Redeeming Church Conflicts

One Danger You Must Avoid at ALL Costs — Regular Church Attendance

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Yes, yes. Kevin DeYoung is really gaining on Ed Welch as my favorite contemporary author.

I love all of his writings (both online and in print), but this classic (written in the voice of a C.S. Lewis letter to Wormwood) is particularly appropriate this month for all of us who are celebrating our beloved high school graduates:

A Lost Letter to Wormwood

Here is just a snippet to tempt you:

“Your subject is now enrolled in what the earth world calls ‘college.’ I do not need to remind you what splendid opportunities these places afford us. But there is one particular danger, and you must see to it that it is avoided at all costs. And that danger is church attendance.

Though your subject seems safe from the clutches of our Enemy Above, you will recall that he has spent the majority of his Sundays, thus far, in church. The habit may not be easy to break. If he tries church for a few weeks, make sure it is a pointless endeavor. Do not forget our little rhyme: ‘If to church one must go, lead him to an empty show. And when all we can do is mettle, makes sure on one church he does not settle.’

Church attendance is bad enough, nephew, but consistent attendance at the same church spells almost certain doom for our cause. If your human persists in his church interest, you simply must devise some way to shuffle him around from congregation to congregation. See to it he never knows the people he is worshiping with. Keep reminding him of how rotten the music is over here, and how long the sermon is over there, and how bland the coffee is at that other church. Trust me, it won’t take much to get him floundering on church. Almost any excuse will do …”

SHIVER! This is just WAY too important a topic and WAY too accurate a portrayal of our “higher learning” institutions for me to do anything other than CRINGE and PRAY for the many college and grad school students in my life—and for their Christian professors and the churches near their campuses too.

I simply cannot imagine where I would be in life had God not graciously rooted me in one church during my undergraduate years in Moline, Illinois and one church during my graduate studies in Champaign-Urbana. How skewed and squishy my theology would have become were it not for great men like Vic Varkonyi, Paul Jensen, Bill Meier, and John Roeckeman. How duplicitous and immature I would have remained were it not for great women like June Kalemkarian, Cindy Lambrecht, Kim Mills, and Dixie Zietlow. I needed the counsel and oversight of deacons and elders then, and I need the counsel and oversight of deacons and elders now. I needed the encouragement, care, and accountability of authentic relationships then, and I need the encouragement, care, and accountability of authentic relationships now.

And so do our college students! As Pastor DeYoung says earlier in his post:

“Churchless Christians are on their way to being no Christian at all.”

 Please do encourage your college students to PLUG IN and COMMIT to one local church as they transition to this exciting new season of life. Don’t let them believe the fallacy that a parachurch student group, as great as it is, can ever be a church.

Send them ongoing, scholarly helps to remind them that smart people believe the Bible (contrary to what most of their professors will say) — I started reading Imprimis as an undergraduate student and I’ve read it ever since.

If they can persevere through meaty prose, I strongly urge them to read anything by Phillip E. Johnson and Frame/Poythress But if that bogs them down too much, then of course anything by C.S. Lewis will surely be edifying and accessible.

I also began to study systematic theology and philosophy as a college student and both were SO engaging and SO exciting to me that, because I had wise and godly teachers in my church, I was equipped to stand against the blatant naturalism and post-modern relativism that filled almost all of my academic classes.

How grateful I am for the protection, nourishment, accountability, equipping, and opportunities to serve in the local church! And how I pray that our college students will benefit from (and take seriously their commitments to) membership in the local church too.

Your friend,
Tara B.

PS
Pastor DeYoung has a final installation of this letter here

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