Church from another's perspective
I'm currently a pastor. A youth pastor, but a pastor, none-the-less. Therefore, many would say it's easy for me to say I enjoy church, or something of that nature. However, I've only been a pastor for less than a year. For the rest of my 30 years, I've simply attended church in a variety of settings - charismatic to conservative, small to mega, east coast to Bible belt to Pacific NorthWest. I've been a part of various denominations, and felt comfortable in most, even when I disagreed with some of their theology (or their home office's theology). I say all that to give some background for these thoughts. During my years in church, I've had both positive and negative experiences in a variety of arenas - worship, preaching, how I was treated by leadership, etc. My favorite church has been, hands down, the one we attended in Moses Lake, Grace Harvest Church, but even there, there were some strengths and weaknesses, as my friend and pastor would agree. Currently I'm attending a church whose biggest strengths are their passion for missions and youth (0-18 yo) and their desire to reach out in relationships. Their biggest weakness (in my opinion) is a lack of passionate, heartfelt worship. Yet, despite how strongly I feel about worship, and how much Shari and I feel like we need times of passionate worship to refuel our souls, we also know God's called us here. This is our family, and we are committed to it until He calls us elsewhere.
What prompted these thoughts (though they really aren't new to people who know us well)? Recently I read the ranting (justified, I think) of a young lady who, along with her husband, is struggling with being able to find a church where they can worship passionately, reach out effectively to the lost, and be fed spiritually. The stories she tells are not new to me. In fact, in my reading and experience, I've heard and seen them time and again. Leadership who insist that church activities are more important than family. One church wouldn't give new believers free Bibles because said new Christians may get the wrong idea and start looking for other free handouts. Another church put visiting friends to sleep with their worship service... standing up. Each of these churches have valid reasons, in their eyes, I'm sure, for their decisions. I stand with this young lady in being frustrated at how "the church" is acting. Seth Barnes posted today that, in his opinion, the "Pharisees" Jesus would be attacking, rebuking, etc., would be today's church leaders... including Seth himself. I suspect that, in general, he's right. I'm concerned about what Jesus would be rebuking me about. To save time, you can go to his blog to read his reasons. And yet...
We are the body of Christ. We are called by God to be a community of faith, a family of God, and I've never known a community or family to live in harmony for very long, or to do it very well, without hurting one another. I'm not saying it's right. Yet Christ, who had perfect wisdom (i.e. He was 1000 times smarter than you and me), said that the church was to be His light and example to a watching world of how to love one another. Even when wounded, even when we disagree, we are to pursue relationships, and the conflicts within those relationships, in order to model to a watching world how it's to be done. This includes even showing them how we work things through when we don't do it right. Given that we don't always do it well, that doesn't negate the fact that leaving one family to join another every time we get hurt, things don't go our way, or we simply don't like the family dynamics isn't loving one another well. What kind of body are we modeling when every time the hand doesn't like the nose, it chops itself off and joins another body, or chops off the nose and tries to glue it to another body... which then needs to chop of it's nose to make room for the new nose, etc.
I'm not ignoring or putting down the temptations to do so, especially when somebody is wounded. Shari and I have certainly had our share of times over the past 13 years when we wanted to leave the church God said was to be our family. We have wrestled with the question of how long - or whether - to stay in a situation where we aren't getting fed, the worship is putting us to sleep, or we've been wounded by somebody... again... and again. I don't have the answers as to when to leave and when to stay. The young lady I mentioned earlier believes that God's called her and her husband to church hop for now to churches over 30 minutes away. Maybe He has. I, for one, want to go to the churches she mentions (not by name, of course) and chew their leadership out, but, even if I could and did, what good would it do. Unless it was a Holy Spirit directed action (ie. prophesying), they would simply blow me off because, as I said, they certainly have some valid reasons in their eyes for what they're doing.
So, as this young lady struggles with church hopping (she knows it's wrong for long term, but not sure what to do for now), I wanted to vent a little frustration with Christ's body. Not all the body, and even those churches she mentions have strong points, I'm sure... to somebody. Still, over all, my prayer is that we would somehow learn to reach out and make disciples (not just converts - another pet peeve of mine) in a culturally relevant way, to multiple generations who are, unfortunately, becoming more and more culturally and generationally cliquish. There is a reason the Emergent movement is growing, and it's not only because some in the movement (broad brush here) are embracing a philosophy of questioning everything, from the Bible's inerrancy to whether Christ is the only way. For many, it's growing because it's willing to at least strive to reach out to a variety of cultures w/in the Western culture, and a variety of generations... all outside the traditional boundaries... er, boxes... er, buildings (I knew I could get it right) of the local church.
May God help us to love one another, even when we don't understand one another. We must somehow learn to embrace conflict, give grace, pursue relationship, submit to one another, correct, rebuke, and discipline, forgive, and reach out to a hurting world in the midst of all this stuff. God, please help us to know how to do this when it hurts, frustrates, and even angers us. I'm sure you know exactly how it feels. What? Who, me? How did I hurt you?
What prompted these thoughts (though they really aren't new to people who know us well)? Recently I read the ranting (justified, I think) of a young lady who, along with her husband, is struggling with being able to find a church where they can worship passionately, reach out effectively to the lost, and be fed spiritually. The stories she tells are not new to me. In fact, in my reading and experience, I've heard and seen them time and again. Leadership who insist that church activities are more important than family. One church wouldn't give new believers free Bibles because said new Christians may get the wrong idea and start looking for other free handouts. Another church put visiting friends to sleep with their worship service... standing up. Each of these churches have valid reasons, in their eyes, I'm sure, for their decisions. I stand with this young lady in being frustrated at how "the church" is acting. Seth Barnes posted today that, in his opinion, the "Pharisees" Jesus would be attacking, rebuking, etc., would be today's church leaders... including Seth himself. I suspect that, in general, he's right. I'm concerned about what Jesus would be rebuking me about. To save time, you can go to his blog to read his reasons. And yet...
We are the body of Christ. We are called by God to be a community of faith, a family of God, and I've never known a community or family to live in harmony for very long, or to do it very well, without hurting one another. I'm not saying it's right. Yet Christ, who had perfect wisdom (i.e. He was 1000 times smarter than you and me), said that the church was to be His light and example to a watching world of how to love one another. Even when wounded, even when we disagree, we are to pursue relationships, and the conflicts within those relationships, in order to model to a watching world how it's to be done. This includes even showing them how we work things through when we don't do it right. Given that we don't always do it well, that doesn't negate the fact that leaving one family to join another every time we get hurt, things don't go our way, or we simply don't like the family dynamics isn't loving one another well. What kind of body are we modeling when every time the hand doesn't like the nose, it chops itself off and joins another body, or chops off the nose and tries to glue it to another body... which then needs to chop of it's nose to make room for the new nose, etc.
I'm not ignoring or putting down the temptations to do so, especially when somebody is wounded. Shari and I have certainly had our share of times over the past 13 years when we wanted to leave the church God said was to be our family. We have wrestled with the question of how long - or whether - to stay in a situation where we aren't getting fed, the worship is putting us to sleep, or we've been wounded by somebody... again... and again. I don't have the answers as to when to leave and when to stay. The young lady I mentioned earlier believes that God's called her and her husband to church hop for now to churches over 30 minutes away. Maybe He has. I, for one, want to go to the churches she mentions (not by name, of course) and chew their leadership out, but, even if I could and did, what good would it do. Unless it was a Holy Spirit directed action (ie. prophesying), they would simply blow me off because, as I said, they certainly have some valid reasons in their eyes for what they're doing.
So, as this young lady struggles with church hopping (she knows it's wrong for long term, but not sure what to do for now), I wanted to vent a little frustration with Christ's body. Not all the body, and even those churches she mentions have strong points, I'm sure... to somebody. Still, over all, my prayer is that we would somehow learn to reach out and make disciples (not just converts - another pet peeve of mine) in a culturally relevant way, to multiple generations who are, unfortunately, becoming more and more culturally and generationally cliquish. There is a reason the Emergent movement is growing, and it's not only because some in the movement (broad brush here) are embracing a philosophy of questioning everything, from the Bible's inerrancy to whether Christ is the only way. For many, it's growing because it's willing to at least strive to reach out to a variety of cultures w/in the Western culture, and a variety of generations... all outside the traditional boundaries... er, boxes... er, buildings (I knew I could get it right) of the local church.
May God help us to love one another, even when we don't understand one another. We must somehow learn to embrace conflict, give grace, pursue relationship, submit to one another, correct, rebuke, and discipline, forgive, and reach out to a hurting world in the midst of all this stuff. God, please help us to know how to do this when it hurts, frustrates, and even angers us. I'm sure you know exactly how it feels. What? Who, me? How did I hurt you?
posted by Pastor Paul at
10:06 AM
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