On Joining a Church vs. Converting to Christianity

Easter is the celebration of resurrection, the one promise that can trump the power of death. Therefore resurrection is about more than new life and immortality; it is about the power of transformation—specifically, God’s ability to change who we are, what we want, and where we will ultimately end up.

One of my old seminary professors, James Loder, said, “People cannot be socialized into the Gospel; a transformation is required.”  It’s bad news for most churches, because we tend to believe that if one of our neighbors shows up for a pancake breakfast he might be mysteriously compelled to believe in the gospel of Christ.  While that may happen from time to time (and praise God when it does), it is the clear exception, the long shot. Usually there is more work and preparation involved. Coming to authentic faith is like being pulled through the knothole of an unwieldy board. It’s no easy trip.

Coming to Christ cannot be anything like signing up for the Book of the Month Club or joining the local Rotary.  It can’t be like these things because it is not something that can be done lightly, or even by our own willfulness.  Firstly, those who come to faith do so because they are  called and drawn, not because they decided that faith is a wise choice.  There is a vast difference between joining a church and joining The Church.  The former can be like joining a gym; the latter must be like joining the Marines.  During wartime.

What Professor Loder tells us is that the Gospel is something utterly unlike a community organization, chiefly because it requires total commitment and a heart-wrenching, soul-enveloping change, after which everything else in our lives takes on a new and diminutive status.  Going from “normal” life to a life of faith is like heart surgery and brain surgery combined.  Perhaps the knothole image is a bit light—especially when we remember what Jesus said about a needle’s eye, and that was for a camel!

Transformation is more than a personal decision; it requires something above and beyond the self acting upon itself to change it forever.  This is why we don’t speak too easily of  our making “decisions for Christ.”  Strictly speaking, we don’t choose, but we are chosen. We don’t find God, but God has found us, and though our response to being found may look like coming forward at the end of a service to say the sinner’s prayer, we are nonetheless responding to God’s call more than we are self-initiating faith.

Transformation means that we are remade and reborn. Our hearts of stone removed and replaced by hearts of flesh. We are “new creatures”, as Paul says, which doesn’t happen without a radical abandonment of our former ways.  Any kind of church invitation that implies you can become a Christian and still have all the old things. . .lies.  

You can keep your old life if you just join a church, same as joining the PTA or the YMCA, but if you want to be part of The Church—the Body of Christ—it will cost you everything you have, everything you are, and everything you ever hoped to become.  That is the needle’s eye, and it is why most camels don’t so much as stop for a second look at needles. Here at First Pres, we must always remain more concerned with the transformation into new faith than in mere membership.  Our evangelical task is not “getting new church members,” but assisting in the transforming, life-changing work of the Holy Spirit.  Our neighbors need us on both sides of that knothole, and our greatest joy is helping them through, even if we get ourselves re-squeezed a few times over the years. 

Let’s agree to leave mere socializing to the social clubs.  We’re in this for the long haul and there are lots of camels out there hoping for rescue.   As we celebrate Easter and the power of resurrection, let’s work toward the transformation of wandering souls; and furthermore, let’s be sure to play for keeps.