By and large, the Church in America is barren. The Church in much of the Western world is barren. We don’t like to hear that. We have exerted a lot of effort to prop-up all sorts of secondary goals and successes to give us the illusion of bearing fruit. But we are barren. We are not producing the true kind of spiritual fruit that Jesus tells us that we should expect or that we see manifested in the lives of the early church. Author Max Depree says, “The most important role of a leader is to define reality.” As unpleasant as it might be, I believe God is raising-up many bold and courageous leaders to define reality and acknowledge our barrenness as a people.
So how do we respond? Faced with diminishing returns, the Church has pursued greater cultural relevance and run after all of the latest strategies and techniques. We’ve become more seeker-oriented, more purpose-driven, more missional, more simple, more of whatever the latest church growth or church health solution is offering us. But none of this has worked… because we haven’t stopped to consider whether God Himself might be opposing us and all of our man-made strategies and methodologies.
In Jonah chapter one, God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh to proclaim a prophetic message to that people. Jonah has other ideas. Instead of Nineveh, he decides to board a ship to Tarshish. You know the story as well as I do… We read in Jonah 1:4 that “the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.” Jonah is headed on a path taking him away from God’s will – and it is the graciousness of God to send this storm to prevent him from continuing down that path. Initially, the sailors attempt to deal with this storm in the way that they know how – they called out to the gods and “threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship” – but to no avail. After they determine that Jonah is the cause of their troubles, they ask him what they should do? Jonah tells them that they should throw him overboard and the sea will grow calm. To the sailors, this probably seemed too radical of a solution, so instead “the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.” God increased the ferocity of this storm – determined to see Jonah brought back on the path that he had laid out for him.
Several years ago, Allen Hood was preaching at our church on the subject of God’s opposition. In a similar vein to some things that Allen shared in that message, I believe God has been opposing the American Church in the West. He has orchestrated a “storm” of sorts against the church, opposing all of our strategies and techniques – not because he dislikes us but because he is so lovingly committed to us. In the midst of this storm of our ineffectiveness, many have sought first to lighten the ship, to get rid of the heavy stuff in our Gospel message, in the Scriptures, in our discipleship, in our theology. We’ve heard aspects of what is on the Lord’s heart to come through this storm but it has seemed too radical and we have sought to simply try a little harder, “to row with all our might.” But this has only caused God to increase His opposition to our efforts – to get us to the place of surrendering to the radical thing that He is calling us to embrace. He is too committed to us to allow us to continue down a path that is leading us away from His purposes for our lives.
I have been in the midst of this storm. Our church has been in the midst of this storm. Over the last several years, we have been confronted with our barrenness as a people. Sadly, we have spent a lot of time and energy seeking to row a little harder to get out of this storm… but we have discovered that that is useless when God is the author of your storm. The storm just gets stronger. Simply-put, we have come to understand that God has graciously opposed all of our efforts and all of our strategies because He is calling us to become a church that is radically committed to the priority of prayer, to become a “Praying Church.” Revival preacher Leonard Ravenhill once remarked that “The man who can get believers to praying would, under God, usher in the greatest revival that the world has ever known.” We must become a people of prayer – both to thrive and to survive in the days ahead. To thrive in the midst of the greatest move of the Spirit on the earth but also to survive in the midst of the greatest persecution that the Church has ever known. God knows this. And so does Satan. Satan opposes us to keep us from the place of prayer. But God opposes us to get us to the place of prayer.
On May 25, 1961, when President John F. Kennedy announced on his commitment to put a man on the moon, he said these words: “Let it be clear – and this is a judgment which the Members of the Congress must finally make – let it be clear that I am asking the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action-a course which will last for many years and carry very heavy costs… If we are to go only half way, or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment it would be better not to go at all… This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, material and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts.”
I believe similar things are involved in making this commitment to prayer. It will take time. It will be costly. It will require diverting our time, energy, and resources from other important activities. And if we only go half-way, it would better not to go at all. But at Bethany Church, we’ve given in. We’ve agreed with God’s radical solution, and have committed ourselves to becoming a “Praying Church.” Critical to this journey, we have had to painfully face our barrenness as a people. But the Lord has also reminded us that it was through many once-barren women in the Scriptures that his most powerful servants came forth. Sarah with Isaac. Rebekah with Jacob. Rachel with Joseph. Hannah with Samuel. Elizabeth with John the Baptist. For all of these women, it was their barrenness that awakened the great and desperate cry for the Lord to come and provide the life that only he could bring. I pray that it is true of the Church in America as well; that the Lord would allow our present barrenness to awaken a deep and desperate cry to the Lord to make us a fruitful people once again.