Joe Miller: Finally, let me ask a broader question about the world as you see it. Based on your experience and research, what would you say is the greatest social, political, or theological challenge facing the Church today in the West? What is the Church doing well, and what does the Church need to do better in confronting that challenge?
George Barna: The encouraging reality is that when God’s people set their mind on something, they often prove they can meet their goals. For instance, churches generally measure success based on attendance, raising money, constructing buildings, operating programs, and hiring staff. Over the past two decades, Christian churches in the U.S. have been effective at meeting those goals. We are better at marketing, and event planning and execution, than ever; raise more than $60 billion annually for domestic ministry; have extensive, valuable, and expanding real estate holdings; and continually introduce new programs that we fill with hopeful students. By church criteria, our churches are successful; unfortunately, Jesus didn’t die to fill auditoriums, buy land, promote programs, or hire religious professionals. If we take His death and resurrection seriously, our criteria need to relate to life transformation that produces discernible and meaningful spiritual fruit.
So discussing the major challenges facing the Western Church is not a simple matter. There is no single greatest challenge; there is a multi-faceted group of serious challenges that need to be addressed. Among those, as noted earlier, are the need for better leadership that is devoted to fulfilling a God-provided, biblically-consistent vision; the need for Christians to possess a biblical worldview to serve as the basis of their choices and behaviors; the need for Christian families to be more aggressive and better equipped in the moral and spiritual development of their children; the need to radically manage media and technology for the benefit of the nation rather than that of shareholders; the need for different models of ministry to facilitate more genuine spiritual experiences and expression; and the need to create and deploy better metrics regarding life transformation.
Frank Viola: I don’t think we can lump everyone or every fellowship into the same basket. Some are ahead of others in some areas, and vice versa.
Speaking in regard to the Christian population as a whole, four great challenges come to mind:
(1) The pervasive problem of Christians trafficking in slander against other Christians without blinking. Many Christians are bold in slandering others while few Christians are bold in defending others or rebuking slander when it’s happening. Jesus was clear that if we have an issue or concern about someone, we should go to them directly. Treating others the same way we wish to be treated appears to be rarely observed today among God’s people, even though it was Jesus’ summary of the Law and the Prophets.
(2) The inability of many Christians to disagree without being contentious and to carry on civil and gracious dialogue. Rick Warren spoke about this recently.
(3) The problem that many Christians are either libertine or legalistic, knowing no other alternative.
(4) The fact that Christianity has largely been about ideas, causes, and issues, rather than about the Person of Jesus Christ. (Jesus is often relegated as a footnote, a mascot, or a stamp.) What Len Sweet and I wrote in Jesus Manifesto about this is still very much needed today, I feel.
