IS THE CHURCH UNDERGOING AN IDENTITY CRISIS?

Over the years I have found that if one wants to keep up with the prevailing winds of change, one only needs to observe the musings of the Christian Chronicle [http://www.christianchronicles.org].  The latest concern is that of the church going through an identity crisis.

Big Macs.  Chicken McNuggets.  Filet-O-Fish Sandwiches.  Walk into most any McDonald’s and you have a good idea what’s on the menu.  In a manner of speaking, Churches of Christ used to be that way. “We were a franchise church,” said Steve Sandifer, pastoral care minister at the Southwest Central church in Houston.  If someone said song 728b, you knew what that meant.  The order of worship was very similar.  We had our own unwritten liturgy that showed up in prayers.  Even many of the buildings came from the same plans.” Visit one of the nation’s nearly 13,000 a cappella congregations today, though, and you might not know if the church sings from shaped notes in a hymnal or words flashed on a big screen.  Men only might pass the communion trays, or women might join them.  The King James Bible might be preferred, or scripture could be read from the Message.  In the past, Churches of Christ were distinguished by belief in church autonomy, baptism for forgiveness of sins, weekly Lord’s Supper on Sunday, public male leadership, plurality of elders and a cappella singing, said David Duncan, pulpit minister at the Memorial church in Houston.  “Now, some congregations have given up most, if not almost all, these distinctive characteristics,” Duncan said.

This snippet is only a sample that portrays some of the sentiment concerning this issue.  In the next few weeks we will be examining this issue to see if there really is an identity crisis among churches of Christ or is this just another flap of the liberal agenda.

—Paul