They Like Jesus But Not The Church – A Review

Not too long ago, I reread my copy of They Like Jesus, but Not the Church by Dan Kimball (2007).

Kimball gears his book at those wanting to get out of the Christian subculture and engage people in spiritual conversation.

Most of Part I is about how he came to that discovery in his own life as a pastor and church planter.

I found myself nodding in agreement too many times, guilty as charged.

Most of us, including many of you who read this blog, would probably agree that

we are too busy inside the church to know those outside the church.

This was one of the seminal books in my missional thinking. Many others have followed in its path, such as

• Barna’s unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters, and to some extent (my review of unChristian)
• Evangelism Where You Live: Engaging Your Community by Stephen Pate (my review of Evangelism Where You Live
• Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and How to Reach Them: Ed Stetzer

I’m sure there are other books, but these three immediately come to mind on the theme of re-engaging the culture.

Part 1 of They Like Jesus

Part 1 of Dan Kimball’s book describes how the North American culture is changing.

These are not statistical observations, but observations based on his real-life conversations and interactions with the culture.

What he states may seem obvious now, as many others have followed in Kimball’s footsteps.  I need not spend a lot of time here.

He is brutally honest about how the church has failed to stay connected with the culture.  The message may not have failed, but we are failing in our method.

Part 2 of They Like Jesus

Part 2 asks the question: What do emerging generations think about the Church?

This 6-chapter section reflects hundreds of personal conversations that Kimball has had, and many of the same things that Barna’s statistical research revealed in unChristian.

Anyone who seeks to engage the current culture shapers should be aware of these items.  This part provides an excellent window into North American Culture.

A list of non-Christian perceptions of the church addressed in this book are as follows (taken directly from the table of contents):

• The church is an organized religion with a political agenda
• The church is judgmental and negative
• The church is dominated by males and oppresses females
• The church is homophobic
• The church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong
• The church is full of fundamentalists who take the whole Bible literally

Part 3 of They Like Jesus

Part 3 is on how the church can respond.

His book has excellent ideas about conversation, dialogue, and theological discussions about conversational evangelism.

I like what he has done with the Bridge Illustration, by adding a 2nd chasm to cross – that second chasm is the Christian subculture that has so alienated seekers, that one needs to build bridges of connection there as part of the gospel explanation process.

Bridging that gap by being in the world but not of it, spending time in conversation with non-Christians are all part of that trust building process.

Main takeaways:

1. “We must see ourselves as missionaries vs. having an evangelism department or program.”
2. “We must become listeners of people and watchers of culture.”

Personal Update 2024

Though this book was written in 2007, the advice in it is timeless.

I’ve had friends who once loved the Church choose to leave it. The mix of Christian nationalism, mixed in with the political ethos of the day and the near veneration of their political leader has soured many on the values they were taught in their upbringing.

I have friends who retreated from any kind of Christian engagement in the world because it doesn’t seem worth it. The negative image of nationalistic Christianity has soured the conversation with stereotypes that are hard to overcome.

I was in a movement that equated a vote for a particular candidate to a vote for God’s anointed chosen, and a vote for the opposing party to a vote for the anti-Christ. They framed political battles as spiritual warfare for the soul of a nation. The entire ministry refocused around the social transformation that will come by praying in revival on the level of a national awakening.

More today than ever, people outside the Christian faith don’t like the Church. Political extremism mixed in with religious framing just sours many. We’ve gone astray.

What we can do is have honest conversations with people.

We can point them to Jesus, who loved the poor, cared for the brokenhearted, and served those in need. We can point to Jesus who lived as a refugee immigrant in his early childhood, who cared for people of other nationalities and religions, who mixed in with everyone. We can point to the teachings of Jesus to love the neighbor.

Jesus was not into the politics of hating the other.

Let me ask you this?

What can you do this week to have a spiritual conversation with someone outside of your church without stepping into the quagmire of today’s politics?