[Dear Church - Welcome to the Revolution] by Jason Clark

Located in the hills of upstate NY, it's really a beautiful campus, some of the buildings as old as a hundred and fifty years. Small, clean with a real sense of community. God has been changing lives and forming them for His service on this campus since before my grandparents attended. It's a peaceful place where one can hear God. Even its name, Elim, which means oasis, would imply safety. That's why the graffiti on the water tower over looking this beautifully manicured bible college always bugged me. It was the one thing out of place. You can practically see it from anywhere on campus, glaring in bold red letters, it read "welcome to the revolution".

Elim Bible Institute is a training ground for the leaders of tomorrow. My time at Elim was part of my journey and in many ways was where the "revolution of my soul" began. It was where I experienced the presence of my Savior in such a profound way, that I was changed forever. In fact I was ruined.

I'm a gen- xer who grew up in the church. I want the experience, reading about it is fine, talking about it, ok fine, singing about it… ok…when do I experience? My "revolution of the soul" (as Erwin McManus describes it in his book Uprising) has caused me to become more and more dissatisfied with the Sunday morning church tradition. Hear me, I love the church; we're the bride of Christ. My heart is to see the glory of God mirrored in the bride. The presence of God displayed in the lives of His people. But there is a part of the bride that's getting left behind…or maybe their forging ahead. They are hungry to experience God, they are sick of just hearing about it; in fact they have stopped listening.

If the church can't reach those who grew up within the "four walls" what kind of relevance does it have to their lost counterparts? Several years ago God dropped me into the middle of the Bible belt, where there are more churches than coffee shops, or pizza joints, or the both of them together and then some. Sunday morning service is part of the culture. To most God has become tradition, there is no personal relationship, and therefore no spiritual growth or reproduction.

Somewhere along the way God was made predictable, and therefore safe. He is not relevant to daily life other than in a superficial way. There are some incredible churches and some amazing people and this is not solely a "Bible belt" problem; it's simply amplified there.

There is a bumper sticker that illustrates this best. I know it was created with good intentions, but it frustrated me every time I saw it. It says "Take your kids to Sunday school this Sunday, they need and deserve it". They don't need Sunday school…they need Jesus. They may learn about Him in Sunday school, but the premise is wrong. If you want to lose a generation, raise them to know the names of God, but never experience the interpretation. Loving, Intimate, Majestic, Holy, Consuming Fire… 

Mankind was born for worship, for communion with God. Our hearts where designed for wild worship, yet we're offered liturgy. Our minds designed to dream big the heart of God, we're offered building plans. Our bodies were designed for dangerous service; we're offered biblical commentaries from the safety of a pew…or a comfortable theatre chair. There is nothing wrong with liturgy; the bible is filled with ceremony. There's nothing wrong with building plans, I like to be dry as much as the next guy. And we need the word, its absolutely essential. But at the end of the day, if we haven't touched the heart of God, if we haven't basked in His Glory, then the gathering is irrelevant. We don't need Sunday school; we need Jesus. He must be experienced. And not just on Sunday!

"Whether I live five more minutes, or fifty more years…I will live that life whether the blessing of God comes through affluence, prosperity, comfort, and wealth, or whether it is a life of danger and pain and suffering and weeping. I will live it because it's the life that God calls me to live." (Erwin McManus) This is the "absolute" that my generation wants, the experience with a Savior that would give them a purpose and a passion to live. This is the kind of believing they want to possess. This lifestyle of worship is what we were created for.

Dear church, we have tamed the image of God in order to make Him more accommodating. We didn't want to scare anyone away. Now no one is interested! "Even outsiders feel the disparity between the boldness of our claims upon the nations and the blandness of our engagement with God" (John Piper). He's become a tradition, which is something that can be comfortably understood. We've made God out to be safe. In one sense that's the truth. When you are in the center of Gods will; you're in the safest place on earth, EVEN UNTO DEATH! 

God isn't safe and He cannot be understood nor tamed. He is about revealing His glory through the lives of His people, intimately, violently and every thing in-between. In every aspect of His nature He is to be experienced. In every aspect of His nature He is to be glorified. God isn't safe, and my generation as a whole has not been introduced to that God. It's time we stop worrying about how many, or what people show up on a Sunday morning. We need to start making sure God shows up in every aspect of His nature in our own lives, be it Sunday morning or Thursday afternoon. I am convinced this is the only way to grow the church; it is absolutely the only way to be relevant to this generation. Piper says it well: 

"When He (God) predominates above our talk of methods and strategies and psychological buzz words and cultural trends, then the people might begin to feel that He is the central reality of their lives and that the spread of His glory is more important than all their possessions and all their plans."

Isn't that the point? This generation is tired of relative truth, tired of making up their own story. They want to be a part of something bigger than them. They are hungry to experience God.

The church as a whole is failing my generation. And we don't like it …were acting out… some of its healthy, some not, but either way there's a revolt at work against the institution of church, and that's not all bad. At a grass roots level, one heart at a time, God is birthing revolutionaries. Revolution is "a momentous change in a situation". (American Heritage Dictionary) 2000 years ago Jesus walked the earth and birthed the biggest revolution the bride has ever seen. Talk about revolution! This generation will accept nothing less than a real experience with that God. Jesus was and still is a revolutionary and He has called us to follow.

Dear church my generation wants to live in a world where if the church is not the revolution that Jesus died to establish 2000 years ago it will cease to exist. We want to live our lives in the same surrendered and untamed fashion that our Savior lived. We want to experience a God who is relevant in the whisper and in the raging. We want to know Him. I hope the graffiti's still there looking over the Elim campus speaking words of prophecy over all the revolutionaries who are attending that college now. They may not know it yet, but they are about to be thrust into a movement that will change the world. Dear church, welcome to the revolution!

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