What's a person to do?

In the last post, I mentioned that Roger Olson is blogging through the book Kingdom Conspiracy. Yesterday, he asked a serious question about the nature of church. Here's the relevant paragraph:

My experience of visiting numerous churches in numerous locales is that very, very few are fitting “kingdom of God” as Scot describes it (“a new kind of fellowship, a new community, a new people of God” [emphasis original]). Most of them, in my humble opinion, are American first and Christian second or Baptist first and Christian second or middle class first and Christian second. Most of them function like community clubs. There’s a lot of God talk but very little God showing up among them. They are not really “a people, a community, a fellowship.” For the most part they don’t even know each other well. They certainly don’t share their lives; they value their privacy and individuality far, far too much for that.

Think about that. Is it true? Is a megachurch really a church? Or is it a social club that talks a bit about God? Is there real community there?

I'm not picking on megachurches; they can be places where real fellowship happens, but I would submit that you have to work at it very hard to make it happen. And just because a church is small doesn't mean fellowship happens. You still have to work at it, but it's a bit easier when you can't hide in a crowd. But our culture still works against real fellowship...it's got to be a supernatural move of God to get people out of themselves. Even so, come Lord Jesus! Move in your people!

Just an
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