Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Most research in America indicates that people (especially younger people) are moving away from “church”. It was a long standing trend that college kids would fade out before maturing into adults and then returning to church. But according to an article I read recently, the latest generation of young adults has broken this pattern and are not coming back.

The significance of this trend, however, may or may not be cause for alarm. In actuality, it is a very nuanced issue. There are numerous cultural and religious issues that are converging at the intersection of “young people are leaving the church”. There’s no time or space to dive into all that today.

As a dad and pastor and Christian, my concern is that young people don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. There’s a lot of murky bathwater associated with the American church. If it’s time to sort out which is baby and which is bathwater, that’s fine. It needs to happen from time to time. So if this process is being forced upon us church folks and if we start stripping things away, what is absolutely essential that we must retain? What’s the baby in this metaphor?

Here’s my simple list. the Church absolutely cannot be the Church without these things:

1. We hold to Jesus’ message. We live by it. We proclaim it. In short, that message is a headline of good news: “Jesus is King and he’s bringing about the redemption and renewal of all creation.”
2. We align our lives with Jesus’ priorities and continue his mission as best we know how. First, to love God and people with everything we’ve got. Second, we give our absolute best effort to live and say and act like Jesus would if he were living in our circumstances.
3. We open ourselves and welcome Jesus’ ongoing ministry in our lives. We embrace the outworking of our salvation. We embrace healing. We embrace his work of setting us apart as his unique and peculiar people in this world. Finally, we increasingly submit to his reign over every aspect of our lives.
4. We imitate Jesus’ way of life. Imagine that Jesus is the great marathon runner of life. It’s nothing but lazy silliness to imagine ourselves running the race alongside Jesus while disregarding his example of daily training. His habits and rhythms of life must inform ours.
5. Finally, we submit ourselves to Jesus’ method – transformational relationships. When it comes down to it, cool worship services, organizational dynamics, etc. have to be bathwater when compared to good ‘ole fashioned relationships with lovely but imperfect people. That means if we’re too busy for regular, transformational relationships, we’re too busy.

So in a very short word, there it is. The baby vs. the bathwater. If God has put lovely people in your life that are suspicious or reluctant to come to a corporate worship gathering, that’s ok. Hopefully they’ll experience some healing along the way and get past of lot of their reluctance, but it’s ok either way. In the meantime, cultivate the baby. Follow Jesus together.