Bursting the Christian Bubble -- The Cart Running Over the Horse

It appears that Dan Kimball, author of They Like Jesus But Not the Church, speaking live at the Shift conference shared some thoughts on "Bursting the Christian Bubble".

In an increasingly post-Christian culture fewer people have contact with real Christians. We’ve hidden ourselves in a Christian sub-culture bubble.

I would totally agree with the sub-culture bubble concept. We emerged from that bubble last February and ever since folks think we have backslidden (one of those sub-culture terms used to help protect the organization and keep people inside) and "lost our faith". In fact, just the opposite has happened since we purposefully stepped away from that social bubble which demanded way too much time for us to be out impacting the lives of those outside the bubble. In fact, a friend with whom we've become reacquainted with since returning to the Denver area, tells us about the stealth inquisitions she often undergoes from those in the church we formerly served on staff at while here. Yet not one of them has picked up the phone and called us to ask what's going on. Wonder if that means life outside the bubble is way weird to those inside.

In one of my first mywalkblog posts was The New 80/20, I reflected that "my time was so tied up in good things at church and in ministry [that] I spent little time engaging with people outside my church in the community or my even my own neighborhood."

Inevitably the cart gets before the horse and before too long the cart actually begins running the horse over and killing it. Of all the things I reflect back on of value during my years serving the organization it's the relationships with precious people that I am most fond of today. Those don't require the institution itself to exist. In fact, those relationship often thrived and were most founded from any time we spent apart from the bubble.

Now almost two years later I'm going to propose something that will be very unpopular to those inside their bubbles... I don't believe it's possible to have the organized institution which is called church without that bubble inevitably becoming a dominating reality. I'll concede that in some smaller communities in secluded areas where the "churches" themselves are small, I believe the bubble-syndrome is less likely to be as crippling to true Christ Followers. But that's where it stops. Even as those institutions increase in size it will require more resources to keep them going and ultimately there won't be enough time to serve Christ and their church any longer. (ouch... I can't believe I just said that) The very nature of the organizations we've created and called "church" (given, Christ established His Church as the global body of all who profess a faith in Him but I'm less inclined to say the establishments find ourselves slaves to today and call church are what He had in mind at all) will inevitably turn inward in focus and create a sub-culture of isolationism because of what they strive to be. Maybe that's why the disciples were scolded when they asked Jesus about having a position in His future organization.