Legendary author Anne Rice has announced that she’s quitting Christianity.

The “Interview with a Vampire” author, who wrote a book about her spirituality titled “Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession” in 2008, said Wednesday that she refuses to be “anti-gay,” “anti-feminist,” “anti-science” and “anti-Democrat.”

Rice wrote, “For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian … It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

Rice then added another post explaining her decision on Thursday:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me,” Rice wrote. “But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been or might become.”

Let me start off by saying that the word “outreach” really, really bothers me, especially when it is used in the church context. The reason it bothers me is because it implies that us Christians, who are “in” have the duty to reach “out” to all those dirty sinners and help them. It never really crossed my mind before but the word can really give off a posture of arrogance and elitism, especially if you’re the one being “reached out” to. If I heard that the local Muslim mosque was planning a community event to “reach out” to me because I was an infidel and I needed to convert, I would be like “ummm, no thanks!”

I am fully convinced that in order to truly “reach” those who don’t know Christ, we must do it from withIN. That’s how Jesus did it. He didn’t feed the 5,000 or heal the sick so that they would come to synagogue on Saturday. He did it because He walked, lived and breathed the Kingdom of God and the kingdom was smack dab in the middle of the filth and sin of the world. He was touched by their sickness because He was actually touching them on a daily basis and their sickness became His own. Compassion was not a buzz word to Jesus…He felt thier hopelesness and sin in His gut and it compelled Him to heal them, feed them and die for them!

This all points to one word that I want Sanctuary Church to have in it’s DNA from day one: INCARNATION. We are not called to “reach out” to the homeless, hungry and lost…we are called to be WITH them and Be Jesus to them. This will take more than a church program with a cool campaign and a catchy slogan. It will take changing our priorities as to how we spend our money, where we live, what we consider “church” and who we decide to give our lives to. Now, I’m not so naive to believe that this will happen overnight or will even be a result of human will. This is an act of the Spirit and will be accomplished through thousands of daily decisions to be Jesus withIN the world that we already live. It will be hard but I know that it will be worth it!

“A question we pose is this: What is it about the holiness of Jesus that caused “sinners” to flock to him like a magnet and yet managed to seriously antagonize the religious people? This question begs yet another, even more confronting question: Why does our more churchy form of holiness seem to get it the other way around–to comfort the religious and antagonize the sinners?” (“Untamed” by Alan Hirsch)

So, that’s where we are right now.  A great group of people that are praying to be more in love with Christ every day and seeking to be a solution to the hurt and pain that we see all around us.  It is going to be an awesome journey!!

If you ever want to experience the greatest stress imaginable, plant a church! We are only in the very beginning phases of our 1st meetings, planning, etc but it is literally the ONLY thing that I can think about. The mental and spiritual stress that we have experienced has put a strain on my marriage, my family, my spiritual life and my sanity. The other day I was thinking about this and giving myself the “pep talk” in my head that I have fine tuned (Troy, you’re called, God will provide, people will come, it’s in God’s hands) and I stopped in mid thought and asked myself “WHY?” Why am I doing this to myself? Why do I feel so much pressure? If I truly believed that this is in God’s hands, then why am I so worried all the time? And after a few minutes, it finally dawned on me: I’m trying to plant someone elses church!

I have made the mistake of reading tons of blogs of these dudes that started last year with 6 people in thier living rooms and now they have 2,000 people in a state of the art building with the coolest lights, rocking worhsip team and fog machines that envelop it all! They preach relevant messages and hundreds of people are “coming to Jesus” each week. Their small groups are multiplying and some of them are even having to go multi site already!

Now, all of this is fine and dandy…if people are “coming to Jesus”, then I celebrate with them. What stressed me out the most was what it took to get these church plants up and running. From the many different sources I’ve read/talked to/been coached by, to plant a church that “launches large” and has a good crowd the 1st Sunday, you need to raise at least $75,000 -$100,000 before you even start! That pays for the sounds equipment, the video projectors, lighting, chairs, childrens ministry material, insurance, salaries and a big freaking trailer to haul it all around in.

So, after 2 years of reading this and hearing this and believing that this was the only way to do it, I finally woke up one day and asked REALLY? SERIOUSLY? You need $100,000 to plant a church? And what does that $100,000 get you? At best, it will get you a high impact Sunday morning service where people can bring their friends and experience moving worship music, quality childrens ministry and relevant preaching. At worst, it will buy you a cooler version of the already existing church down the street…a place where people come to hear the good music, have their kids taught and get their ‘word’ for the week. In other words, you (as a church planter) kill yourself to gather a group of people, inspire them, pour thousands of hours into advertising, rehearsing and planning and spend $100,000 so you can get people to come to a building on a Sunday morning in the hopes that some of them may possibly find community and a relationship with Christ. WHEW!

After reading all that, the only thing I can think is that THERE MUST BE AN EASIER AND MORE EFFECTIVE WAY THAN THIS! Especially when you consider the fact that 8 out of 10 church plant fail within the first year, this all just seems unnecessary and almost irresponsible. The more that I think about, the more I am realizing that $100,000 gets you a good Sunday morning show and I am sick and tired of the show…and I know that I’m not the only one. Over the past 2 years, we have visited many, many churches in hopes of connecting and finding true Biblical community but in most cases, all we experienced was the show. These well meaning Pastors did enough to get you in, make you feel some goose bumps and keep you coming back. And as we drove home, the same sad scene repeated itself over and over and over again. We would look at each other and say “so, what did you think?” We would try to put a good spin on what we just experienced but eventually, the truth would come out and we end up with the same conclusion: WHAT’S THE POINT? Is this seriously what church is all about? Did we push this same poop on people all those years and called it “community” and “church”. We did! In hindsight, our motives sucked! We would never admit it but we were obsessed not with people but with the ABC’s. Attendance, Buildings, Cash. In our eyes, if you came to church consistently, gave in tithes and attended a small group, then you were cool in our book and hopefully in God’s also. What a crock! I see it now and I have repented of my crappy motives every day since then.

I don’t want the show any longer! I will finally admit that you can have the most mind blowing Sunday morning service and 1 million people can come and jump up and down and fall down in the aisles and speak in tonuges but 999,998 of those same people will leave unchanged and model an uncaring, unloving and irelevant Jesus to everyone around them. I refuse to perpetuate that garbage any longer…I refuse to allow my family to suffer so I can get that…I refuse to subject 1 person to the false idea that coming to a building and singing a song and hearing a sermon makes you a follower of Christ. I SO long for something simpler, more pure, more Biblical. I crave community…not small groups or cell groups or community groups. Just to grow with a group of people that I would give my life for and vice versa…to embody the love of Christ to everyone we come into contact with…to laugh together, cry together, eat together, pray together and follow Jesus together. Simple! It doesn’t take $100,000 to do that…

I have been re-reading “The Tangible Kingdom” over the last few days and it has really been messing me up big time. I read it about 2 years ago and really liked it but now that we’ve actually moved ahead with this church plant and are “doing it”, I’m really beginning to evaluate what “church” is and is not in a whole new light. I don’t want to perpetuate modes and ideas that aren’t working in our postmodern culture but I also don’t want to discard current methods just becasue they’re part of the attractional church. Anyway, I just read this quote and I have to share it.

“Church must not be the goal of the gospel anymore. Church should not be the focus of our efforts or the banner we hold up to explain what we’re about. Church should be what ends up happening as a natural response to people wanting to follow us, be with us and be like us as we are following Christ.”

After a lot of prayer and tossing names around, Paige and I settled on “Sanctuary Church” for the church that we are in the midst of planting.  As we have begun to tell people about the church, some have asked how we came up with the name, which is a good question.  So, here it is:

The word “sanctuary” has multiple meanings.  For instance, in medieval times, Christian churches were built on land that was considered a ‘holy spot’.  This could have been a place where a saint was buried or a miracle occurred or a martyrdom happened.  The place, and therefore the church built there, was considered to have been sanctified (made holy) by what happened there.  But there was also a special place set aside in European Christian churches that was extraordinarily holy and sanctified…a place where God’s presence was physically tangible and heavy.  The place around the altar was known as the “sanctuary”.  This was also present in the Old Testament and the Jewish Temple.  In the very center of the temple, there was a room called the “holy of holies” which housed the Ark of the Covenant and the very presence of God dwelt.  This was known as the “sanctuary” to the Jews because it was holy and set apart.

Another meaning for sanctuary (and the one that I like) is a “place of asylum or safety”.  In ancient times, a criminal could flee to a church or temple and declare “sanctuary” which would protect them from arrest and prosecution.  Unlike modern times, people saw the church as a place of safety, forgiveness and grace and in times of trouble, they would flee to her to find that mercy that they so desperately needed.

I so desperately want Sanctuary Church to be a combination of both of these meanings.  God is raising up a group of people in this country that are set apart for Him, devoted wholly to His name and willing to die if that’s what it takes to see His kingdom come and His will be done.  But we are not concerned about having a special building or structure to house God’s presence…NO, when Jesus died, He split the veil in the temple which allowed His people to be His temple, His church, His SANCTUARY!  We will embody the physical, manifest presence of God in our daily lives as we feed the hungry, give hope to the hopeless and BE Jesus to those who don’t know Him.

But Sanctuary Church will also be a place of safety and refuge for those who need grace, forgiveness and mercy.  They will find a place where people will love them and accept them no matter what they’ve done, what they look like or what sexual orientation they are.  Jesus hung out with the rankest of sinners and loved them and we plan on doing the same.  But this ‘sanctuary’ will not be a place of safety from risks but a safe place to take risks and a place to deepen a risk all faith! We’re not going to hunker down and wait for Jesus to come back…we will risk everything we have to show everything that He is to this world that desperately needs a reason for their existence.

So, in a nutshell, that’s why we chose the name SANCTUARY.

I was talking to a pastor that I highly respect the other day about the church we are planting and he said something that I have been thinking about ever since.  We were talking about keeping things simple and not deviating from the core values that God has given us and he said “there are some aspects to your vision that can be changed but there are some that are non-negotiable.  Determine the hills that you are willing to die on!”  I thought at first that maybe he had been watching a little too much Braveheart but the more I thought about it, I realized that he was speaking the truth.

I have seen SO many church planters filled with passion with a vision directly from God who are intent on changing the world but when you talk to them a few years later, they’re burnt out and on the verge of quitting.  Why?  There are many different reasons but the primary one that they all have in common is that they let someone come in and steer them away from the simple, powerful plan that God gave them in the beginning.  I heard so many of these guys/gals say that God gave them a clear, concise vision to reach their context but slowly but surely, they got bogged down in womens ministry, men’s softball ministry and dozens of other “specialized” ministries within the church.  There is nothing inherantly wrong with any of these ministries…they are just wrong when they muddle up the beauty of simplicity.

So, I know that I will not discover most of my “hills” that I’m willing to die on until we’re a fully functioning community but I know that God has spoken to me over the past few years about a hill or two that we will protect with our lives. 

Hill #1:  We will not measure success or failure by how many people we can cram into a building for a church service…getting “butts in seats” does not a disciple make.  Success for us is measured by the quality of life in our faith community and the people that we serve.  I once talked to a pastor that I highly admired that planted a church from scratch and within a few years his church was running over 2,000 people on Sunday morning.  I thought he would be pumped up, excited and full of insight on what I could do to replicate his success.  Instead, I found a man that was miserable!  He was miserable because he admitted that while they were drawing bigger and bigger crowds every week, barely anyone was becoming true disciples of  Christ.  He admitted that even those in his inner circle had shallow spiritual lives and were not manifesting the fruit of the Spirit.  His simple vision for reaching the lost was turned into a chase for numbers. 

Success for this type of church can be measured by 3 stats: how many, how much and how often.  How many people are coming on Sunday morning/how many services are we having/how many decisions this month.  How much tithes and offering is coming in/how much was given in the stewardship campaign this month.  And how often are people coming to church sponsored functions/small groups/youth group, how often is my church mentioned in Christian magazines, etc.

Now, before any one jumps on me, I’m not against church services, small groups or tithing.  I just think that we need a different scorecard to measure success for a church that expects to reach the unchurched/dechurched in 21st century America.  I mean, come on, even Willow Creek, the Mecca of seeker sensitive, realized that though they were drawing a heck of a crowd, they weren’t making many true disciples (see the Reveal study).  I am hoping to free myself up from depending on the church for any type of salary/housing/insurance so we can focus on making disciples and serving the community around us and not be held hostage by ‘numbers’.  The entire reason that I want to plant a church instead of pastoring an existing church is because we want to create a culture of humility, service and focus on others right off the bat without having to deconstruct 50 years of “church culture” that has impeded the mission of God.  The key to this actually working is me being accountable to people that will hold my feet to the fire and not allow me to fall into the how many, how much and how often trap that is natural for a pastor to fall into.

Hill #2:  We Will Be Known for Our Love.  We will try our hardest to live out all of the red letters of Jesus in our lives but this one is a deal breaker.  In John 13: 34-35, Jesus said “I give you a new commandment that you love one another.  Just as as I have loved you, you should also love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  Wow!!!   So simple yet so absolutely mind blowing!  The ONLY measuring stick for discipleship as far as Jesus was concerned was love.  Not Bible knowledge…not church attendance…not $130 million church buildings…just love, love, love!  How did we screw that up?  This mandate from Jesus gives me hope for the future of the church in America because you don’t need a campaign with a cool tag line to love.  You don’t need a super charismatic leader to whip up a frenzied crowd to love.  You don’t need a denomination to love.  You just need regular people transformed by the love of Christ and then turning around and showing that same love to everyone that they encounter on a daily basis.  How revolutionary yet how countercultural that would be for the church. 

We should be having committe meetings on how we can love each other better!  We should be having conferences with thousands of Christ followers brainstorming on better ways to love and then go directly into the city where the conference is and putting those ideas into practice.  Love should shape our budgets, our gatherings, our ideas and everything else we do as a church.  If it doesn’t, we aren’t a church, we are an institution who has lost contact with it’s founder.  I so desire to be a part of a community of people that just love, plain and simple.  We ravenously love God, we sacrificially love people and we make disciples who will do the exact same thing.

Well, those are our 1st two hills.  I hope there aren’t too many more but we I will definitely be willing to die on these 2 hills!

Anyway, check out his latest blog to understand what I’m saying:

http://www.garylamb.org/2009/10/31/transition-from-pastor-to-real-world/