As a continuation of Driftology 101, I would like to comment on a few points of that article.

1. The example I gave was “real-time”, real life example.  It was not given to “get back” at anyone in particular, but just a documentation of a real, present-day drift.

2. Some may say, “But what is wrong with shortening the skirt from mid-calf to knees?”  The problem with drift is that it will not stop at the knees.  Yes, it might stop at the knees for the first generation of drifters, but the second generation of drifters will always take it x-degrees further.

3. God is not so much concerned as to exactly where we are at, but where are we headed.  More like the world, or less like the world?  More inclinations to the flesh, or less?

Now, as the main point for this post, I would like to tlak about the difference between drifting and falling overboard.  My analogy may not be the best, but take it for what it is meant to be: the distinction between a fall and backsliding.

Suppose John Doe is in the river of life.  He has set his boat against the current of human tendency and is rowing towards godliness, charity, and holiness.  In a turbulent section of the river, John makes the stupid mistake of standing up and looking back over his shoulder.  The boat hits a turbulent wave of water at that moment and John falls overboard.

A fellow-boater rescues him, and soon John, shaken but grateful, is back in his place, oars in hand.

John was not guilty of drifting.

A person that happens to fall into a sin while in this pilgrimage is not necessarily a drifter.  The drifter may well console himself by looking at John Doe and thinking, “At least I am still in my boat!”  He is hanging on for all his might so that he does not fall overboard, but he is not rowing, and the stream is carrying him along on a downward course.

To speak without allegory, John Doe may fall into something dreadful, like willfully lusting at the magazine covers at the Wal-mart checkout.  It is not a habit, but he happens to be off-guard one day, and “Splash!”, there he falls.

He has not drifted.  When he recovers, he is still dead-set against pornography as he ever was, and none of his other personal convictions have slipped an inch.  He confesses before the brethren with tears, pleading for the prayers of the saints.  Meanwhile, Joe Drifter kind of pats himself on the back.  He has just slipped downstream in his convictions a few yards, and feels a bit put out that John Doe had just moved past him, going in the other direction.  So when he sees John Doe fall overboard, he shakes his head with a smirk- “Yeh, look at those folks upstream…”

Next, Lord willing: How can we discern if we are drifting?

Various recent happenings have prompted my mind to the subject of church drift. First, I received an article called, “Sitting in the Gates of Sodom”. This piece, while dealing with the subject of the church drifting over into politics, made me think of another similar article which I read many years ago called “Pitching towards Sodom”.

I cannot find this article now, but it spoke of how Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom, only to end up living downtown in the end. Scripture does not indicate whether he intended to end up there or not. One thing is sure; he had no intentions of losing his wife and other family members in its destruction, on that first day when he pitched his tent just a little closer than where it had been the day before. Just a little closer…to losing everything he had, even his moral integrity.

During the last 20 years, I have read and studied church history and revival history with great interest. Motivating this pursuit have been a couple of nagging questions:

1. What causes revival?

2. What causes revivals to die?

For the moment I will skip over question 1, and presume that we have found ourselves in the middle of a God-given revival of real Christianity. Death has given away to life, and sin to holiness. Divine charity has driven away Self, and hope has kindled a flame of fire in our soul.

Will it die? If so, when?

One of the next provocations to ponder more on drift was that of visiting a congregation which I knew of from some dozen years ago. Sitting in the meeting, I could not help but ponder on the changes from a decade ago, with great sadness. Thinking of people I knew, both still in the congregation and some no longer there, I wondered if I would have believed it a dozen years ago, had someone told me where those folks would end up.

And yet, I foresaw it somewhat. About 10 years ago I had been asked to preach on a Wednesday evening meeting, and spoke on the subject of “enduring to the end”. In that message, I mentioned how that historically it has been a general statistic that only about one out of ten people in a revival will still be hotly burning after 20 years have passed by.

Well, the minister of the congregation told me later that he had gotten some ‘feedback’ on that comment. There were those who thought that was just a little bit “hard”.

Ten years have passed. It was a conservative Anabaptist-type church, and stood for non-resistance, separation from the world, modest and plain apparel (with average dress-length being probably 6” from the floor and mostly low-key, solid colors), head-veils that covered on average probably 80% of the hairline, debt-free living, simple housing, small businesses, brotherhood care (no insurance unless required by law), street-preaching/tract-distribution of some sort going on basically every week, etc.

Shall I share a few ‘statistics’?

A now has televisions in his house. His daughters wear slits in their skirts and coverings that basically cover their bun.

B Now wears lace on her dresses, and has her children watching stupid little children’s DVDs—and I call comic-type DVDs ‘stupid’ even if they are a Bible-based theme.

C used to hunger and thirst after holy living. Dedicated to mission work, dressed modest and plain with skirts almost to ankles. Now wears make-up, jewelry, and no veil at all.

D built the biggest, nicest house in the neighborhood, with many thousands of dollars just in cabinet tops. The unsaved in the community mocked in derision at “those plain folks”.

E also built a new house and is badly in debt.

F did not build a new house that I am aware of, but is bad enough in debt that he has to work like crazy to keep up with things. His daughters wear form-fitting skirts, and son sports some classy side-burns—things he would have not allowed in the past.

G has kept his personal standards, but his children and wife have not. Again we see the bright, flowery dresses, and skirts to just barely below the knees. Veils have shrunken about 50% from a decade ago.

H has pretty well kept himself as well, and his wife, but has lost the majority of his children. He no longer speaks out against things, although he personally would hold pretty much the same personal standard.

I is in the same boat as H, not willing to say much even though he does not like what he sees. He has called one person “divisive” who still stands for the original positions of the church.

J married K — Bright splashy clothes and bluejeans are the go, with a collection of “toys” [meaning: "unneeded, expensive tools used for toys"]. Very little evangelism like it used to be.

L came from a conservative Anabaptist background. I saw his picture with a necktie just recently. His wife had the reputation a few years back of “running into town every two weeks to come up with a new outfit for church”.

M built a new house with all the “American necessities”, called “luxuries” in most of the world. Not a big house, but enough $$ to send several missionary families to South America for a couple of decades. The old house really was still in good shape.

N has threatened to “hurt someone” [meaning shoot them], and his daughters now wear clothes he once would have called worldly.

Is it all bad news? (In the cases above, these happenings would not have been practiced 10 years ago.)

No…

Z came from the local community, a pot-smoking, beer-drinking, good-ol’-boy American. He is now where the main church used to be in his values, wondering why almost everyone else is headed where he came from.

Y was a young fellow in the church who dedicated himself to God, live or die. Has held his values firm the last I knew, and has reputation for godliness, stability, and holiness.

X has held pretty firm in convictions, making a minor ‘liberalizing’ change in an area or two, but making others in a more ‘conservative’ way. Has a reputation from all sides as a servant.

I could go on. My point is that my statistic is proving itself to be fairly accurate: 20 years down the road after a revival, only one or two out of ten still have the fire burning in them. In this case, only 10 years have passed. What will the next ten bring?

To be honest, I do not even like to think about it. It is too sad.

Now we come to the final provocation that caused this article. I just finished listening to a taped sermon about “2nd-generation” Christianity. It was given at a youth conference, and as such it was directed towards that side of the “generation-gap” problem. In spite of how well I liked the sermon overall, I had to think of what needs to be said to the parents of those drifting youth. They are at fault as well.

I think of one of the families listed above that has a generation gap. The father had, and still has, a strong personal convictions in many areas. Yet when his teenage sons wanted to indulge in things the father used to speak out against as fleshly entertainments that were detrimental to spirituality, he did not seem to have the guts to ‘just say no’. No, they were not asking to smoke pot or have some rock-n-roll in the tape-player. They just wanted to pitch the tent just a little closer to Sodom’s green grasses.

“I mean, what is wrong with green grass, after all? Did not God make the grass pretty green?”

In my early Christian life, there was a song I used to listen to. The words come floating through my mind now, even though it has been years since I have heard it (Put good stuff in your mind when your young, boys!!)

…Farther away, drifting farther away.

Please, precious LORD, send conviction today.

Disgraceful living, in pleasures of sin,

LORD it’s all they will know without you….

Fathers and mothers, you have the God-given injunction to help instill in your children a hatred for the flesh and its outworkings; a healthy fear of God.

No, this will not save your children or bypass them from the need to be born again by the Holy Ghost. But it will provide a base for them, an anchor to help keep them from drifting along with a sin-sick world that has little or no ethical or moral anchoring place—let alone an anchor into holy living. Building strong personal convictions in children is an anchor for them. Later, when the child becomes an adult, the anchor will be pulled up and the young adult has to find his own way in life. What will happen, or what has happened, when your child’s anchor is/was pulled? Do they drift downstream with the rest of society? Or do they have “an unction within” that moves them against the current, going deeper and further in holiness unto the Lord and charity unto men?

To be continued…

As an introduction to this blog, I am pasting the following, taken from an e-mail sent to me:

Ask the average “plain person” what he is patterning his life after, and 9.5 out of 10 will tell you the Bible is his pattern. This answer is great, in as far as it goes.

But we must go beyond mere Biblicism and pattern our lives after Christ. The one does not exclude the other, but following Christ is brutally spiritual in nature; while being Biblical may be nothing more than a theological exercise. And yet, those who follow Christ and focus on Him are the best Biblicists (whether they know it or not) that you can find.

Think of the Ephesian church. (Rev. 2)

I’m sick and tired of cheap spirituality, where people become merely “liberated, enthused and spiritual,” when real spirituality has the cross/death/discipleship (and Jesus) at its core.

And I’m weary of the opposite rationale that hinges everything on the fear of apostasy, legislates a form of Biblicism to keep the church faithful, and has a 50-point plan to keep the church “safe”.

Discipleship is neither of these—it’s personally (and then collectively) following Christ with commitment enough that all of life is ordered by that devotion. (And my wife and children will be the first to recognize it).

Revival can happen just as easily in settings that aren’t perfect positionally. In fact, our sense of already having everything right can be a real hindrance to revival. Being 100% “right” on baptism, dress, etc. is not the issue; following Christ with absolute commitment to doing his will is.

Being in the Truth is not having the right positions/doctrines on everything; being in the Truth is knowing Him that is the Truth.