Welcome to Jurassic Park Denomination! Home of the soon to be extinct church...

A visit to some churches is like a step back in time. If a young person in the early twenty-first century wants to know how they did church in America back in the early to mid-twentieth century, all he or she has to do is visit an established, traditional church in the community. 

Messer compares attending a typical church to experiencing a time warp similar to that found in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park “Welcome to Jurassic Park Denomination. You are now entering the lost world of the prehistoric past. Our tour begins in the board library. Here we notice two rare species. First the board member always pushing for more exegetical sermons form the Old Testament, the bron-Torah-saurus. Next to him you can see this creature’s rival, the board member who likes lighter sermons, the tricertopical. On the right you can see the board member who loves to study the end times, velocirapture. Next, we proceed to the church kitchen. Here we find a board member who loves grazing at potlucks, socials, and outdoor picnics, the barbequesaurus. 

The real problem lie in the church’s methodology or how it “does church,” reflected in its particular church model. So many in our churches are convinced that we must conduct church the way we’ve always done it. As one old-time (the traditionsaurus) puts it, “If the organ and the great hymns of the faith were good enough for Jesus and Paul, they must  be good enough for us!” 

Bill Easum writes: “Like the dinosaur, they [churches] have a voracious appetite. Much of their time, energy, and money is spent on foraging for food, so that little time is left to feed the unchurched...Food is everywhere. But many refuse to change their methods and structures to minister to people where they are in ways they can understand. Like the dinosaur, their necks are too stiff or their eyes too nearsighted.” 

Easum concludes: “Congregations must deal with their stiff necks or their nearsightedness, or go the way of the dinosaur. Some congregations will wake up in time to deal effectively with their situations. Their necks will be softened and their eyesight will be corrected. We call this refocusing or revitalizing the church. Others will wake up, but it will be too late. However, too many will never wake up and will simply pass from the scene like the dinosaur.

Text is from Malphur's book, A New Kind of Church