What the Church Needs Now
First of all, thank you to everyone who emailed after my last post. Each email has fit together to create a composite of encouragement and admonition. If I didn't respond to your email directly, it was probably because we've been very busy getting ready to move into a new house (we close next Thursday).
One thing has been perfectly clear to me since writing that post...I could never give this up. By "this" I mean the road we have been traveling on the past five years as a community and as an individual follower of Jesus. There is too much at stake to allow frustration to win. That doesn't mean everything is hunky-dory all the sudden and I'm bursting with energy. I'm still dang tired (and moving doesn't help). I've just been reminded how the changes going on right now have extremely long-term implications and typically don't garner many tangible "results". Over the past week or so, I've been letting that reality sink in to a new level. And, I'm becoming okay with it, very okay in fact.
What the Church Needs Now is kind of a bold title for a post, but it carries with it a bit of irony. There is a bunch I think the church in America needs; join the club, right? I'll get to one specific item in a few sentences, but here's a thought before I get there. What if the church doesn't need anything now. Maybe that's part of the problem. We are always looking for solutions to fix the church's problems right now. We go through a period of disillusionment with the status quo, leave and begin looking for greener pastures, and almost immediately reorganize into something with basically the same values and culture as the place we left. The model might be tweaked a bit, but the fundamental patterns of church life remain.
I used to recommend that people leaving church staff or other leadership positions take at least 6 months to a year to detox from ingrown, destructive patterns before setting out to start something new. Now I wonder if that time frame needs to be more like five to ten years. The Apostle Paul immersed himself in life with Jesus for 14 years before his real ministry began. For someone who was forcefully upholding the Jewish way of life, it probably took that long for him to learn how to minister to people the way Jesus did. If our ministries have had their foundation in numbers, programs, and mechanisms of success achievement, then perhaps we need the same retraining.
What the church needs is people - leaders - willing to be retrained in the way of Jesus. This training will not come from a seminar or book or by copying some famous Christian celebrity. The first step, bluntly, is to die to the American way of getting things done. This transition will not happen efficiently or autonomously. This is old school ancient, eastern, Mr. Miyagi kind of training. You can't buy your way through it faster and you can't get it done alone. If you try to short-circuit the training and get through it quicker (and I'm speaking from experience here), you go backwards and everything gets longer. If you go into it looking for inspiration, or as Peterson says in the Message, "homeowner improvements to your standard of living," you'll get your ass handed to you. I've had mine handed to me so many times I'm wondering how my pants stay up. If you doubt me in any of this, go read an old saint of your choice. The older the better. (Now you know why so many old men have no ass:)
We need people who live in spite of questions and fear, fail regularly, get frustrated, pour their souls out to those precious few around them, and then stubbornly return to the One who is overseeing every aspect of the process. On Sunday, we took the Lord's Supper with our church family. Amber spent some time talking with the kids about the nature of communion and asking questions. One question she asked was, "What do think happens to God's people when they take communion?" Our oldest who is five, Jackson, responded, "I think God gives us courage." Courage. What if what we need is courageous people to lead the church, and that courage only comes as a gift of God through an act of worship and obedience? Maybe in God's economy, gifting doesn't mean a damn thing when it comes to leadership. Maybe skills don't matter. Education. Experience. Previous success. Makes no difference.
Things are beginning to get much simpler for me...and more difficult. The choices are clearer...and more scary. God doesn't want a repackaged, band-aided American church culture anymore and he is sick and tired of poster-boy leaders who gloss over the stark realities of becoming a disciple of Jesus. I just received Dallas Willard's new book in the mail today, The Great Omission, and a line immediately stuck out to me from the jacket blurb: "Willard boldly challenges the thought that we can be Christians without being disciples, or call ourselves Christians without applying this understanding of life in the Kingdom of God to every aspect of life on earth." To address this claim, which I think is accurate, a new kind of leader is required. That is the challenge being offered to all of us.
One thing has been perfectly clear to me since writing that post...I could never give this up. By "this" I mean the road we have been traveling on the past five years as a community and as an individual follower of Jesus. There is too much at stake to allow frustration to win. That doesn't mean everything is hunky-dory all the sudden and I'm bursting with energy. I'm still dang tired (and moving doesn't help). I've just been reminded how the changes going on right now have extremely long-term implications and typically don't garner many tangible "results". Over the past week or so, I've been letting that reality sink in to a new level. And, I'm becoming okay with it, very okay in fact.
What the Church Needs Now is kind of a bold title for a post, but it carries with it a bit of irony. There is a bunch I think the church in America needs; join the club, right? I'll get to one specific item in a few sentences, but here's a thought before I get there. What if the church doesn't need anything now. Maybe that's part of the problem. We are always looking for solutions to fix the church's problems right now. We go through a period of disillusionment with the status quo, leave and begin looking for greener pastures, and almost immediately reorganize into something with basically the same values and culture as the place we left. The model might be tweaked a bit, but the fundamental patterns of church life remain.
I used to recommend that people leaving church staff or other leadership positions take at least 6 months to a year to detox from ingrown, destructive patterns before setting out to start something new. Now I wonder if that time frame needs to be more like five to ten years. The Apostle Paul immersed himself in life with Jesus for 14 years before his real ministry began. For someone who was forcefully upholding the Jewish way of life, it probably took that long for him to learn how to minister to people the way Jesus did. If our ministries have had their foundation in numbers, programs, and mechanisms of success achievement, then perhaps we need the same retraining.
What the church needs is people - leaders - willing to be retrained in the way of Jesus. This training will not come from a seminar or book or by copying some famous Christian celebrity. The first step, bluntly, is to die to the American way of getting things done. This transition will not happen efficiently or autonomously. This is old school ancient, eastern, Mr. Miyagi kind of training. You can't buy your way through it faster and you can't get it done alone. If you try to short-circuit the training and get through it quicker (and I'm speaking from experience here), you go backwards and everything gets longer. If you go into it looking for inspiration, or as Peterson says in the Message, "homeowner improvements to your standard of living," you'll get your ass handed to you. I've had mine handed to me so many times I'm wondering how my pants stay up. If you doubt me in any of this, go read an old saint of your choice. The older the better. (Now you know why so many old men have no ass:)
We need people who live in spite of questions and fear, fail regularly, get frustrated, pour their souls out to those precious few around them, and then stubbornly return to the One who is overseeing every aspect of the process. On Sunday, we took the Lord's Supper with our church family. Amber spent some time talking with the kids about the nature of communion and asking questions. One question she asked was, "What do think happens to God's people when they take communion?" Our oldest who is five, Jackson, responded, "I think God gives us courage." Courage. What if what we need is courageous people to lead the church, and that courage only comes as a gift of God through an act of worship and obedience? Maybe in God's economy, gifting doesn't mean a damn thing when it comes to leadership. Maybe skills don't matter. Education. Experience. Previous success. Makes no difference.
Things are beginning to get much simpler for me...and more difficult. The choices are clearer...and more scary. God doesn't want a repackaged, band-aided American church culture anymore and he is sick and tired of poster-boy leaders who gloss over the stark realities of becoming a disciple of Jesus. I just received Dallas Willard's new book in the mail today, The Great Omission, and a line immediately stuck out to me from the jacket blurb: "Willard boldly challenges the thought that we can be Christians without being disciples, or call ourselves Christians without applying this understanding of life in the Kingdom of God to every aspect of life on earth." To address this claim, which I think is accurate, a new kind of leader is required. That is the challenge being offered to all of us.
posted by Mike Bishop at 9:52 PM
7 Comments:
I've been reading a lot of old saints too these last few months. ANd I can't tell you how much I resonate with what you are saying. John Wesley wrote "In the year 1725, being in the 23rd year of my age, I met with Bishop Taylor's Rules and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying. I was exceedingly affected. I resolved to dedicate my life to God. A year or two after Mr. Law's Christian Perfection was put into my hands. This convinced me more than ever of the impossibility of being half Christian."
In the past few months I've been brought to the divine text in a gratingly humbling manner and have come to doubt my Christian-ness. I'm continually struck by Samuel Chadwick's words (another old saint): "The sign of Christianity is not a cross but a tongue of fire."
Where are the Christians? God help me be one worthy of your reality. I believe.
Beautiful
Amen...I wholeheartedly agree. Sounds like the introspection is bearing really good fruit.
brian
I found your blog from a link on Eric Keck's site. I am grateful to be assured by what you wrote that not knowing what lies ahead for my church connections is ok. I'm a pastor's kid, called to be out of the loop right now in terms of evangelical worship and while I know it is right, it feels odd. But God it doing in me what you wrote about, clearing away all the American culture left in me. It is necessary and I unfortunately agree, that it takes a long time. I'm three years in and feel no sense of clarity on how much longer yet.
Encouraging and truthful words. As an outsider looking in, it seems obvious to me that God is doing a deep work in you and maturing you through it all. Good to hear your heart and that you're following Jesus through it all.
Great post.
I want to respond, but I'm not sure how. I haven't read enough of your posts to maybe follow as well as you have been laying things out. What exactly is the "American" way of getting things done, as you see it? I am an American, and I get things done. I'm not into Eastern ancient anything. Just tell me now if I am never going to understand this, Mike! : ) Wax on, wax off!
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