In a previous issue of Precipice I wrote a review of George Barna's popular and somewhat controversial book, Revolution. Those of you who read the book, or the review of Revolution, will remember that Barna's topic was the migration of Christians away from organized, ecclesial gatherings, i.e. the Sunday service in the local church. Recently another book has emerged tackling the very same topic. While Paul Vieira's Jesus Has Left the Building tackles the same topic, from my perspective it does so with more depth. Like Barna, Vieira not only makes note of the exodus of believers from organized Church settings, but actually suggests the phenomena is very much a move of God; similar in breadth and purpose to God's exiling of the Israelites.

Personally I almost always prefer it when an author preceeds his thesis with a little bit of personal history. Being the case that none of us (not a one) is without bias when it comes to the stances we take, I like to know a little bit about where an author has been- so I can better understand why he is where he is today. This is exactly how Paul Vieira opens his book, Jesus Has Left the Building. Hailing from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Vierra is no stranger to organized church. In fact he was for several years, a young leader within a church that saw a growing "youth ministry". Within the space of one year (circa 1988), a church youth service led by Vierra had grown from 100 to over 700 attendees. These meetings apparently lasted four hours or longer and during these gatherings people would "dance and sing like King David".

Interestingly, this meeting was shut down in 1992 when each of the leaders, including Vieira, sensed that God was asking them to lay it down and move on. Now that's a message from God that I think more leaders need to hear! Do I hear an amen? Sorry, I digress. Soon after this time Vieira was given other leadership opportunities within the organized church structure. But before long he became convinced that his call was outside the walls of the building. So he laid down his "official" pastoral role in order to become an incarnational sojourner and image-bearer.

So what was wrong with organized church in the local context? Like Barna, Vieira's exit was influenced by more than just a desire to proactively walk among the lost in order to reach them (though that was certainly part of the reason). His exit was also due to the fact that organized church lacked meaningful spirituality, even "amongst the brethren"- so to speak. Vieira writes:

In my experience, I loved being with God's people. But there was something interfering with our relationships and life together. This subtle, but very powerful system of values and practices does not seem to have its root in Jesus. I often use the following words synonymously (sometimes humorously), to describe this hindrance: institutional church, organized church, the religious system, the system, the corporate machine, the monster, the building, the matrix.

Vieira goes on to clarify that while he makes statements that may sound like he questions "the legitimacy of "church", he is actually only referring to the "organization typically called 'church'," as opposed to the "true church, made up of all believers in Christ." This is an important distinction to make of course. It was years ago that an Orthodox priest helped me fully grasp the difference between the two. In truth, only God knows what the Church really is- and who it includes. I wouldn't at all be surprised if it turns out that the invisible, real Body of Christ, is both much more, and much less, than what is reflected in its organized, systematic incarnation. The important point being that the rejecting of the organized version of Christianity expressed in the local congregation is not equivalent to the rejection of Christ's church, which is of course, His beloved bride, and the organic expression of which the gates of Hell shall not prevail against.

After addressing what exactly it is that he is moving from, Vieira goes on to describe what he feels he is moving towards. In short, the calling Vieira describes amounts to an "amphibious life", as he puts it, where Christians are able to move with ease in and out of the world of the believer and the unbeliever. To this effect Vieira recounts several compelling stories where he experienced God leading him to interact with unbelievers. One such interesting story involved the crashing of a toga party; another deals with a night out at a techno-club.

Everything touched on so far is quite similar to the ideas put forward by Barna. From my perspective, these points make perfect sense. But it is in the latter parts of Jesus Has Left the Building where I feel Vieira's message really shines. As I mentioned earlier, like Barna, Vieira goes on to say that the phenomena whereby Christians are leaving the local church context is actually happening by the will of God. What I find compelling about Vieira's account is his comparison of today's situation with that of the Isrealites in exile. Vieira takes note of the fact that the Israelites were not exiled by "natural causes" alone- so to speak. They were being sent out, sent away, to be pruned by God. It is Vieira's sense that this very same thing is happening today.

Vieira certainly has plenty of evidence to draw upon. Much of what he touches on has to do with Christianity's loss of credibility within the culture at large. Vieira makes the point that it is not only ineffectual, but perhaps even a little ridiculous, for us to make public statements about the sins of our culture, when we ourselves are guilty of so much. The very fact that we have lost our "credible voice" within the culture, is associated, more than anything else, with our culture's perception of our hypocrisy. Vieira suggests that rather than respond with more name-calling and such, perhaps we should "take our lumps" -so to speak, and let God prune us in this period of exile.

Vieira doesn't just leave us in this place of exilic humility however. He senses that following this period of exile lies a time where we can once again reach out to our culture in an effectual way. And of course, like Francis of Assisi cautioned, this effect will have much more to do with what we preach with our lives via our actions than with the words we speak- from a pulpit or anywhere else. In this new season Vieira imagines us interacting with our culture the way that the early church did with theirs- prior to all the compromises that came with the Constantinian era.

The title for Jesus Has Left the Building is taken from a comment that Bono made on Oprah several years ago. And it's fitting that the title comes from such a one as Bono. For in many ways Bono is the very incarnation of the kind of 21st century, exilic Christian that Vieira is describing. People such as this are not only reaching people with the message of Christ, but they are doing so in a way that simply cannot be accomplished via the traditional ecclesial infrastructure of the organized North American church. Rather than assigning blame in regards to this reality, we would do well to embrace this season of exile and seek God for his purposes; remembering that all things organic must at times shrink and even die- before they can truly bloom.