Why I Go to Church Very Often - A Response to Donald Miller

Avalon Alliance Church in Saskatoon Saskatchewan.

The church I attended from 1976-1993.

I like Donald Miller. I've read three of his books and they were very good.
He seemed to have hit a nerve with dis-affected evangelical young adults.
And he's done some good things with his influence.

But, I disagree with him in his recent blog post.
So, here is my point by point response as to why I disagree.

It seems that for Miller if you do not connect with God through the medium of the local church, you should jettison it and discover the way you do connect with God. For him, this is teaching and building his company.

I wonder why he has reduced the function of church to simply an individual's connecting with God.
I believe the church consists of much more than that: worship, teaching, service, community, fellowship, evangelism.

Is Miller finding all of these things as he teaches and builds his company? I hope so.

Miller thinks its great people love their church.
But, he also shares that he feels that traditional church is like a University that he has graduated from.
So, though he has no need anymore for the traditional church (which he fails to define), he is happy that others love their church.

There is an extended discussion on whether one should attend church out of obligation or out of pleasure. It seems that Miller has reduced the local church down to simply the "worship experience", and since he does not connect to God through singing, God is cool with him going for nature walks or working on his laptop. The methods don't matter, simply as long as the connection and experience is meaningful to the individual. Not sure why church is reduced simply to worship.

There is a rather strange paragraph where Miller states that he knows many people who love Jesus, serve in ministries that feed the poor, but who do not attend a local church. He says "they have no opinion of church", which I find to be a rather staggering statement - both in its breadth and in its content. Every single one of these people he knows have no opinion of church?
Also - what propels them out to serve and speak in "churches" that they have no opinion of - why do they do that?

In Miller's talk about community he says he has rich meaningful community outside of the church. He makes no clear description of what this community consists of or what is required to join his community.
I suspect his community is made up primarily of people similar to himself. That is a community - but that is not a community that will stretch his boundaries or move him to meet people different from himself.

The blessing of church (especially a small church) is it forces you to be in community with people unlike yourself. If you just hang out with people like yourself, you are basically loving yourself. Sure, they might tick you off sometimes, but you do not get to do the hard work of learning to get along with those who are fundamentally different from you. You cut yourself off from the education they can give you about differing paradigms and personalities.

The best part of the Miller post is what he says at the end. He challenges the current lecture/worship model. I think there is some truth here - we do need to create new paradigms and models that will appeal to different types of people.

And my question thus is this - Why doesn't Miller himself work towards that end? Why doesn't he join a faith community and start to work towards innovation that would attract others like himself?

Jesus Christ birthed the church universal. Local churches are small chapters of this universal movement. Local churches should keep us tied in with what God is doing around the world. Building your company or having beers with fellow Christians likely will not be able to do that.

When we cut ourselves off from the local expression of the church universal, we cut ourselves from one of the primary ways that his life and teaching can be poured into our lives. Yes, yes, I agree, hiking in the mountains or kayaking can also connect you to God …. but surely we can agree that learning from God's Word is much more primary than the teaching or experience that comes to us through the general revelation of creation?

I'm glad Miller connects to God in the ways he has discovered. I wish local churches would take some of his concerns and adapt. But, as in all relationships, work needs to take place on both ends.