Transformation

One thing that came out in the conference that was news to a number of people I spoke with: George Barna has left the building. In other words, he is out of organized church, been doing house church for (I think he said) about a year and a half. This (I believe) is a new revelation since Revolution was published.

Basically there were 9 points that were the catalysts for George's decision to "join the revolution" (quote) . At the Revolution blog there is a post by Todd Hiestand which highlights all this, so I won't rehash it here.

This is an interesting development to me. I felt, when reading "Revolution", that George Barna was concerned with finding ways to keep people in church. Now maybe that was just my impression, nonetheless it was surprising to me to hear that when he "discovered there really was a revolution going on, he decided to join that which he measured" (quote).

But the point that got me most was when he said, "transformation doesn't happen in the church." Just for clarification, in this case he meant church with a "little c", the organized or institutional church; not Church with a "Big C", the Body of Christ.

I could wax philosophical here, but I won't.

I'm trying to avoid the discussion that "It's Jesus who transforms, not the church." I think we all know without a doubt that Jesus is who transforms lives, so I'm not suggesting that it's the church's responsibility or that the church can transform lives without Jesus' involvement. I'm not trying to separate Jesus from the church on this issue.

What I'm looking for is the question of why transformation by Jesus (according to George barna) seems to happen more outside the church (little c) than inside it.

So questions for you:

• Do you think transformation happens in the church? Why?
  
• If you don't believe transformation happens in the church, why not?
• What are we doing right/wrong in the church in discipling people's relationships with Jesus that does/does not transform their life?