Today I have a check-up at the dentist. I haven't gone in a year.
Going to the dentist reminds me of why we're starting a fresh new church in Kent, Ohio. If you understand what it's like for someone to walk into a dentist's office, you also will understand why churches in North America aren't growing.
People go to the dentist maybe once every 6 months (or if you're like me, once a year). Why? Because we are afraid of the dentist. Afraid of the guilt-trip lecture we'll face once secured into their special chair, telling us how we aren't properly taking care of ourselves, that we need to floss more, that we need to do this or that... sorta like how people view pastors of local churches. Guilt trips. So we only go twice a year: Easter and Christmas.
And have you ever noticed how the dentist office is so, well, clean? The walls are pasty white. Very uncreative. It's a sterile environment so that things don't grow. Sorta like a lot of churches I've been to in the past.
Here's the funny thing: living organisms don't grow in sterile environments. Messy people - sinners (of which I am one) - need room to grow spiritually. At their own pace. Like how Jesus modeled. But if the local church is set up like a white-walled, sterile dentist's office that stifles creativity, then why would messy, sin-soaked people come into the church building?
I think teaching pastors & youth pastors need to spend more time observing why people avoid the dentist rather than bemoaning the state of their empty churches & student ministries. Do some spiritual recon work. See what dentistry has to teach us about the movement of Jesus. Your thoughts?