Even a casual observer of church history should be able to notice that the church (speaking of the universal church, not a particular sect or denomination) has gone through ups and downs over the years. Those of us who feel that we are seeing the church in one of the down periods can become overwhelmed by what we see around us.

But we can be encouraged by history. For example, in spite of all the negative things that were happening in the organized church of the early 16th Century (and there were plenty of them), God brought about the reformation through Luther and the other reformers.

I have written about many of the frustrating things I’ve seen in churches over the last few years. But I am reminded that despite the misguided, or perhaps even evil, plans that leaders sometimes inflict upon their congregations, God still shows his ability to build the church.

I need to constantly remind myself that the Church is not an organization. The Church is not a building. The Church is made up of all of us who have been made alive in Christ Jesus, no matter how imperfectly we behave at any given moment.

I recently saw an article on the internet that claimed abandoned church buildings as evidence of the death of the church. Borrowing from Mark Twain, reports of the death of the church have been greatly exaggerated. As a one of my favorite teachers used to say, “the Church has always outlived her pallbearers.”

Keep in mind that Jesus is the one that proclaimed his authority to build the church and then backed it up by rising from the dead. He will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail.

Bottom line is, don’t bet against the church, the true church made up of true believers. God will continue to call people into relationship with himself, no matter who is at the helm of the religious organizations that call themselves churches.

The point of this ramble is to say that when I take my eyes off the people that are damaging the organization that we call the church, I become open to see the work that God is doing around me in individuals that are seeking God.

God continues to be at work and we can be encouraged as we see his handiwork in spite of incompetence and antagonism.

We can indeed be encouraged.

1 Kings 19 records the time when the prophet Elijah hit rock bottom. It got so bad that Elijah hid in a cave, thinking he was the only worshipper of God left.

God confronted Elijah and suggested he go out to “stand on the mountain in the LORD’s presence.”

The author of 1 Kings records what happened next:

At that moment, the Lord passed by. A great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and was shattering cliffs before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a voice, a soft whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

1 Kings 19:11–13 (CSB)

I find this instructive because I have spent so much time in churches where we sought to recreate the wind, earthquake, and fire rather than listen for the whisper. We want pizzazz in our worship. We want lights and guitar solos and whatever else we can get to make Sunday seem special. We work hard to make the music bold and the preaching catchy and polished. We want to have a huge experience of God on a Sunday morning.

Maybe God is telling us through Elijah’s experience that we are looking for the wrong things and not putting ourselves in the proper position to hear from God.

Instead of following the latest church growth fad, perhaps we declare a day of fast for our local church while asking God what he wants us to do.

Maybe we should unplug the guitars and video screens and have a quieter worship experience. Maybe we should read Scripture in our Sunday service and do more listening than speaking. Maybe we should collectively search the Scriptures for the answers to the problems around us.

Maybe we are being called to ditch the big buildings and big budgets to focus on being obedient to the call of God.

Admittedly, I don’t have answers to what the church in 2021 should look like. I don’t know what any particular congregation should do in response to their situation. But I think that much of what passes for evangelical practice is not having the desired effect. We seem to be making theological consumers rather than disciples.

Perhaps we are not listening for that whisper that God used to reveal himself to Elijah. It was in the whisper, not the louder, more noticeable events that Elijah heard the voice of God. Maybe we’re impressed by the wrong things.

Let’s be open to hearing that whisper so that we, individually and collectively, can hear the voice of God to be sure that we are following his lead and not blazing our own trail.

I have been struggling to understand why I am frustrated with 21st Century “Woke” Christianity. After all, who is not for justice? Who thinks that racism is a good idea?

Why then do alarm bells go off in my head when a church starts focusing on what they term “social justice”?

Two reasons come to mind.

The first is that the preaching often focuses on symptoms rather than the core problem. I recently ran across this paragraph by Timothy Keller:

“Since the garden, we live in a world filled with suffering, disease, poverty, racism, natural disasters, war, aging, and death – and it all stems from the wrath and curse of God on the world. The world is out of joint, and we need to be rescued. But the root of our problem is not these ‘horizontal’ relationships, though they are often the most obvious; it is our ‘vertical’ relationship with God. All human problems are ultimately symptoms, and our separation from God is the cause. The reason for all the misery – all the effects of the curse – is that we are not reconciled to God.”

Timothy Keller in Center Church

As Keller points out, all the injustice in the world is ultimately because our relationship with God is broken and we are separated from God. Ultimately, the only way for true justice to be restored is for every person to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. This is the core message that the church is tasked with proclaiming.

But unfortunately, this message is not always clear when preachers proclaim current theories of how social justice will be achieved. We have churches that embrace theories that are more in line with Karl Marx than Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus summarized the teaching of Scripture into two great commands. The first is that we should love God with our entire being. The fact that we fail in this command produces all the ills that plague our society. Any preaching that does not tie the problems around us to our failure to satisfy this command is not Christian preaching.

My second reason for discomfort with social justice preaching is that there is usually selectivity in the proclamation of what needs to be done for justice to take place.

The second great command in the passage cited above is that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus emphasized that everyone we come in contact with is our neighbor. There is no separation by race, age, gender or birth status allowed in the application of this command.

We do not have the latitude to focus only on what the culture deems important. We need to be holistic in how we apply this command. Are we concerned about all forms of injustice? I can think of many forms of injustice in our society but I don’t hear all of them mentioned in “social justice” preaching.

Are we responding to the frenzy created by the media (after all creating frenzy is their purpose) or are preaching the good news of Jesus Christ? We cannot be selective as to who is to receive justice.

Any preaching and teaching in the church that does not ultimately point to the Cross of Jesus Christ as the remedy is not Christian preaching.

Without the regeneration that is made possible by our relationship with Christ, we cannot make any progress at all on fulfilling the two great commands. The gospel (good news) is that in Christ, restoration of our vertical relationship can be accomplished.

On the basis of a restored vertical relationship, the horizontal relationships can also be restored. That message needs to be heard. That is the first thing that needs to be first.