A Name for Being Alive, But…

By Stephen Rankin

A group of people in the church I serve is reading through the Bible in a year. In the New Testament section of the schedule we’re following, we’ve made it to Revelation. We recently read through those letters to the seven churches. For a long time, Laodicea held my attention, with its warning about lukewarmness. But lately, our Lord’s words to Sardis have been gripping my attention:

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: “I know your works; you have a name of being alive, but you are dead…If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I come to you” (Revelation 3:1,3).

“You have a reputation for being alive but are dead.”

Ouch. Would you want Jesus to say that about your church?

If a church is dead, how does it manage to look alive? We could answer several ways, but this essay is one article, not a book, so let me focus on one serious problem. It’s the old assumption of quantity over quality, or “more is always better.” If a church’s membership is rising, if worship attendance numbers are climbing, then God must be blessing, right? And bigger is always better, too, isn’t it? Bigger scope, bigger budget, bigger outreach (more people reached), bigger building, then the church must be alive, right?

Let’s contemplate this assumption about more is better to help us see how the Lord’s criticism of Sardis might apply to us today. Of course, the deeper problem is not quantity, not numbers per se, but the value we associate with the numbers. On certain topics like worship attendance, more just seems better. We take increases as a sign of God’s blessing, and if God is blessing, then we must be doing something right, right? We must be bearing fruit. And if so, we should do more of it, right?

As Coach Lee Corso of “College Game Day” is famous for saying, “Not so fast, my friend!” Let’s think about the problem in the assumption. Consider, for example, the importance of small groups in the life of a congregation. Small groups are understood to be the places of intimate fellowship, of going deep, of transparency and transformation in community. A church with an active small group component to their ministries seems to epitomize health. Indeed, most Christians recognize that real discipleship requires this sort of participation. And growing churches always have a healthy small group ministry.

Notice, though, the question that gets all of our attention. “How many small groups do you have?” Whatever the answer, more will always be taken as better. The brute fact of increasing the number of small groups is taken as surefire proof of church vitality. What might happen, however, if we asked, instead, “What is happening to people because of their small group experience?” “What changes do you see in your community life that seem connected to small groups?” The “how many” question shows up on church reports. The “what is happening” question does not. No church official has ever asked me to assess the quality of experience small groups members are having, no query as to whether my people are demonstrating a greater degree of Christlikeness. Such questions are too cumbersome and, by comparison to numbers, too “fuzzy.”

Given the real possibility that we can look alive and still be dead, we should ask the question that presses upon this situation, but which can feel too intimidating to ask. Whether our numbers are big or small, are we producing fruit, the “fruit that will last,” as Jesus put it in John 15:16? The sheer fact of a growing number of small groups or an increase in the number of participants is worth celebrating, but we should not stop with a fixation on the numbers. They might tell us something about church vitality, but not much.

I think what is happening in most small groups is a bigger problem than we realize, because, if we have them at all in our churches, the brute fact of their presence gives the impression of vitality. In my experience, however, small groups suffer too much from consumerist felt needs. They’re tailored to personal interest rather than aiming at the goal of maturity. They also easily drift from their original purpose. Again, what is lost, if it ever was present to begin with, is the vision of scriptural holiness. If our small groups are not stimulating growth in Christlikeness, then they are not producing the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11) normative for Christian discipleship. Unless Christlikeness is the goal of our small groups, then whatever other benefits we can derive from them, they fall woefully short of the goal of the Christian life. We should notice.

Maybe our failing to assess the faithfulness of our churches by using misleading measures puts us in the same category as the Sardis church. If so, how might we find Jesus’ words applying to us when he says, “I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God” (v. 2). The Greek word for “perfect” carries the sense of being fulfilled or brought to completion. Had Sardis run out of steam, somehow? Had they suffered mission drift? Whatever the case was for Sardis, it’s clear that they had found faithfulness to the Lord too difficult and had begun to blunt the sharp edges of holiness. On the other hand, verse 4 says that some in the Sardis church had not “soiled their clothes.” Clothing (robes) in Revelation is a symbol for good works done in faith, that is, works done with the character of Christ and in line with the mission of Christ. Some remained faithful. We can learn from them, too.

As I said, as a believer in Christ and as a pastor of a church, reading about Sardis pulls me up short. Every time I read the words, “You have the name of being alive, but you are dead,” I feel convicted. Jesus’ admonition thus calls: “Remember, then, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent.” Lord, let it be so in us.