Six weeks ago, the American Church experience entered a wilderness it didn’t see coming and wasn’t prepared for. None of us were. Just two or three months ago, no one could have envisioned a reality where people were confined to their homes for weeks on end, unable to enjoy the simplest of pleasures that our comfortable society has to offer. And yet, here we are.
The wilderness is an interesting theme in scripture. Most who journey there do so because they have nowhere else to go. Israel is forced there by God; David by Saul; Elijah by Ahab; John by His calling; Jesus by the drawing of the Spirit. I would dare say that if any of these could have chosen differently, none would have chosen the wilderness. It’s a desolate place of isolation and certainly the most difficult of experiences.
The interesting thing about wilderness journeys in scripture is that at some point, every person who ventured there embraced it. I’m not sure how long each battled the wilderness before they welcomed it as their home. The struggle for Elijah was raw and very real. David’s words from the wilderness reveal his emotional swings as he grappled with it. Many in Israel had to die before the wilderness became meaningful. Every person or group had to come to a place of acceptance on their own and through their own trials. But this one thing I know, they found God there. In the middle of their deepest isolation, God showed Himself in tender mercies and loving warmth that turned an abandoned loneliness into a home. For those who experience the wilderness the way that God intends, it actually becomes difficult to leave. The way He finds us in our darkest night gives hope like no other. The wilderness becomes a refuge.
To my pastor friends, church leaders, and believers alike I feel I must give a bit of a caution. We didn’t choose this wilderness. However, if we don’t find ways to embrace it, we may actually miss what God intends to do with it. Many have found paths that steer around the wilderness so that it becomes a cheap experience and costs them almost nothing. This is never what God proposes. Don’t just find ways to continue doing what you’ve always done until you can get back to doing what you’ve always done. In that case, you will have wasted the moment.
The person who emerged from the wilderness was never the same person who went in. They may have gone in proud and full of self-importance, but they arose broken and aware of God’s mercy. I speak specifically to church leaders here. The American Church experience has gone into the wilderness of change. Let it die there. Let it emerge as something new and something fresh. Let our consumer-minded mistakes be left in the wilderness of God’s mercy and let a new church come forth. Not one that is more tech-savy. Please don’t let the only product of this wilderness be that more churches are now live on Facebook. Dear God if this is all we become we will have missed Him entirely.
Now is the chance to change our system so that we actually prepare people for the wilderness. Please don’t miss it. I love that the Church can adapt. However, adaptation may not be valuable here. It may be more valuable for you to sit in front of your camera and say to your people that you have been equipping them for this moment. Tell them to pastor their families. Tell them you’re going to take a couple of weeks off to rest in the wilderness and they should as well. Take some time off from your express worship experiences. Tell them to find God there. Don’t keep doing it for them. You’re robbing them of the wilderness if you do.