I was reading the comments to a post written on Hamo’s blog, called ‘You’re Probably Not Going to Change the World… Get Over It and it reminded me some thoughts I was having recently about how the world views Christianity. It was interesting to note the discussion on Hamo’s blog, mostly seemingly centred around the difference between ‘significance’ and ‘prominence’. This is was resonated with my recent thoughts.

A common phrase muttered around the world today is ‘the problem with the world is God’ or ‘religion’ or ‘faith’ or ‘Christinaity’. Now, without wanting to get into a discussion about whether or not Christianity is a religion, I do want to lump ALL these statements together for a moment.

In some ways I think that Christinaity suffers from over exposure and a lack of relationship with the world around it. By this I mean the ‘big, super, hyped’ Christianity is very widely known, or prominent, but the dinky little community church which is making a significant difference is not. As Mark Sayers terms it, we live in a ‘hyper-realistic world’ and so often the ways things appear to be is not what they really are.

The funny thing is though, once or twice when i’ve heard somebody say the problem with the world is Christianity or religion, is when i prod a little further the comments are based on parts of the church the particular individual has no DIRECT connection, they just know them because of their prominence. Then when I ask the follow up question ‘what about Christians you KNOW’ they often respond ‘oh them, they are different, I know them’. And there in lies the problem.

Now I am a very firm believer in the local church. I personally believe that God partners with local churches (of nearly every bent and type) to SIGNIFICANTLY change the community they find themselves in. Admittedly not ALL churches live this out successfully, but I do believe God is working in all of them to some degree.

The issue arises when you start to talk about SIGNIFICANT churches, PROMINENT churches and the relationship Joe Bloggs has to either of them.

I believe that God intended for the church to be relational in every way. Does not the bible say you will know his disciples by the love they have for one another? And yet when ‘churches’ become prominent, the relational connection between them and those whose know them is lost. Just take Hillsong. We could sit here until the cows come home arguing about whether or not they are a ‘good church’, but I find most people who make comments about them (me included) are not actually in RELATIONSHIP with them…so how can we really comment? It’s like reading an email from someone you don’t know and getting the wrong idea, because the written word may not actually communicate what was intended. Without relationship, how can we really talk about what is and isn’t significant?

The other problem occurs when cmall, dinky little community churches get wrapped up in seeking PROMINENCE in their community, rather than SIGNIFICANCE. This itself is an entire blog entry, and maybe we will flesh it out later, but I would rather be in a church that has significant, relational links with a smaller section of a community, than be prominent throughout it…because I think in prominence the church loses its ability to communicate through relationship.

I guess my heart in this post is to encourage churches to seek significance, through relationship, in the community they are in. Margaret River, for example, doesn’t need a Hillsong, and we’d be doing the community a diservice if we stove to BE Hillsong. Now, I believe it is possible to be prominent AND significant…but that prominence must be born out of being significant IMO, not as its only product.

Thoughts?