Tomorrow is ship day. And most of you are eagerly waiting.
We know that the current religious church systems “works” for about 70% of the people. That is, for that number of people the current answers given to the questions asked, the level of engagement requested and the goods and services offered is satisfactory. Some people are cut out for that system. Some are content with the status quo, have no intention or even reason to rock the boat and have no idea what the big problem is for those experiencing discontent. Though a vast majority of them, by their own admission, have not one time experienced the presence of God in their personal lives or their church in the last 12 months, they remain committed. (see Barna’s Revolution for this stat and others like it)
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I have been contending in this series of posts that human and spiritual formation have to be integrated if we want to see the church move from a belonging to a transforming system. 
The massive exodus we see of people from the church, I think, is due to this very lack. When people leave the church saying “I am not being fed,” (the number one reason stated.) And when people leave not because they are walking away from God but from a system that isn’t any longer working for them or “feeding them,” I think we need to read between the lines.
We gave them the language that “we are here to feed you, come connect and belong, we will feed and fill you.” They come with an empty wheelbarrow at the beginning of their church experience we slowly start filling it. But there is a law of diminishing return whether we like it or not. The first time I hear the story of Jonah it is very interesting but by year 15 and the 24th telling of Jonah I am not that enthralled…my wheelbarrow is overflowing. If I came to the church to belong and be fed (because after all that is what we ’sell’ to them we do) and now things “don’t hit me the way they used to.” No wonder people leave – we aren’t delivering the sell we sold. The language “I am not being fed” is the only language people have. But I think they are saying something quite different. I think people have gotten their fill of information but are trying to put their finger on “why am I not changing?” If I am right about that, and my research is anecdotal though with hundreds of stories and conversations, then I don’t think we have a feeding problem we have a development problem.
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Human development can go further than the socialized mind. Informing people and getting them to fit in or conform to everything from doctrinal statements to more pious sounding “requirements” so they can be accepted and belong is the doorway in and in some cases goal in many of our churches. James Fowler calls this the “mythic literal” stage of development and a remarkably high number of people stay here their entire lives. They conform to doctrinal standards, think denominational distinctives, to stock answers to the standard questions, if you don’t ask many questions or question the systems certainty or become too independent in your thinking you can belong for a lifetime. This is mythic-literal faith. If you haven’t read Fowler you need to.
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The church as we have it today in the West is largely built around a model of belonging not a model of transforming lives. If you join a club, organization or church and they ask you to believe in this set of values, these doctrines and these rules, at that stage you belong and are now part of the group. You are now part of the “in” group because you have done the things that put you “in.” But is that the point of the church? Affiliation and belonging based on subscribing to a doctrinal or ethical code? Obviously the answer is no! Few churches I know anywhere state their model for changing lives or when questioned can articulate one.
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We all knew it would come. We all have anticipated it for over a decade. We can no longer wait the time has come for a new way forward.
Every 500 years the church has to have a giant rummage sale to sell of the junk she has accumulated from the dying age she is exiting in preparation for the new age she has to engage. The sale is on.
Life is loud, busy, hectic and harried. People want a sense of wholeness, wellness, peace, joy, even dare I say a quiet interior space in the midst of it all.
We are all crying out for personal transformation, knowing it holds the key starting point for the larger issues we face of community development and global change. Where can you find this life? What are the practices and rhythms that lead to this sort of peace and joy?
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Biophila or belonging? These are very very different goals. Are we interested in conforming people to our doctrinal positions or lifestyle statements? Or 
are we in the transformation business ? I have written a couple posts on biophilia and transformation and the response I have gotten has been overwhelming and positive. Many of us have been schooled in the negative way of spiritual formation, stuck in the purgative and have rarely if ever tasted the illuminative or unitive. I think there is a reason though. The church doesn’t know how to transform lives.
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