pastor by the name of Michael Slaughter was appointed to a small country church called Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, Ohio. At that time there were 90 members in attendance. Slaughter saw potential in that church to become a teaching church, dedicated to fulfilling the mission of Jesus Christ in that community.  Now over 30 years later, the Ginghamsburg community of ministry locations (aka “churches”) has over 5,000 worshippers.

However, Slaughter is not interested in numerical growth for the sake of having a large membership. His commitment over the years has been to following the ministry and mission of Jesus Christ. Initially that lost him 1/3 of his members. But as he kept the focus upon the difficult and demanding path of following Jesus, and not pandering to those who come to church expecting Jesus to conform to their worldview, people responded. His experience is that people want the transformation of life that Jesus offers. The real Jesus. The one who began his ministry saying the Spirit of God was upon him anointing and appointing him to bring the gospel to the poor, recovering of sight to the blind, release to the prisoners and so on. The real Jesus who hung out with outcasts, sinners, prostitutes and argued with the religious authorities of his time. The real Jesus who said real religion was not about acting religious but loving the people that God loved. The real Jesus who said nothing about homosexuality but did say a lot about the problems the very wealthy have with getting into the kingdom of heaven.

What Slaughter discovered is borne out by what survey after survey has revealed about the perceptions younger people have of the church and of Jesus. Dave Kinnaman and Gabe Lyon share the following information in their book, Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity: 

The image of the Christian faith has suffered a major setback. Our most recent data show that young outsiders [Bloggers note: i.e., those not affiliated or raised in churches] have lost much of their respect for the Christian faith. These days nearly two out of every five young outsiders (38 percent) claim to have a bad impression of present-day Christianity (p. 24)

In a recent survey by the Barna Group of 18-35 year-olds, which is a generation glaringly absent from churches today, 38% of the respondents said that they perceive the church to be:

• Anti-homosexual (that is, identified by being against something)
• Judgmental
• Hypocritical

Imagine that! Young people perceive Churches to be filled with people who are against something, leading lives and displaying attitudes and behaviors that are in direct contradiction to the teachings and attitude of the very person they worship and claim to emulate.

Something is seriously wrong. 


The Church is suffering from heart disease.

Last Sunday’s sermon focused upon certain practices that help us to center our attention and listen to the presence of God in our hearts. The point of listening for God is to be remade in conformity with God’s image implanted within us. Listening to God reshapes us.

This is as true of communities of people as it is with individuals. Paul makes this explicit in his letter to the Ephesians (4:1-16):

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift…. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

Clearly, in this description there is no room for hypocrisy, judgmentalism or being against anything. It is a positive embrace of the presence of the Spirit as the source of life within our midst, serving as the heart of our community. But the point of being empowered and shaped by this indwelling Spirit is to be shaped according to love – for one another and for those whom God loves.

This is the love that younger people are craving to experience in concrete, practical ways – beginning with the attitudes of the people who bear the name of Christ. This is a life that calls to them, a life with which they would gladly associate themselves, if only it were truly lived out.

So how do we tend the heart of the church? By “leading a life worthy of the calling to which we have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” 

More to come....

Image sources: http://www.michaelslaughter.com;  http://scottmasters.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/jesus-weeping.jpg