Phil Yancey wrote a final column for Christianity Today that has been resonating with my pondering of late.

Those who know me well know that I spend a good deal of my time on the issues of form and structure of church. Not something I write on much because to be honest, it's quite boring most of the time.

The tradition of church I am involved with and ordained into is part of the "Stone-Campbell" movement. The movement was originally about church unity and finding form and expression of church in New Testament principals and experience. It's a worthy goal however we can easily get caught up in silly questions like "Should we have musical instruments in church?" and it really starts to miss the point.

Getting back to my pondering...

Like I said, I research a lot of form and structure questions because I believe that context is important to the shape of a local congregation and can not be externally imposed by either a church governing body or by society and culture at large and the latter does seem to be playing a leading role in how we structure our churches.

So my thoughts are, what if everything we do in church is counter-productive to the gospel? How often do we sit down and ask the hard questions like this? Is having a building productive or counter-productive? Is music productive or counter-productive? Is prayer time productive or counter-productive? Is meeting productive or counter-productive? Are small groups productive or counter-productive? Is feeding the local homeless productive or counter-productive? Is not feeding the local homeless productive or counter-productive? And so on.

There are two questions that come out of this. 1. What would happen if we just did the opposite of everything we are currently doing? 2. Are there some elements of our practice (in our particular contexts) that should just be rid of?

In one church I worked with they took the first approach uncritically and without thought. They saw the decline in their church and said to themselves "what we are doing isn't working so let's do the opposite", but it all ended up being superficial. They changed the music, painted the hall, even changed the communion plates but it was at it's core the same place.

When we set about to change things do we ever really deeply examine ourselves and our church community to see beyond the superficial? I'm not saying you should stop feeding the homeless if that's what your church does, but there may well come a time where doing so is counter-productive to the mission of the gospel in your church. Hard to believe, but it's true. Just because you can do something does not mean that it is the right thing to do.

(This is a bit of hyperbole but I really want to make the point clear that just because something is good, that does not necessarily make it the mission of your local church, all of these things need to be approached with prayer and discernment.)

Simply cutting programs is not the answer to indiscriminate change. Just because the visitation program has been running for 50 years does not make it an antiquated or useless endeavor.

Getting back to the point once more...

Have you had an honest assessment of the health of your church and it's activities in sharing the gospel?

Let me suggest these questions to gauge the health of your church:

 * Is it growing? Growth is not the best indicator of health but an unhealthy body doesn't grow.
 * Are your programs understaffed? Are you just spreading a congregation too thin?
 * Are you scared of asking somebody outside your church to evaluate it's health?
 * Pastor are you scared of your congregation?
 * Congregation, do you look for an excuse to not be involved in the life of your church, be it Sunday or any other day?
 * Are you spreading the gospel?
 

Someone Other than a Greeter
Source: "Eutychus and His Kin," Christianity Today, June 3, 1977
Singer John Charles Thomas, at age sixty-six wrote to syndicated columnist Abigail Van Buren: "I am presently completing the second year of a three-year survey on the hospitality or lack of it in churches. To date, of the 195 churches I have visited, I was spoken to in only one by someone other than an official greeter—and that was to ask me to move my feet."

 
A New Pair of Eyes
Source: Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 229-230.
In some churches in China, they welcome new believers by saying, "Jesus now has a new pair of eyes to see with, new ears to listen with, new hands to help with, and a new heart to love others with."

 
No Higher Duty
Source: Rev. J. Burton Williams, The Reward of a Disciple
Henri Nouwen, the great spiritual writer was going to a monastery for a retreat. The monks observed vows of silence and the retreat was to be meditative and prayerful. Nouwen was delayed and was late getting to the monastery on that miserable, rainy night. He rang the bell, well after bedtime, and was met at the door by one of the brothers. The brother warmly greeted him, took his wet coat, brought him to the kitchen and made him a cup of tea. They chatted in the late night hours and Nouwen began to relax and feel ready for the retreat. But he knew this monk was supposed to observe silence, so he finally asked him, "Why are you willing to sit and talk with me?" The monk replied "Of all the duties of the Christian faith and the rules of my order, none is higher than hospitality."

 
Welcome Home
Source: As told by Maxie Dunnam in The Workbook on Living as a Christian, pp. 112-113.
A number of years ago, Newsweek magazine carried the story of the memorial service held for Hubert Humphrey, former vice-president of the United States. Hundreds of people came from all over the world to say good-bye to their old friend and colleague. But one person who came was shunned and ignored by virtually everyone there. Nobody would look at him, much less speak to him. That person was former president Richard Nixon. Not long before, he had gone through the shame and infamy of Watergate. He was back in Washington for the first time since his resignation from the presidency. Then a very special thing happened, perhaps the only thing that could have made a difference and broken the ice. President Jimmy Carter, who was in the White House at that time, came into the room. Before he was seated, he saw Nixon over against the wall, all by himself. He went over to [him] as though he were greeting a family member, stuck out his hand to the former president, and smiled broadly. To the surprise of everyone there, the two of them embraced each other, and Carter said, "Welcome home, Mr. President! Welcome home!" Commenting on that, Newsweek magazine asserted, "If there was a turning point in Nixon's long ordeal in the wilderness, it was that moment and that gesture of love and compassion."

 
Make Yourself At Home
Source: Rebecca Manley Pippert, Out of the Saltshaker & Into the World: Evangelism as a Way of Life, Intervarsity Press, 1999. p 260.
Becky Pippert, is a Christian author from Naperville, Illinois. While doing campus ministry she met a student named Bill on a college campus in Portland, Oregon. Bill was brilliant, and always looked like he was pondering something deep. He had messy hair, and the entire time she knew him, she never saw him wear a pair of shoes. Rain, sleet, or snow, Bill was always barefoot. While he was attending college, he had become a Christian. At this time, a well-dressed, middle-class church across the street from the campus wanted to develop more of a ministry to the students. They weren't sure how to go about it, but they tried to make them feel welcome. One day Bill decided to worship there. He walked into this church wearing his blue jeans, T-shirt and of course no shoes. People looked a bit uncomfortable, but no one said anything. So Bill began walking down the aisle looking for a seat. The church was quite crowded that Sunday, so as he got down to the front pew and realized there were no seats, he just squatted on the carpet—perfectly acceptable behavior at a college fellowship, but perhaps unnerving for a buttoned-down church congregation. The tension in the air became so thick one could slice it. Suddenly an elderly man began walking down the aisle toward the boy. Was he going to scold Bill? Becky's friends who saw him approaching said they thought, "You can't blame him. He'd never guess Bill is a Christian. And his world is too distant from Bill's to understand. You can't blame him for what he's going to do." As the man kept walking slowly down the aisle, the church became utterly silent. All eyes were focused on him. You couldn't hear anyone breathe. When the man reached Bill, with some difficulty he lowered himself and sat down next to him on the carpet. He and Bill worshipped together on the floor that Sunday. There wasn't a dry eye in the room.

I recently finished a short book called "Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile" by Rob Bell.

I have to say, it left me both hungry and satisfied. For over a year I have had the thought that the church today is something akin to the nation of Israel in exile. In a macro way it has swapped natural for unnatural and become not just of the world but worldly in everything it does.

Now that's a big call and I guess what I'm saying is that the church (not specifically Christians) has become something that it was not supposed to be. It has swapped it's dynamicism of the past for something tried and true and in most churches I have been associated with, the majority of the energy goes into maintenance. maintenance of the buildings, the mortgage, the programs, the rosters. All of the things that should be peripheral have become central which pushes the important things from our grasp.

Such thoughts will not be new to you if you have been reading this blog over the past year, but reading the book helped bring some of my thoughts into focus and I'll be writing about these over the coming months.

Today I am going to start at the outcome. What does a church in exile look like? The correct answer is whatever shape God ordains for where and when you are. Whatever shape, structure and resources make sense in your context but not simply shape, structure and resources maintained from the past.

Although it was quite a rough ride to be expelled from their homeland and into captivity (more than once), exile for the Jewish nation help to sharpen their focus as well as build their reliance on God. I wonder what would happen to most churches I know of if they were physically exiled from where they stood, not just exiled from the mainline of society? How would that sharpen their focus, would it?

When I heard the call of God to move from the church I was serving and to go to another church I considered a nearby congregation whose pastor had also just moved on. This was (and still remains) a troubled church. Most of their 50 strong congregation is over 70, there is one young family, but what they do have is their building, and they work hard to keep it.

I had a very informal chat with this church and put it to them that if I was to be called to serve there, the first thing I would do would be to shut down every single program they have and keep them shut down for at least 3 years. Its a radical idea, but my feeling at the time for them was that they needed to rediscover who they were at a church now and not perpetuation who they were as a church 30 years ago. (Who knows, they might even sell the building and give the money to the poor).

What would your church look like if you stopped every single program? What would rise up and fill their space? Some of the old which was valuable may well reappear but I would bet next weeks collection it would emerge totally different, and something that honours God where you are, with what you have and blesses the community around you.

A great deal of my time recently has been given over to the contemplation of church as an activity. In the last month on three seperate occasions, people (all couples but I don't think that's causal) have told me that they have given up going to church because to varying degrees they do not see a point in it.

These are all people who love God wholeheartedly but have been disenfranchised in congregations that see their value as their abilities and not as fellow children of God.

It gives me reason to pause when I hear something like this and it should cause you to pause as well.

Why does a congregation exist? That seems to be the root of all of this. I know that many people are not fans of the institutional church and are looking to the emerging and missional movements to find something new and exciting, I count myself among them, but surely the institutional church as we know it is not evil.

If it were evil (as defined by actively opposing peoples relationship with God) then I would be the first with the flamethrower and pitch fork calling for them to be closed down. I do not believe the institutional church to be inherently evil but they have in many cases become misguided.

This sounds a little contradictory but I'm both a supporter and detractor of the institutional church. Actually, I just don't like the institutional part. Let me unpack that a little with some more definitions.

We call pretty much any church with 4 walls and people institutional. I believe that is unfair. An institutional church in my mind is one that has become institutionalized. One that exists purely to perpetuate it's existence.

IBM, one of the worlds biggest computer companies and largest employers had this problem not that long ago. They were BIG BLUE, everyone came to them to have their problems fixed. After a while they just seemed to stagnate. Their products were no longer innovative, they did not take the industry lead and as a consequence they were overtaken by smaller rivals. IBM it seems existed just to be IBM, they were no longer a business to help people.

Sound familiar? Institutionalized churches are like IBM, they were once vibrant communities of faith and healing but somewhere along the line they looked inwards and started to plan for maintenance and not growth.

IBM seems to be back on a growth trajectory but it took many years, a lot of pain and introspection and real LEADERSHIP to turn things around.

The same is needed for the church.

One of my favorite pieces of Scripture is "Without a vision, the people perish". It is our responsibility as leaders of God's church to be focused on his mission and share with our congregation how we are going to accomplish that in our context. That is vision. All else is secondary to the Fathers mission. The building, lobbying government, the music everything is secondary to the mission. They are often important, but I will say it one more time. They are secondary to the mission.

Here are some hard questions for you church leader:

 * What is your churches number one focus?
 * Do you have a vision statement?
 * Does it fulfill the great commission?
 * Are you able to measure if it's working?
 * Are you making an idol out of anything secondary?

 

This isn't part II to Open Source Theology, just a slight diversion :)

I ran into this fantastic article on contemporary worship leading, as many of you know, leading worship in church is one of my most cherished past-times, and this really nails all that is wrong with the how's of worship leading in the current context.

For as long as I've known it, church music seems to be more about form than function, entertainment than drawing people to the heart of God. Of course that is a broad generalization but think of the contempt that some people have for the place of hymns in modern worship, they seem to be kriptonite to the worship service, with a mythical quality of being able to suck people away from God.

Certainly I'm not advocating hymn services every Sunday (or any Sunday for that fact) but these songs have a place in our liturgical history and deserve respect for the depth of their teaching and engagement with God. In most cases these songs can be redeemed to a more modern style (updating the words and music) and bring the conviction of the heart of God that the original author intended.

Enjoy the read.

A few months ago a woman came into our church and made the pronouncement that she would never return to our church, would never again grace us with her presence unless we took all the flags down off the walls. To keep us continually focused on missions we have flags from all the nations that we support missionaries or orphanages or churches (or whatever else) in hanging from the walls.

For me, it was one of the first tests of leadership in the church, what should we do? Did we listen to this woman who spent most of that morning getting in peoples ears about how the flags were evil and signs of Satan or did we stay the course and leave it as a focus?

We decided to leave the flags there because we believed that the opinion of one should not dictate to the majority (that is of course unless they are right, but that wasn't the case here).

Today I was confronted with a similar situation, before our night service tonight I was confronted by an older member of our congregation who proclaimed that I should never lead worship unless I was wearing shoes. Her argument was that as a leader I should do whatever it takes to remove and all barriers for people in our church, so even if one person complains we should do what they say.

Do you think this is reasonable? Let's put aside what you think about the actual issue here, I don't wear shoes because I don't like wearing shoes, I wear thongs (or flip-flops depending of where you live) and slip them off whenever I can. (That and the fact I have nerve damage in my hands and feet and shoes hurt.)

Do you think it is reasonable for the objection of one person to set the policy and standards of the church? The Apostle Paul did say that he endeavored to become all things to all men in order to save a few but there are obvious problems with this when you become a Jew to save some and a Gentile to save others.

Situations such as this need to be measured firstly against Scripture, does God care about this matter and if not, against a reasonableness test. Is it reasonable to hold an entire group of people to the standards of one person in this case? If they are a reflection of a larger opinion in the church and it doesn't hurt to do it then just do it. If however it is the opinion of just one person or a small group of people, why put ourselves in bondage to their whims? This week it's making sure your wearing shoes, next week it's wearing a suit when you preach even in 40 degree heat!

It's easy to laugh at these things but these things no matter how trivial do matter to people so when you are dealing with situations such as this make sure you do it in love. If you treat these situations flippantly or with disdain or the person without respect these imaginary emergencies and worries can turn into real hurt and pain.

Last night we called a special meeting of the church to discuss the re-appointment of a pastor. What made this different to previous meetings of this kind is that this pastor's appointment comes with a list of duty restrictions because of a breach of our denominations code of conduct.

He was in fact our pastor previously and was stood down for the last two years because of this breach and has now been allowed to reapply for a ministry position.

Obviously this was a meeting that required great care in how we approached it and there were questions going back and forth along the lines of "should we mention this", "should we mention that", and in the end we decided that the best way we could approach this was with complete transparency. Transparency to the process, transparency to the sanctions and transparency to the person.

Why is this important and why wouldn't you be transparent? From my observations there is a tendency of an organizations leadership (be it a church or secular) to gloss over the more messy details of failure. About 8 years ago my church asked the then current pastor to resign due to performance reasons. That time it was handled terribly. There was little transparency to the reasons, the pastor resigned mid Sunday service without notice, the leadership closed ranks and were reluctant to talk about it at all.

In that instance around half the congregation left the church.

The effect of transparency in these very difficult dealing with the current pastor have been a most satisfying and healthy contrast.

In the meeting last night we laid it all out there: why we were offering re-appointment, what the restrictions were and why they were there. At every point we allowed time for the hard questions to be asked and did not shy away from the answers no matter how difficult they were.

I know it sounds like I'm just giving us a big pat on the back but I'm trying to highlight a critical issue in church governance. Be as open as possible as much as possible to as many people as possible. Do your dealings in the light and you will be resilient to gossip and false testimony about your dealings.

A lecturer once had us perform an exercise were we enumerated our core values and provided a short explanation of each of the values.
His reasoning was that if you do not have something by which to measure your tasks and activities you will end up doing everything and be satisfied with none of them.

I developed my core values and afterwards I found I was able to say no to things that I previously felt unable to. It was liberating the first time, I was asked to take up a position of youth pastor and I said with complete confidence that the role was completely outside of what I consider my strengths and values, therefore, no.

The most profound lesson I learnt from the process is are my values really values or are they just preferences.

Preferences are those things we would like to value, or think we value but we do not show by our lives. If I say I value honesty but have no qualms with not handing back that extra $20 note the check out chick then what I have is not a true value but a preference for honesty.

Besides being completely hypocritical it's one of those things that cause us to go around seeking the spec in our neighbours eye. (I can't help but think of those people who legislate against homosexuality and find themselves with their pants down in an airport toilet).

There isn't a problem having a preference on something as long as we are honest with ourselves and acknowledge that it's aspirational and not core to our behaviour and lives.

The reason this has all come up for me is not because I've been operating outside of my core values but I've come to question the published core values of my church. This isn't a bad thing, more of a review. In the past 5 years we have moved more towards welfare and social justice but we do not reflect that in our stated values. Likewise some of our stated values look to be more aspirational which again isn't an issue, it's good to seek out different ways of looking at life but if it isn't who you are then don't state it as a value state it as a development goal. Doing this should help to make us mindful of our aspiration and remove the charge of hypocrisy.

Look at it this way. At the moment I have strong tape holding back both of my shoulders. It's part of my treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome. When my shoulders are pulled back it promotes proper posture and reduces the strain on my carpal nerve. I aspire to have those shoulders pulled back at all times but in the mean time I need the tape to gently remind me of my goal. If I told my physio that there is nothing wrong with my posture and I'm only slumping at the moment because of the chair I'm sitting in (something I nearly did yesterday because of pride) then I am clearly lying to her, myself and everyone around me.

If your wondering, my core values are:

• Teaching: Through small groups and preaching to challenge groups of both Christians and non-Christians in their journey of faith.
• Mentoring:  Investing my time and my experience with the individual to help grow and deepen their commitment to Jesus.
• Family: Commitment of my time and attention to strengthen the bond between my wife and I as well as my extended family.
• Relevant:  Understanding the context of my ministry and shaping both myself and my approach to it.
• Authenticity: Showing my true self to those I meet and encouraging them to do the same.
• Leadership: Seeking to understand God’s purpose for His people and guiding them in the parts they play.
  

I was worship leading this Sunday morning, one of my favorite things in the world. The service was excellent, the songs, prayer, communion and message where all consistent and filled with the Holy Spirit but...

... at the end of the service no one came forward for prayer.

Typically we have about 5-10% of the congregation come forward for some one on one ministry at the end of the service but this week there was no one. At the time I was a little thrown, questions circled in my mind like "what had I done wrong?" but after some time I have come to the realization that I didn't do anything wrong, it's just that no-one came forward for prayer and ministry.

So great service, no response. What do we do with that?

With some reflection I've identified a couple of issues that bear fleshing out.

Consistency. We have a dedicated team of people who pray and minister after the service consisting of any of the Elders in that service plus some ministry heads (pastoral care, prayer etc) who have hearts to be involved in peoples lives and let them know how much God loves them. This week half of this team were away on holidays and I get the feeling that if they were there certain people would have been drawn out for prayer.
We can call that a good and a bad thing for the obvious reasons. It's good that people bond and trust each other but you can't base your whole life on one person always being available to you, that's why we are one body with many parts.

The next point of reflection is expectation.

Some people might read this and think that I'm crazy, stupid or plain ungodly for expecting that there would be people who will come up for prayer. I strongly disagree with that sentiment because if we do not have a point, purpose or expectations on our meeting together then it will be an essentially aimless affair.

Our morning services are geared towards a response from the message (motivation for change), healing and growing in Christ. Nothing wrong with that but the church down the road may have a completely different goal of say people signing up to work in the community, another church may have the call for greater participation in church life. Contrast to our night services where we do not have a clear aim or goal, we run listlessly from idea to idea and wonder why nothing is working.

Whatever the goal we should be clear minded and focused on it because consistency in what we do brings the freedom for people to participate each week and the freedom to not.

I've had cause in recent months to ponder inactivity. Not inactivity due to laziness, nor inactivity due to invalidity but rather the paralyzing inactivity that comes from seeking perfection in what we do.

I have a *cough* friend *cough* who is a perfectionist that falls into bouts of procrastination because of the compounding nature of time and tasks. For example, say we have a job to do but we want to do it properly so we wait until we have enough time to give it's due attention. A week or so later the task is still there but it will now take 3 days instead of 1 to complete because we didn't start on it earlier. Now we need to find 3 days in our busy schedule and on it goes. (Housework is a prime example of this.)

Sometimes our quest for perfection gets in the way of getting the job done and this compounds the original task and can potentially send us into a reactive depression which colors our view of all the other little things that need doing. I am certainly not an advocate of "close enough is good enough" but I believe that we need to take a step back and examine our motives in how we perform our ministry.

Just before I started my training for ministry (around 10 years ago) I had a conversation with someone who helped to confirm my calling. This great godly man who later mentored me had fallen into what I like to call the Cult of Perfectionism. He contended that what God truly seeks are "men of excellence" (excuse the gender bias) who will take God's Word out into the world.

This sounds great on paper, I resonated deeply with this phrase "men of excellence" and made it somewhat of a personal goal to do everything I can to the level of excellence. Perhaps it was pride that resonated with the statement but what I didn't realize at the time is the enormous pressure that it puts me under to succeed.

When we hold church leaders up to the unerring standard of "excellence" we are doing them a great disservice. Granted that leaders live in the fish bowl and Scripture says that leaders will be held to a higher standard but if we don't give leaders room to fail in the small things how are they to learn in the big things?

My first taste of ministry was in youth work, a wonderful place to start. It teaches you patience, endurance and above all gives you a place to fail gracefully. I learnt more about ministry by failing here than succeeding elsewhere. What I mean by failure in this context is that I didn't always get things right, didn't always say the right things, lead by example at all times but those teens would always respect you in your repentance and admitting you were wrong.

I put it to us all that our churches need to change our culture from one of excellence to grace, especially in the case of the new leader. Let us support them through their faltering steps into ministry and reap the harvest of a ministry in balance, not one under pressure and paralyzed by perfectionism.

Community starts at home? Maybe that's not atomic enough, community starts with the individual.

Whaaat? How does that work? Community by it's very definition has to involve more than one person so how can it start with the individual?

The weekend just gone the Eldership of my church (which I am one of) went on retreat to pray, reflect and discuss God's direction for His church in the coming year. I think we all went in with some fairly clear ideas about what 2009 will look like but by the time we were done God had turned it all on it's head.

If you are a member of my church, you should probably skip the next couple of paragraphs, it contains spoilers for next year :)

God's agenda for our church seems centered around the statement "Being in community. Being of community" which is to say we are committing ourselves to growing our church in community with each other (as well as those who walk through our doors) as well as committing ourselves to growing in further outside of our church walls into the greater community.

The basis for all of this community building are small groups with the stated goal of "Being a church of small groups, not a church with small groups". That doesn't mean adopting a cell church model but rather seeking to make community a part of the DNA of our church. When someone new joins, the goal is to have them plugged in with a small group who will then become the primary mode of pastoral care and support.

The Holy Spirit was quite convicting when this vision took form in front of us, out of my own mouth I heard the challenge to us as a leadership to be practicing this form of community that we had been discussing for the rest of the church because if we were not able to practice and demonstrate it how could we expect the rest of our congregation too?

So why does community start with the individual, because the individual must make a conscious decision to open their life up to those around them even if those openings may invite pain or conviction. (Although in my experience it has always brought more joy than anything).

Community is not something that can be tough, it can only be shown. In fact we have the greatest example of community in God. As a Trinitarian being he is in constant community with himself and at his very nature he is love.

If we want to grow a God-like community, a royal priesthood of believers than we can do no better than taking a leaf out of God's book on this on.

Faithful Instructions
Contributor: Randy Leckliter

There was a man who got lost in the desert. After wandering around for a long time his throat became very dry, about that time he saw a little shack in the distance. He made his way over to the shack and found a water pump with a small jug of water and a note. The note read: "Pour all the water into the top of the pump to prime it. If you do this, you will get all the water you need."

Now the man had a choice to make, if he trusted the note and poured the water in and it worked, he would have all the water he needed. If it didn't work, he would still be thirsty and he might die. Or he could choose to drink the water in the jug and get immediate satisfaction, but it might not be enough and he still might die.

After thinking about it, the man decided to risk it. He poured the entire jug into the pump and began to work the handle. At first nothing happened, and he got a little scared. But he kept going, and water started coming out. So much water came out that he drank all he wanted, took a shower, and filled all the containers he could find. Because he was willing to give up momentary satisfaction, he got all the water he needed.

Now the note also said, "After you have finished, please refill the jug for the next traveler." The man refilled the jug and added to the note, "Please prime the pump. Believe me, it works!"

We have the same choice to make. Do we hold on to what we have because we don't believe there are better things in store for us, so we'll settle for immediate satisfaction? Or do we trust God and give up all that we have to get what God has promised us? I think the choice is obvious. We need to pour in all the water and trust God with everything. Then once we have experienced what God has to offer, the Living Water, we need to tell other people, "Go ahead, prime the pump. Believe me, it works!"

And 3 more illustrations after the jump

On the train this morning I was listening to a lecture by Pastor Mark Driscoll about Spiritual Warfare. It's a touchy subject for most people. I have met those who have come from a church torn apart by it (the church subsequently closed it's doors) and were burned heavily by it.

There seems to be two types of responses to spiritual warfare, either we deny it's real (taking the cessationist route) or we see demons behind every action, misstep and misdeed that confronts our lives.

Both seem to be equally dangerous to people, when we deny the reality of the supernatural we begin to cut out the heart of God and His ability to change hearts and lives. When we embrace it too fully we begin to abdicate our response to the all of the natural struggles of life to the work of Satan.

I met one of the latter people early on in my Christian walk. A friend produced a Book of Mormon in a bible study as a discussion point, the persons first reaction was to get the book out of the house because "familiar spirits were attached to it". If only it were that easy to tie us Satan and his followers.

Let's look at some facts:

• The bible says that when Satan fell 1/3 of the angels rebelled with him, it also says that the heavenly creatures do not marry or are given in marriage (and consequently reproduce) so there are a fixed number of them out there.
• When these angels became demons they did not gain omnipotence, omnipresence or any other aspects of God. They are not everywhere and can not see everything you do but they have been studying mankind for a long time and have a pretty good bead on people.
• God and Satan are not equals. God created Satan as an angel. The bible suggests he had a pride of place in heaven which eventually led to his downfall but to use a boxing term, he doesn't have the reach to land a blow on God.

Let's get past this stuff in our churches and start to look at the real effects of spiritual warfare in the lives of people. The real consequence of all of this is that are hearts are not renewed by Holy Spirit, that we accept a false teaching of Christ or follow our hearts elsewhere. Satan battles to have us turn our hearts from God and he doesn't do that by camping in books.

As I've said before, my church has seriously beefed up it's commitment to the disenfranchised in our community. We run an outreach to prostitutes on the Great Western Highway as well as a soup kitchen to a group of housing commission flats down the road along with various other ministries that offer practical help to people.

I'm not directly involved in either of the major ministry focuses although I do have a great deal of ancillary contact with the ones that have started visiting or attending our church.

This weekend we invited a whole heap of them over to our place to have lunch with us, Christmas in July. Most of these people had never darkened the door of our church before so it was an important time for us and one I was asked to be involved in.

The close contact I was blessed to have with these people from our local community has changed forever my perceptions of the expectations of the needy in our community.

The people I met and had lunch with this Saturday are hungry for hope.

This is the third part in the unintentional series on business following on from Confronting busyness with vision and Overburdening our congregations. Burn out, drop out or drop dead.

I say unintentional because initially I was really just ranting about something I see as a problem for the church and pastors, getting those people in the pews committed to the vision of the church (universal) and growing Spiritually.

Something that has been keeping me awake at night, and I do actually mean that it has been keeping me awake, is the questions

1) Are we making disciples of Jesus or just a crowd of followers,
2) If our church was to disappear tomorrow, would anybody notice?

The questions have popped up so many times recently that I know that it is God asking me to explore them in my own life and own church and ministry.

This is the third part in the unintentional series on business following on from Confronting busyness with vision and Overburdening our congregations. Burn out, drop out or drop dead.

I say unintentional because initially I was really just ranting about something I see as a problem for the church and pastors, getting those people in the pews committed to the vision of the church (universal) and growing Spiritually.

Something that has been keeping me awake at night, and I do actually mean that it has been keeping me awake, is the questions

1) Are we making disciples of Jesus or just a crowd of followers,
2) If our church was to disappear tomorrow, would anybody notice?

The questions have popped up so many times recently that I know that it is God asking me to explore them in my own life and own church and ministry.

I've had a few conversations with people about my last post "Overburdening our congregations. Burn out, drop out or drop dead"

Some helpfully pointed out that I had not addressed one fundamental issue, the cause of busyness.

What has changed in the last 50 - 100 years to cause the busyness? And what can we do as ministers to help remedy this situation? How can we begin to point people to sacrificing some of their free time for God's purposes?

I've been reflecting a lot recently on why people seem so reluctant to be involved in the life of their church. In my church as a lot of others the 80/20 rule holds firm, 80% of the work is performed by 20% of the people. It's a problem of complacency for the most part, people are just happy to not be involved.

This 80/20 creates a dangerous situation for the church (like any other organization) because the concentration or work on a small group of people means that they are prone to burn out, drop out or drop dead. Which ever way it happens you could see important ministry functions such as pastoral care or your soup kitchen / outreach ministry dropping straight off the face of the earth.

During the last three days I've been attending a course in advanced preaching techniques at my college. On the second day they rolled in three pastors from very different churches and life experiences to talk with us about the challenges of preaching ministry. The conversation turned to ministry in general and again this topic of complacency raised it's head.

The consensus of these pastors and the rest of the room seems to be that people in the west are just too content to care! They are happy with their big house, car and job and can't give much care to what happens in the church.

There is obviously a Spiritual issue involved here but I'm not sure if it is complacency or something else and complacency is just a symptom of a deeper issue.