Orthodoxy in Exile: Church as an Alternative Community
By Jeremy Treat, TGC.
One day, as I was serving meals in my church for the unhoused community in East Hollywood, a man stopped me in the hallway and said, “Hey pastor, I just want you to know I’m only here to serve. I do not need the church.”
“OK,” I replied, planning to circle back later and explore his hesitation. I asked his name and we carried on serving. As I’ve reflected on that encounter, I’ve come to think it represents a broader trend in our city. People want community, and they long to make a practical difference in the city, but they despise the church. It’s not just indifference; it’s disdain.
How can the church thrive in a city that sees it as outdated, irrelevant, and morally offensive? It must be an alternative community that is different from the city but also seeks its good.
Different from the City
To faithfully represent Christ, the church must learn to stand out from its surrounding context. Unfortunately, consumerism and individualism have so infiltrated the American church that it often mirrors worldly values with a veneer of Christian spirituality. The worship service has become a social event. Pastors are entertainers and influencers. Discipleship is self-improvement. Church is merely another consumer good meant to round out my individual spirituality.
Over the last decade, the church has been exposed for this shallowness and hypocrisy, particularly in the areas of political idolatry, abuse of power, and celebrity culture. In our efforts to be all things to the unchurched, we’ve dechurched the church and lost our distinction from the wider society.
What can churches do to recover our witness? We must rediscover our identity as a distinct community set apart by God’s grace.
The mission of the church is not to draw a crowd, but to make disciples. We must combat the secular narratives of our day by telling a more compelling narrative, the story of God’s kingdom. We must teach sound doctrine so our congregations aren’t co-opted by secular ideologies. God’s people must embrace a distinctly Christian ethic that’s grounded in God’s Word. And we must demonstrate that conviction and kindness aren’t mutually exclusive. Lesslie Newbigin captured the need for the church as an alternative community when he said, “The chief contribution of the Church to the renewing of social order is to be itself a new social order.”
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