From time to time, I read a blog by Tim Miller (a friend of a friend) called These are My Church Clothes. A few weeks ago he wrote, “churches say they want to reach lost people, until they figure out what that means.”
For reasons I will keep to myself, the unfortunate truth of this statement has never resonated more strongly with me. That is, with one significant clarification: I do not believe the root problem is with “churches,” but rather, that “individuals say they want to reach lost people, until they figure out what that means” – personally… for their own life.
Without argument, we know we should be reaching people with God’s love. We want to do it! That is, until we recognize this means our church will no longer exclusively (or even primarily) exist to meet our needs. A church bent on impacting non-members with God’s love is not a safe harbor for personal, spiritual complacency. It is extremely challenging to admit some practices and experiences we guard in tender sanctity aren’t— nay, shouldn’t be important to everyone. It’s not so much that there may no longer be room in the budget or in the bulletin or on the calendar for my favorite ministry, or that I might lose my position or comfortable spiritual identity (though jagged little pills, indeed). But, even more difficult to swallow—having to face the reality that my sorrow (or even animosity) over the pending loss of these things reveals something about myself and the selfishness of my faith. I don’t want to see my reflection in that particular mirror.
“But wait… there’s more!” It’s not just about reaching lost people. Believers want to worship in unity, until we figure out what that means… personally. We want to disciple to real Christian maturity, until we figure out what that costs… personally. We want to minister/serve like Jesus, until we figure out that’s more than a one hour a week attendance effort… personally. We want to fellowship/partner in lasting, meaningful relationships, until we figure out that this requires availability, transparency, and covenant… personally. "Now, how much would you pay?"
It is my experience that most churched people are more resistant to change than the lost people we want to see transformed. Not resistant to the idea of change; just the personal implications of it.
Tim writes, “what they [churches] want is for their methodology to work.”
We hire people and read books and attend conferences and adopt programs to this end. But, a caterpillar can’t fly. He's not the wrong species, just the wrong form. A rather intimate personal (not environmental) transformation is necessary.
I am very challenged by this. Church is not an entity unto itself. A church can only be what its members are willing to be— can only accomplish by the active service of its collective individuals. Heaven help us. So, what do you think?
3 comments:
[My friend Katherine sent me the following comment through other electronic channels. She was having difficulty logging in here and ask me to post her thoughts.]
You know I have been contempalting the subject of discipleship ,since yesterday (when I tried to comment to no avail.) Anyway,I believe it really comes back there again, you see if a part of our "walking daily" doesn't include "learning" how to walk, then we have missed the boat. Let me back up a bit, when I first came to the Lord, that personal one on one discipleship was imperative to my growth, that coupled with my own desire to grow. I had to ask the questions no one was answering automatically, I had to be under teaching that explained cleary what God expected of me, what His mandate to the Body is, that really to be" saved and sanctified" is only step one....but if no one had told me perhaps I would have been content to sit on my "blessed- assurance",and be persuaded into thinking that that was sufficient. We cannot assume in the "church", that all are aware,(no matter how long they have been saved) that some things go "without saying". The teaching, of fundamentals is alot of times lost, perhaps overlooken,maybe assumed, but the impact they have on the "individual walk" is life transforming, the overflow of that level of teaching cannot help but happen! You see that's God"s way.And Jesus was "Master" (teacher) because all of humanity has a need to learn, the basics so that the can be carried on "within" and "outside" the walls of the "church".
Often we come to church- a place that is set up to facilitate discipleship, evangelism, ministry, worship, and fellowship. To ensure these five elements are present we make sure our board members are aware of the church’s happenings, the pastors know our prayer requests, someone is organizing a fill-in-the-blank, etcetera. These things aren’t bad, there has to be organization to our organization, but I wonder if it wouldn’t benefit us to try some reverse thinking here- like the blog suggests.
I’m sure we’ve heard it before, but let me repeat- we need to bring things to the church. I am personally tired of coming and expecting things to happen or be there for me- for the musical worship time to lead me to reverence for and reflection on God, for the sermon to teach me…
What can I bring to the body?
When the church (not the location but the people) start bringing what they have to offer, perhaps it will become a place to pool resources and focus on the people who are hurting and unaware of grace; a place where I personally invest in others to the end of being Christ-like as opposed to being fed; which is active not passive.
What does that church look like?
I’ve realized that my church complacency has been born out of my concern for what I need from church. To get beyond my selfishness I try to find others who are interested in something more than what they get from church but I haven’t found very many. And sometimes (but more often than not), lack of partnership is enough to demotivate.
To address an aspect of Katherine’s comment, I agree that we assume our fellow congregant’s spiritual maturity, and so ignore teaching moments. I just finished “Sex. God.” by Rob Bell. I love his writing because he doesn’t assume that well versed Christians are reading his book(s). He speaks colloquially about the Bible and Christian references, which widens his reading audience to include Christians and non-Christians alike. Fantastic move Bell. So, how do we do that? How do we stop assuming that Sunday school has taught us everything and that we haven’t achieved maturation in Christ?
Holy crap. That's what I think. I don't know who you are, but you did a much better job of writing my post than I did. I couldn't agree more and will be quoting you soon.
Thank you for breaking down "the church" and putting the responsibility solely in our hands. I mean to address each of us personally when I say "the church", but I think you hit on something here. When we see "the church" it's easy to immediately shift the responsibility onto the shoulders of the church's leaders. "If my pastor would provide us opportunities to reach the lost, then we'd reach the lost!" But that sentimentality couldn't be further from the truth.
Thanks again. Really good thoughts.
Btw, the word verification below spells out "drugvx". Are you sending some sort of weird subliminal messages here?
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