Slow Drift

As we have noted before, there is a distinct sociological difference between a sect and a church. Both a sect and a church can be orthodox and Christian, but they necessarily have different pastoral challenges. A sect has tighter discipline, and disciplines over more things, and is in the very nature of the case smaller and more defined. A church tends to take professing Christians as they come, and to work with them from there. It is important to note that I am not using either term in a pejorative way, and am assuming that both a church and a sect can be faithful Christian congregations. But neither one will be faithful unless they take note of their own particular temptations.

Sects struggle with rigorism while the temptation faced by churches is that of a broadminded laxity. In case you were wondering, Christ Church has elements of both, but is more of a church than it is a sect. Because of how the Lord has blessed many of our ministries here on the Palouse, our reputation in eyes of outsides is that we are a highly defined sect. For the local members on the ground, the reality can be much looser.

The cultural attractions and blessings of community are seen here in many things. Call this the teaching of the church, and how life is lived by those at the center who have embraced it—world and life view Christian living, Sabbath dinners together, psalm singing, Christian education, parish life, and so on. But we are now the size of a small town, and so we have quite a few people, mostly young people, who are sadly drifting. I do not mean openly drifting away from the Christian faith, but rather drifting away from some of the distinctives of our community life. They don’t see the point anymore, and they do feel the allure of the world. So I want to take some time in these exhortations to address various aspects of this slow drift. It is not open apostasy, but it is the contradictory folly of wanting to chain saw the tree and still harvest the fruit.