What would happen if you suddenly raised the bar?

One of Neil Cole’s mantras is “We want to lower the bar of how church is done and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple.” I’ve written about it before, but raising the bar of what it means to be a disciple is just one of those topics that seems bottomless when you’ve spent 23 years with a very low bar.

A question that I have been pondering lately is one for you professional clergy out there.

Jesus had a very high bar for his followers; his call was absolute: Leave everything and follow me. He even went out of his way to chase off followers who had been following him but who weren’t 100% committed. He didn’t tolerate a middle ground.

So what would happen if you showed up to church one Sunday, read them one or more of Jesus’ ultimatums, and then told them this:

From now on, we will live by these words of Jesus. If you want to follow him to any lesser degree than he requires, we will not be the church for you. There are plenty of other churches who will be glad to take your money and include you on their rolls with no other demands of you, but we will no longer be one of those churches. From now on, we will follow Jesus absolutely, and we will help you to do the same if that is your desire.

If you are here and have never made the decision to be a follower of Jesus, we invite you to do so with the same conditions that he gave 2,000 years ago. Or, just hang around to see what this crazy experiment of actually living like Jesus produces. Either way, we don’t want you to have any illusions as to what following Jesus really means. He told those who were thinking of following him to first count the cost of doing so.

Obviously I’m sure you would phrase it differently, but the point is this: What if you drew a line in the sand once and for all? As Jesus did 2,000 years, tell people that they’re either in or out; there is no middle ground.

I’m sure it would get crazy in a hurry. Would you even keep 10% of those who regularly attended? Could you continue to pay the upkeep on the building and facilities (or even come close)? What would the fallout be?

More importantly, though, what would prevent you from doing it? Why don’t we do this every Sunday? I’ve been in church for 23 years now, but I can’t ever remember someone making sure I understood that it was all or nothing. If they had, how different would my life be now? How different would our churches be now? How different would the Church be?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. I am honestly posing this question to you guys as someone who is genuinely inquisitive. I am speaking from a position of significant ignorance.

It’s just a question that has been stuck in my head for over a year now, and I can’t shake it.