Casual Church

A Christian in India said to Francis Chan: “How can you be casual about something you’ll lose everything for?”

This Christian was asked why his faith in Christ spilled over into every area of his life and conversation.

In China, Chan described a uniquely Western phenomenon: “Where I come from people go to services in buildings and switch if they want a better speaker or better childcare or better music.”

The underground church participants laughed hysterically. Impossible, they thought.

In our Western bubble, we sometimes believe that the United States’ expression of the Christian Church is the norm around the world. We think that because of the freedom of Christian development, we represent what the world should conform and aspire to. Organization, education, strategy, you name it: we can begin to believe that we’re doing everything the way it should be done.

But the facts are much different. The United States comprises only 4% of the world’s population. The way “we” do it is, in fact, a minority expression of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Of course, Biblical principles are to remain consistent in the body of Christ. But a number of non-biblical attitudes and practices have taken hold in the cultural development of Western Christianity. These attitudes and practices are not necessarily all bad, but they may skew Western Christianity’s congruence with what the Scriptures show the Church is to be.

One skewed reality is casual and compartmentalized Christianity. As one Asian believer stated: “To have people come into a room who do not want to be disciple-makers doesn't make sense.”

Will we as Western believers defend all we’re doing and vehemently declare that in the area of Church we have no sin? Or will we humbly and repentantly consider the question we started with: “How can you be casual about something you’ll lose everything for?”