Ignoring real needs

1 John 3:16-18 basically states that because Jesus showed his love for us by giving his life for us, those who have resources and do not meet the needs of "brothers and sisters" in Christ cannot have the love of God within them.

It has been nearly 3 years since my family had to move out of our nice home, leave my career and our friends behind and move into a tiny house with my elderly parents.  In that time, I have learned that not everyone who is struggling financially can simply pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  Sometimes people in need, just need help, even for a little while.

It amazes me when Churchists attempt to relate to my family.  Often, they tell their story of having to wait to sell their nice house to move into a bigger one.  Or they say that they understand because money is always tight.  I don't know if they realize how disconnected from the reality of suffering they are.  I heard a sermon some time ago by a young man who was talking about obstacles in our lives.  His big obstacle was trying to sell his home so that he could move to a bigger one.  God, he claimed, worked it out for them.  Meanwhile, I sat in the pew, listening and thinking, "I have no home.  The church took that from me.  I make $1400 per month and am in school full time with a family of 5 to support."  

We don't realize how unsympathetic and unrelatable we are when we talk about such things.

Actually, it goes far deeper than that.  When Churchists talk about money and God's blessings, it never occurs to them how out of sync that is with Jesus.  He never said, "save your treasure so that you may retire well" or "give just enough to get a tax break."  No, His message was to help those in need, to sacrifice money and possessions for others, and to sell all we have and give to the poor.  

I am grateful that my family is going to be rising out of the dire financial situation we have been in.  In a few months, I will make about 60% of what I used to, and we will appreciate every penny of that.  But, we have 4 months we have to survive before that, and no money.  Guess how many of our "church friends" have offered to help us make it through this time...

The latest weapon of churchism

I have re-entered the fray of preaching.  I am a part of a church plant.  It has been "successful" thusfar.  We opened just a few months ago and we are averaging 200 in worship.  Easter brought over 400.

Here is the problem.  The church is a marketing-driven church.  The production is very slick.  Every video and each marketing piece is top-notch.

Unfortunately, we are also using sermon series developed by other churches.

I am doing about 1/3 of the speaking.  I was reviewing the outline tonight for next Sunday.  What I discovered is that the sermon is merely "proof texting."  That means that the scriptures are merely being used out of their context to say what the preacher wants to say--not what they actually say.

This is the problem.  I hear consistently that our church lacks depth, and doesn't deliver scriptural meat. The reason is that the speaker reads a scripture and goes on to say whatever he wants.  True biblical preaching only happens when a scripture is taken within its context and explained in modern terms.

Slick marketing may draw a crowd.  But it does not "make disciples."  Marketing and prefab sermons are offensive to Jesus.

Debbie Does Damage

Debbie Does Damage

Every pastor has to deal with issues like psychological transference. I thought I could handle this particular case, but it was my undoing in the end.
Before I get into this story, let's start with some background.

Debbie

Debbie was the child of missionaries who, claiming to follow God's call, had left her in a boarding school in a foreign country during her adolescence. Debbie never processed through the trauma of those experiences and continued to hold her parents up to be saints following God's call. While she always told me that her family was incredibly close (meaning her siblings and parents), Debbie herself had been divorced from an abusive, alcoholic husband.  I will not go into her current family situation here, but it raises serious red flags. These facts are inconsistent with Debbie's appearance of being an emotionally whole person.

"God's call" is important to Debbie. As many church-goers, she seemed to believe that "God's call" is an unchanging touch of God for only the most select people. These folks that God calls have to preach like Billy Graham, lead like John Maxwell, and cast vision like Bill Hybels. Being spiritually-minded may help too, but that's probably secondary to those with this view of "the calling." 

She believed she was called to be a staff person at the particular church I was pastoring and nowhere else. She became a staff person under a previous pastor. This pastor had loaded his staff with individuals who were relatives of board members--Debbie included. His strategy to add these particular staff was part of his autocratic plan. He assumed his staff could do whatever he wanted if they were family of church "pillars." Debbie was brought on staff during that era and continued on staff with the next pastor (who lasted 8 months) and was a volunteer staff member when I arrived. 

Debbie also had lots of exposure to church strategy through an organization she was involved with through the same former pastor. She read extensively on leadership, church planting, spiritual warfare (of the hyper-spiritualist variety), etc. However, the spiritual disciplines was an area that was lacking in her library.  In spite of these things (which were not broadly known), Debbie was respected as someone who did a lot behind the scenes. In my experience, however, Debbie didn't follow through on assignments, couldn't delegate, was constantly evaluating the senior pastor’s performance and the health of the church through a lens of subjectivity and hyper-spiritualism.  But, because she had "God's call" on her life, she was respected.

The first meeting

During my first week at the church, Debbie made an appointment. She told me the story of the failures of the previous pastor of 8 months, how he had abused his authority, been dishonest, and questioned both Debbie's loyalty and her trustworthiness in a board meeting. She told me she had been so burned by all of that had happened, that she was going to take it slow with me, the new pastor.

She also informed me that she and another person at the church had organized a Sunday service that focussed on reconciliation. I have discovered in the course of ministry that people who plan a service or deliver a sermon often think much more has been accomplished than what actually was. She truly believed that all of the dissension, all of the conflict, all of the hurt feelings and all of the sinful behavior over the 100-year history of the church had been dealt with by doing one Sunday morning service. (Perhaps this lets us see some spiritual pride in this case.)  After all of this information, she presented me with a bag full of books on leadership. Many of these books are on reading lists for pastors. I don't have a problem with books on leadership. But, the perspective of most of them was a secular one. There was not a single book on leading a church spiritually or biblically. Nor was there a book on self-care, or discerning God's will, or the spiritual disciplines.

The Next 5 Years

From that moment on through the next several years, my role with Debbie, the respected God-called person who accomplished almost nothing, was to continually infuse her with confidence that things would be okay. If I didn’t do this on a monthly basis at minimum, she would be convinced that it was time for me to leave because I was losing my vision for the church.  I also tried to be authentic with her about my own struggles, my attempts to hear and respond to God, etc.  There were many times over the years that Debbie would come to me very concerned about an issue or a person in the church.  I would address that, focus her on prayer and listening to the Lord, and remind her of God's vision for our church to reach our community.

Throughout all of these years, Debbie's husband had taken issue with me over the volume of the worship service.  (The decibel level--that was his alleged issue.)  He had been running sound for a while but didn't like the style of music we were playing in worship. He never came to me with his concerns. Instead he began to complain to Debbie about worship. Then, as people began to leave the church (as usually happens in a 100+ year old church with a new direction), he repeatedly told the membership that I was "killing the church."

This was not even close to the worst criticism I received as pastor of the church. But, I'll write more on that another time, including how my wife was confronted during worship, how my young daughter overheard a "pillar of the church" saying I was unfit to pastor over donuts before the service, etc.

Given Debbie's experience with ministers in her past, it is not surprising that I would be the object of her transference. He behavior perfectly fit the pattern.   She put a lot of hope in me early on, that if I could be a John Maxwell type of leader, I would make the church successful (which means more butts in the seats on Sunday regardless of where they come from or if we are reaching anyone). However, over time, she became more and more disheartened as many people left over 5 years. In fact, of the original group who were attending when I arrived, 75% left over that time. But, we also had brand new believers populating our Sunday mornings. Attendance was down some, but most of the new people who visited continued to attend. These were new believers.  People were being reached, but not at the same pace as the exodus of disgruntled Churchists who left.

I had always said it would take at least 5 years for any results for our efforts at revitalizing the church. About 2 weeks before my 5th anniversary as the pastor, Debbie wanted to meet with me. I had noticed over the course of those 5 years, that every time we were not communicating on at least a weekly basis, her transference would begin to tap into those emotions of disconnection and abandonment she felt at boarding school when her missionary father ditched her. I assumed we were going to have another one of our conversations in which I would point her toward the good that was happening, model discernment and prayer for her, etc.

One other key factor: shortly before this meeting Debbie had been to a session with some hyper-spiritualists. These folks were the kind that blame the demonic for every bad thing that happens in or around believers, and that prophesy over people based on their subjective feelings in the moment. Debbie was told that she was a "force to be reckoned with" like an "elephant in the jungle." This turned out to be far too true.

At our meeting, Debbie told me that I had been at the church 5 years and there "were no results." She continued, "maybe you'd be happier in some other line of work" because "even though you are a great preacher and worship leader, you don't have the gifts to be a senior pastor." She also told me that I waited too long to initiate new vision, tried to include leaders in the decision making process too much, and that I needed to lead more forcefully and autocratically. (Of course, I had been told the exact opposite by another leader in the church with his own unaddressed issues: that I moved to fast and didn't include enough people in decisions. That fact probably illustrates that I was somewhere in the middle of those extremes). Add to this the fact that Debbie had just been ordained a couple of weeks earlier even though she hadn't completely fulfilled the requirements of amount of time in service at a church. She also informed me of her husband's animosity toward me. She claimed that I should have addressed an issue with him that I never knew existed. She had also talked to another person about her concerns--a leader who often saw only the negative and whose only friends in the church didn't agree with the direction of the church. I knew this was a growing problem that was now moving beyond just her relationship with me and becoming a problem that could have devastating consequences on the church and my ministry.

Meanwhile, over the course of those same 5 years, even though personal outreach was held up as a high priority and my wife and I consistently modeled it, Debbie had never brought a single individual to any Sunday service, special service, or outreach event. But, as with most Churchists, what she never did to share her faith was never a consideration when she talked about Sunday attendance. Apparently, only the pastor was responsible for attendance, not the Churchists who never brought an unbeliever with them.

Debbie's "sabbatical," her return, her leaving again and the end of my pastorate

Shortly after that conversation, Debbie and her husband took time away from the church.  She called it “a sabbatical,” but it was really a time that they were trying to decide if they could continue to attend the church with me as pastor.  Her transference had reached the point that all the old, unidentified emotions were directed at me in the form of doubt, anger, and disappointment.  It caused her to question my “calling.”  

I think it is important to point out that this is a very common experience among pastors and anyone in a leadership role.  In this case, the emotions of being abandoned in a foreign land by a father following "God's call" have to be devastating to an adolescent.  Since these emotions had not even been acknowledged or processed over many decades, they often get directed at a person, like me, in a similar role of spiritual leadership.

Meanwhile, I had decided to go back to school to pursue another career to be a tentmaker in ministry so that my personal finances would not be such a burden on the church.  Also, in the meantime, our major vision for outreach was growing.  We had created a great ministry to reach youth in our area that was becoming very effective, impacting literally hundreds of teens.  This was beginning to translate into families attending on Sunday.  

Debbie and her husband came back to the church about 9 months later.  Much to my dismay, Debbie stepped right back into leadership and church board meetings.  It was clear to me that she had no business being included in leadership given her continuing psychological transference and her continued attitude about what the church was doing under my leadership.  She continued to believe that I should not continue to pastor even though by this time we had 40+ new believers over about a 3 month period, over 20 of whom were teens in our youth programming who had absolutely no knowledge of Christ previously.  But, the Sunday attendance was still not growing fast enough for the Churchists.  You see, Churchism focusses not on reaching people, but on getting butts in the seats on Sundays so that the Churchists can have pride in their church, even if the "results" mean that no one is reached.  Pride is not a positive.  It is one of the seven deadly sins.

After I had a meeting in which the church board unanimously supported my plan to go to school and continue to pastor the church, Debbie and I met again.  She had not been at that meeting (nor should she have been). I explained the situation.  Even though she expressed some questions about my going to school, at the end of our conversation, she asked "how can I help you in the church over the next year as you start school?" I thought that once again, I may have been able to contain the potential problems with Debbie.
Within a few days of that discussion, Debbie was talking to board members to let them know that she would not attend a church where the pastor was going to be attending school to embark on another career, even if it was to be a tentmaker.  How could I have "God's call" on my life to be the pastor and pursue such a thing? It became clear in a matter of days that I would not be able to continue as pastor without Debbie doing a great deal of damage to the church over an issue that I felt was personal to me, not an issue of church vision. Within a few days, Debbie left the church, informing me by email on a Sunday after playing in the worship band without saying a word to me about it.  She did, however, have a powwow with one of the church board members to stir up some dust on her way out the door.

Meanwhile, another board member who "was concerned for the finances of the church" (even though he didn't tithe, and in fact involved in the finances of the church in a highly suspect way) also began calling members of the board to try to get them to revisit the issue of my going to school and continuing to pastor. While he had voted in favor of the decision, he was truly opposed to it. There were many personal issues with this board member as well that I won't address here. But he contributed to the perfect storm on the board. Two (undeservedly) respected people were now openly expressing their opposition. Debbie's issues with me now had much more traction.

Within 3 weeks I resigned as pastor with no prospects of providing for my family.

My Downfall

My downfall was this: I never informed the leadership of the church about the depth of the issues with Debbie. I didn't hold her accountable for her lack of participation in the vision of the church, and I never confronted her directly about her transference with me (although many times I tried to lead her toward that realization). So, when she left the church (for the second time), it was a shock to many in leadership. Since she was well-respected in the church (and who I am to tear her down?), it looked like the sky was falling under my leadership.

Never mind dozens of teens became Christians. Never mind new families were excited about the church. Never mind that a fully entrenched church culture of over 100 years had begun to shift toward becoming a missional movement. Never mind that I was doing my best in an extraordinarily difficult situation to implement God's will for our church and community. 

When it was all said and done with Debbie, it was about her unmet and unrecognized emotional needs which fulfilled the prophecy that she is "a force to be reckoned with."

Fallout

I should add that my wife and Debbie had a close friendship. Both she and I are devastated by all that has happened. The personal betrayal was incredibly difficult. But, even worse was the loss of my income, the loss of our home, a relocation away from our and our kids' friends, and the loss of hopes and dreams for ministry in that place and maybe for ministry in a church altogether. The list of hurts goes on. It is hard to express how much pain this situation caused my family.

Meanwhile, Debbie is entrenched in a leadership role at the church, working closely with the next pastor while denying that she had anything to do with my leaving.  She believes that her feelings about my "call" were confirmed.

The too familiar voice of God

For the first time in 14 years, I am no longer called "pastor." Yes, I still have the credentials, but I am no longer in that role. Recently, after leaving the senior pastorate, I was serving at a new church as the worship leader and realized that I just couldn't do it any longer. At least not now.

Here's the problem: I can't play churchism anymore. Sunday worship services, no matter the format--contemporary, liturgical, traditional, "contemporvant"--are all the same. They exist to make the people in the seats feel something, to experience "God." But it's not God they experience.

Usually what these good church-going-people (churchists) feel is sheer subjectivity. The voice of God sounds familiar because it is their own voice. Feuerbach was right that most believers are merely projecting their highest ideals--unconditional love, acceptance, order, ultimate meaning--out into eternity and naming it "God." We have created God in our own image and likeness. This fact plays out even more so in the protestant movement in North America with its inherent bent toward individualism and subjective experience. (Which by the way are signs of sin in the scriptures). Where is the line between the "voice of God" and pure subjectivity? Scripture? We usually interpret that through the lenses of the template of our tradition. The Church? There is no "Church" with a big "C" to separate truth from fiction--no real biblically mandated authority among protestants. No. The judge of whether or not I am hearing the voice of God is the highest authority. Me.

Someone used to say to me "feelings aren't truth." What that person meant was "other people's feelings aren't truth, but my feelings are the movement of the Holy Spirit in my life." That person used to use churchism code words to disguise subjective feelings--words like "confirmation," "resonating," "leading," "discerning." What I have learned is that if people regularly claim God's leading or a "word from the Lord," it's usually self-inspired b.s. How many times is it recorded that Abraham heard directly from God? What about Paul? What about Jesus? A few at best. And that was Abraham, Paul and Jesus, for crying out loud.

Another disturbing aspect of this subjective churchism is the constant desire to reach people and the remarkable failure at doing so. If it is true that each believer has a call to reach the world, that each believer is empowered by the very presence of God Himself indwelling the individual, and that each believer has been radically made new, where is the evidence? There is none. 1% of churches grow through new converts. 90% of churches are in decline. That's among protestant "evangelicals." The divorce rate, the rate of addictions, the suicide rate, the rate of child abuse, etc. are all identical to the "world."

The problem is that what churchists have experienced, in the adapted words of the old song, is "more of me. More of me." The God they claim to follow is really themselves in a mirror wearing the god-mask.

Funny thing--and this is probably an issue for a separate blog--is that I have been hearing a lot of excuses for God lately when He seems less than perfect. It's a totally subjective interpretation of events. It's something like Leibniz old argument of the best of all possible worlds. God allows or even causes evil, but it's for my good. Really?? God can only make good from evil? I think God might be able to make good from good. He's God after all. He can do anything. Perhaps when something bad happens, it's because we put ourselves in that position, or because bad stuff just happens sometimes. Perhaps the problem is with the interpreter of the events, not with the events themselves. If the universe revolves around me, then what happens to me is of ultimate importance. And, in the protestant, American churchist tradition, we are each the center of God's universe.

A last observation...the entirety of the Good News in the subjectivist world of the churchist is "Jesus loves me" or "if you were the only one, Jesus would have died for you." How incredibly arrogant. Isn't there a whole universe with billions of people who need reconciliation? And the churchist is comfortable thinking God's entire plan developed over the entirety of created history revolves around their individual sin and forgiveness. Not only is that egocentric, it is a complete misunderstand of Jesus' perception of his own work. He said he came that "the world may know" Him. Not just the selfish pew sitter. Perhaps there is more to the message of Jesus than an individual encounter.

As for me...I will not contribute to the subjectivity any more. God is bigger than that...I hope.

Pillars of the Church are Often Made of Salt

Lot’s wife was forced to leave her home through no fault of her own. Sodom was a sinful city. God allowed Lot and his family to escape from the city’s destruction. The only warning was not to look back. But, Lot’s wife couldn’t resist the tug of her old life. Her sin was to look back at the place they needed to leave. She longed for her home, for her belongings, her friends. But the city was incinerated because it was also full of sin.

Turning to salt isn’t a good thing. It’s the end. It’s the statue that remains of what we used to be. It’s the net result of looking back over our shoulder. Like the Daniel Amos song, we “take too many trips down memory lane.” Then, we are only worth our salt.

The tendency to live in the mode of looking backward is a hallmark of the “Pillar of the Church.” Church pillars, of course, are those people who are the kingpins of the church, the leaders, the reliable old “saints.” But I’ve also heard the “pillars of the church” defined as the people who hold up the church and block vision.

Have you ever heard this phrase in a church? “We’ve always done it that way.” If you ask a pillar of the church why the sacred cow programs exist, they will often say “because we’ve always done it that way.” There’s no thought to whether they are effective in achieving anything or if they are the best use of money and time, much less if they are reaching the lost or not. Those programs just exist because that’s what the church pillars sees as he looks over his shoulder at the burning embers of what used to be effective. But those programs have long since been subject to the sins of pride and human tradition.

Should we consider whether our churches are being effective at reaching the lost? Should we eliminate antiquated, ineffective programs in order to fulfill the Great Commission? The Church Pillar thinks not. Instead, the pillar believes the church needs to continue programming on the basis that it makes the church people happy, creates a comfortable homelike feeling, and helps them enjoy “going to church.” Every time a new initiative aimed at reaching the lost is rejected (be they “contemporary” worship, creating new uses for the facility, transitioning away from traditional Sunday School, etc.) in favor of the status quo, you can taste the salt in the air.

It goes beyond mere church programming and into the heart of the pillar of the church. The church pillar also looks to the past as the high point of his own spirituality and of the church. “I was brought into this church 80 years ago when I was 2 weeks old.” Translation: “This is my church and you’ll have to put me in a box before you change it.” Another saying: “I was saved 54 years ago,” said by a bitter woman who has been mad at every pastor since 1960-something. But ask her about her current walk with Christ, the people she’s impacting for the Kingdom and you’ll get the blank stare of a salty statue. Another favorite: “That church hasn’t had good music for years.” (I will write another time on cultural relevance in music. Suffice it to say that we don’t throw theology out the window in the name of relevance.) What the person really means by that is: “I don’t care if our band is helping us reach people, I don’t find the music as entertaining as Lawrence Welk.” Another great one, "they took away my ministry." The meaning of this sentence is really: "all I did at the church was sing in the choir and we don't have one now so I can't be on the platform anymore." And finally, said with a great deal of pious pride (I heard this at my previous church): “we used to be a church of 1000.” This actually meant that they had a thousand members on paper but never averaged above 490 in their heyday in the 1940s. Salt, salt, salt, all of them said by pillars of salt.

The sad truth for the pillar of the church is that the best really is in the past. The church services that meant something to them are gone. The experience of the close-felt reality of God is a thing remembered only. The worship services where they raised hands, or shed tears, or prayed earnestly are all decades ago. The problem is that pillars of salt have no current spiritual experiences any more than the statue in the Lincoln Memorial can preside over our nation.

It is very dangerous to look only to the things better left behind: our old life, our old spiritual experience, the things that worked at our church in yesteryear, even our sinful ways. But, the churchist can’t resist. Yet, every time we gaze behind us too long, we lose our direction because we can’t see our destination.

Pastor, resist listening to salty statues. As much as we'd like to stay and reminisce about the places we leave behind, God calls us away. It's no fault of our own. The past just needs to be left behind. Listen instead to the living Holy Spirit who will direct your path into the future. Leave the past behind and press on toward the mark which is the call of Christ.

Church Allergy

I was talking to a pastor friend today. He shared an interesting thing with me. He is allergic to the church. When he spends too much time in the facility we call "church," he actually gets physically sick because of the mold spores in the building.

I think that people can be made sick by the church...both the churchists and those who are entirely "worldly."

How true that is for the followers of Christ. The more time we spend "in church," the more we become ill. Our illness looks like this: We forget that we should value relationships with those outside the church more highly than our comfortable "church friends." We begin to adhere to the rules of the institutional church more than Christ's own teaching. We begin to serve ourselves, our preferences, and our needs more than the needs of those who don't yet know Christ.

This fact is obvious in my former church's discussion of music. Every new member of our church over the course of 5 years said that the music was what drew them to the church. Meanwhile, the complaints about the music were so bad among church people that a former sound man was having "discussions" in the foyer about me (the pastor) and how wrong I was about our music and that I was "destroying the church." He refused to see that the same thing that was an irritant to him was actually effective in reaching over 2 dozen new people.

Another example of this church-sickness involved our old fellowship hall. We re-invented that space as a youth center. Over 18 months, our youth center served over 500 teens with over 30 giving their hearts to Christ. Our youth group grew from 2 to 40 and our Friday night Youth Center served about 70 kids each week. Meanwhile, the churchists were complaining that we had "taken the fellowship hall away from them." Of course, they were free to use it any time but when youth were present. But that's beside the point. They didn't actually care who was reached. They just wanted ownership of the building.

The churchists who've been made sick by being in the church too long also demand that the pastor prefer them over the lost. Shaking the hand of old sister so-and-so is far more important than making sure the new person gets connected. Spending time talking to the pillars of the church is far more important that spending time with lost people. (Reminds me of a story involving Jesus and Levi.) Pastors who imitate Christ are said to spend way too much time with "those new people."

Church sickness goes even deeper within the churchist. They become more and more confident and smug in their own opinions about church while they are removed more and more from the real world. Ask a church-sick churchist to tell you about specific relationships they are investing in right now to bring someone to Christ. I guarantee it will be an interesting conversation. While they will say that reaching people is very important, they are not willing to get involved in that activity in their personal lives or in their church's services and religious product offerings.

The church sickness among the churchists has another symptom. The church itself, in their view, exists to serve the church goer. One of my pastor friends recently told me that during a review with his church board, a church board member said that he "focused too long on reaching lost people and now it's time to focus on us a while." Another pastor told me that a church board member liked that people were being reached, but that they should try to reach people "who are more like us."

These folks have a profound gap in their understanding of why the Church exists. The Church exists to "go into the world...and make disciples" and to "go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth." The pastors and leaders of the church exists to "equip the saints for works of service." I can't find anywhere in the scripture where it says that the Church exists to make church goers feel contented and happy.

A 500-pound man goes into a fast food restaurant. He orders the Big Burger and Extra Manly Size soft drink and fries. He consumes the meal and is still unsatisfied. He complains to the manager: "I'm not satisfied. This restaurant isn't feeding me." Perhaps the problem isn't the food. Perhaps the problem is that he is over fed to begin with. Such large stomaches are hard to fill. Maybe the churchist who has unwittingly become sick by being in the church so long needs to stop getting fed, get off his butt and exercise his faith a little.

There is another side of the church sickness coin. There are those in our society who have given church and Christianity a try, but who have seen it for the hypocritical mix of gnosticism and legalism that it is. When a heathen person looks at the church and sees us bicker over carpet color, argue about worship songs, say bad things about each other, and ignoring our moral code, what is that person supposed to believe? How can they not be made sick by the church? When drinking is talked about like it's the cardinal sin and yet a person playing guitar in the worship band has a well-known, multi-decadal affair, how can an outsider look on that as anything but complete and total disregard for the scriptures? It's just self-evident. And yet, the churchists justify these things while the average person with no church experience is sickened. And for good reason. Jesus is sickened by them too.

God save us from those claim to follow you. Help us to truly be the Church.

You Don’t Need To Be Present to Win

You Don’t Need To Be Present to Win.

Today, I saw the most ridiculous thing on Facebook. It was a quote that said “you can be a Christian and not go to church just as much as you can be married and never go home.”

Where do I begin?

This is a great argument put forth by a Churchist, someone who confuses church attendance with a relationship with Christ, who mistakes the institution for Christ’s presence.

When will we who are believers stop trying to gather “unchurched” people into our subculture on Sundays? When will we stop asking “are they in church” as if it were the most important existential question?

Let’s be clear. My home changes places. Sometimes (like now) I don’t have a home of my own. And yet, I am still married. My relationship to my wife is not determined by a particular dwelling place, or a room, or a town or a country. We are married and have a relationship regardless of place. In fact, if I am never “home,” I am still married in the eyes of God and the law.

Using the same metaphor, the Bible makes it clear that the bride of Christ is waiting on His return. He’s not even with us and yet we are still His bride. Using the same logic as the Facebook entry, He has forsaken us. He is the one who is absent in the relationship. What kind of husband is that? Jesus must be a deadbeat in the eyes of that pastor on Facebook.

Our relationship to the Ultimate goes well beyond that metaphor. That relationship with Christ is internal. Let’s face the fact that often times the outward expression we call “church” is a corporate reality that doesn’t resemble the Church that Jesus spoke about. His temple is in our hearts. His Kingdom is come within humanity. His Holy Spirit is given to all who believe. Being in a particular venue on a particular day of the week does not save us. Only Jesus can do that. In fact, often, His alleged people can drive us farther from the truth. However, His presence is mysteriously active in each individual who believes. And, His promise is to be with those who gather in twos and threes. Sunday or not. Church building or not. Worship service or not. Church growth to satisfy the egos of the attenders or not.

I was a pastor for many years. I understand the desire to grow a church. I also generally recommend people attend a church. However, often those who talk in church-growth terms are speaking out of pride (it makes us feel good to be a part of a growing church) and never actually do anything to reach anyone. When a church grows, we assume people are being reached for Christ. Do the research and see for yourself if that typically happens or not. Most growing churches are larger because the church people are gathering in greater numbers. And, if someone is converted, they are given as proof of God moving. I know of one church that points to its one convert in 10 years to show that the church is successful at reaching the lost.

Let’s face the truth. Church growth doesn’t equal Kingdom growth. Church attendance also doesn’t mean you are a believer. I have some dear friends who rarely attend a church service and yet are much more committed to the faith that the vast majority of church attenders. The Church’s expression is not limited to Sundays in a church building. A better expression of the Church happens as people do life together, love each other unconditionally and pray together while growing into the image of Jesus. That’s the Church.

Some will quote the scripture that says “do not forsake the assembly.” But what assembly are we talking about? In Paul’s day...Daily...In homes. Is that what Churchists do? Hardly. They attend on Sunday while the the rest of the week, they slander people including their pastor, live in such a way that their faith is compartmentalized, and try to justify their behavior because they are “only human.”

God save us from Churchists. Gatherings of people on Sunday mornings are not “the way, the truth, and the life.” So let’s stop condescending on those who have no use for the subculture of Churchism as expressed on Sundays.

I’m not trying to discourage church attendance. Let’s see it for what it is. It is not in itself a relationship with God. It can be a help in your spiritual journey, but it can also be a hinderance in many cases.

Attendance is not mandatory. Jesus lives within the hearts of those who believe. We don’t have to be present with the churchists on Sundays to win that Prize.