Who Stole My Church?

“The church,” says N.T. Wright, “is first and foremost a community, a collection of people who belong to one another because they belong to God, the God we know in and through Jesus.” This faith community exists for the two related purposes of worshiping God and working for God’s kingdom in the world. Having laid out these two primary functions of the church, Wright continues:

The church also exists for a third purpose, which serves the other two: to encourage one another, to build one another up in faith, to pray with and for one another, to learn from one another and teach one another, and to set one another examples to follow, challenges to take up, and urgent tasks to perform. This is all part of what is known loosely as fellowship. This doesn’t just mean serving one another cups of tea and coffee. It’s all about living within that sense of a joint enterprise, a family business, in which everyone has a proper share and a proper place.*

When people, particularly people who have been in the church for many years, lament that someone has “stolen” their church, I believe they are not referring primarily to the style of worship (though that is part of it). Rather, they are mourning the loss of these defining characteristics of fellowship that Wright describes as a fundamental aspect of what the church is meant to be.

The church I grew up in, while far from perfect, exemplified these qualities in many ways. It was a multi-generational church, with older adults teaching and serving as examples for children and youth, middle-aged adults mentoring younger adults, and programming (such as it was in those days) emphasizing corporate Bible study and prayer. Church business was conducted with transparency and integrity. There was a strong sense of corporate identity and mutual support and encouragement. Differences, disagreements and offenses, when they arose, could generally be weathered because of a level of trust and mutual respect that existed within the body. Without any orchestrated evangelistic initiatives or an excessive emphasis on outreach, the church grew steadily, in a sustainable and healthy way. The Kingdom of God quietly grew and spread.

Fast-forward 25 years. My childhood church features a slick, contemporary worship style, an efficient top-down leadership model, and a veritable orgy of outreach ministries. We are growing, so the statistics tell us, by tremendous leaps and bounds. The leadership would have us believe that those who are expressing grave misgivings about all this (the “Who Stole My Church?” crowd) are living in the past, holding on to a model that no longer works, longing for the comfort of “the old days and the old ways,” uninterested in reaching out, unable to reconcile themselves to new music and new ways of doing things. They are, the standard line goes, out of touch with the real world, unwilling to change, rigid, and stuck in the past.

Well, worship style is definitely a sore spot. But when people grieve the loss of “their” church, what they are really grieving is the loss of the very qualities that once made this church a thriving, healthy outpost of God’s Kingdom. Gone are the days when everyone had a place and a valued role. Now those roles are reserved for the talented and the moneyed. (Our pastor, I am told, has access to all church giving records and knows who must be courted and given positions of influence.) Gone is the atmosphere of trust and a shared identity. Now we view one another with suspicion, fragmented into so many mutually distrustful interest groups. Gone is the sense of ownership the members have when they are allowed to participate in making decisions and setting the course for the church. Now The Vision is forced on its members from above, and the concerns and desires of the congregation are disregarded. Gone are the days when church leadership was honored and trusted. Now they are held in contempt by significant numbers of the congregation. Gone are the days when the church modeled integrity and honesty in its practices. Now church governance is conducted in secret, with no transparency and little accountability. (The flow of information to the Board and the congregation is strictly controlled. No opposing voices are allowed.)  Gone are the days when older people were valued and their wisdom and experience sought. Now their voices are silenced, and they are treated as relics and labeled as “rigid, inflexible and out of touch.” Gone are the days when the members of the body cared for and encouraged one another. Now people are treated as so many obstacles to be overcome or removed.

When we ask aloud, “Who stole my church?” that’s what we’re talking about. And that is the question that no one at the top is willing to answer.

 

*[N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, HarperCollins, 2006, p. 211]

Is Outreach Overrated?

For those of us steeped in an Evangelical tradition whose chief reason for existing is to get others saved, it feels almost heretical even to raise such a question. We have boiled the church’s mission down to this: share the Gospel so that others will believe in Jesus, resulting in a better life now and an eternity in heaven hereafter. To this end we’ve embraced the seeker-friendly model, believing that most means are justified if in the end we can just get unchurched folks through the door and in a position to hear our message. In an effort to throw off the church’s reputation for stodginess and irrelevance, we’ve embraced a goal of being “culturally relevant,” which seems to come down to lively contemporary worship (because of course all unchurched people prefer this style of music to the exclusion of all other styles—country, gospel, jazz, hip hop, heavy metal, classical, and, God forbid, hymns) and exciting family-friendly programming. Apparently we’ve bought the idea that all pagans have the same tastes (for lively contemporary music delivered in a concert setting) and are seeking the same thing (a better life now, and heaven hereafter). I’m willing to bet that the unchurched population is a whole lot more diverse than we seem to think.

 

On what basis have churches made outreach the linchpin of their existence? There’s the Great Commission, of course. Jesus commanded his followers to make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to obey his commands. Off the top of my head, I can’t come up with any place where the Gospels record that Jesus preached a message of personal salvation resulting in eternal life in heaven. (Possibly Nicodemus and the thief on the cross.) What he did preach, and exemplify, was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” After his death and resurrection, the first believers—in defiance of all evidence to the contrary—banded together to live as though God’s kingdom really had come. They met together to learn and fellowship and pray. They cared for one another. They proclaimed the good news without fear, knowing that Jesus had already defeated both death and Caesar. They lived and proclaimed a new way of being human, of being the redeemed people of God in community, and inviting others to be part of God’s great redemptive plan that would ultimately restore all of creation to its intended purpose. Personal salvation, yes, but so much more than that. To be a member of God’s church is to be a participant in God’s great redemptive plan for fallen creation. To reduce our message to one of personal salvation is to make the message way too small.

 

Do our churches bear witness to God’s kingdom come among us? If our programming is bringing people into the church, what, exactly, is the message they are seeing and hearing? Do we value and care for people? (Many at my church would say no.) Do we conduct our corporate affairs with transparency and in ways that are above reproach? (Again, many at my church would say no.) Do we care for those in need? (Some at my church would say that we’ve actually caused some to be in need.) Do we preach and teach the Word of God? (Many at my church would say we preach a diminished gospel of felt-needs evangelism.)

 

Why do we stick with such a church? Well, partly from habit. Partly, too, because most of the options available to us aren’t much different. Mostly, however, we stick with this church because we believe that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. We’ve found pockets of people who love God’s word and want to study it, know it, and live it. We’ve heard of groups who sacrifice time and skills to help people in need. We see people whose hearts are broken by the church’s treatment of its members, and are working to care for those who have been hurt. We know people who are demanding transparency and accountability in the church’s dealings. In short, we have faith that God’s kingdom, small as a mustard seed, will someday rule the garden.

Y-M-C-A!

I love the YMCA. The Gamble-Nippert YMCA, Cincinnati, Ohio, deserves a large share of the credit for helping me maintain sanity as a mother of four children under age 4. We regretfully discontinued our membership when we moved to Pennsylvania. Imagine our surprise, then, when we found that our church had, somewhere along the way, morphed into an entity practically indistinguishable from (You guessed it!) … the YMCA.

Our church boasts a gym, a café, family activities, a preschool, opportunities for the charitably inclined to “give back,” round-the-clock programming, and the occasional religious or biblical reference to remind folks that we are still a Christian association. In fact, we’ve even out-Y’ed the Y. Our office spaces are more posh, our parking lots bigger, our Welcome Center coffee and refreshments fresher and more varied. And all this for free, if we choose not to contribute. (Eventually, the guilt probably catches up, making contributors out of freeloaders.) What’s not to like?

Next Wednesday our church is sponsoring a Fall Fiesta SuperFest, featuring a huge box maze, giant inflatables, hayride, games of skill, free candy and food. Oh, and a brief program in the auditorium, where kids will discover that Jesus is our true hero. Fortunately the program is brief and at the beginning of the festival so it need not interfere in any significant way with the fun-filled rest of the evening. I used to think that church outreach programs embraced a kind of dubious bait-and-switch strategy wherein people were invited to a party but got an evangelistic message, or invited to a free meal but got a plea for money. Now, at least, we’ve dispensed with that strategy—which the heathen were beginning to see through, anyway—and gone to the more honest approach of offering just the bait without the switch.

The evening was billed as a “Halloween alternative,” which is a nice idea as far as it goes. Still, one wonders if it wouldn’t be more of an alternative if it were offered from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday night, during official trick-or-treat hours. I would lay dollars to donuts that exactly zero kids will forego trick-or-treat on Friday because they went to the SuperFest on Wednesday. What would happen if it were, in fact, held from 6 to 8 on Friday? We’ll never know, but I’m guessing we might find that no matter how great a product we offer, we just won’t win when we’re competing on the world’s turf using the world’s weapons.

Which brings us to the question of what, exactly, it is that we’re offering the world. Are we just a slightly more religious version of the YMCA? Or are we called to be something much more radical, much more exciting, and much more costly? Why are we trying to beat the world at its own game, when we have something the world can never, ever offer: the Kingdom of God, taking root and growing in the world like wheat among weeds, commanding a different kind of power, and embracing a different set of goals. Now that’s a clear alternative, and if we were to live it faithfully I think we just might be surprised at how many people are longing for exactly that kind of thing. But will we ever have the courage to try it?

Monoculture

We’ve been reading two kinds of books lately: books on sustainable farming practices and books on church and theology. You would think, on the face of it, that these two topics are poles apart. Recently, however, we’ve noticed a remarkable convergence between them. Principles of sustainable agriculture can be applied to our contemporary church practices almost seamlessly in many cases. Just as a significant number of people are rejecting current industrial farming practices as both unhealthy and unsustainable in the long term, a significant number of Christians are questioning and rejecting current industrial church practices for the same reason.

Any practitioner of sustainable agricultural methods will tell you that diversity is vital to the success of the endeavor. Growing the same crop on the same ground season after season, or grazing the same type of livestock on the same pasture year after year, results in an unhealthy monoculture. Soil-borne diseases that afflict one crop remain in the soil to attack next year’s crop. In the same way, parasites that thrive in the digestive systems of, say, cattle will be waiting around to take up residence in the next round of cattle in that field. To address these threats, chemical herbicides and pesticides must be applied, and livestock must be treated with courses of antibiotics to keep illness at bay. Different crops also require different (and different levels of) nutrients from the soil. Growing the same crop every year quickly depletes the soil of vital nutrients, which can only be replaced using large quantities of chemical fertilizer.

Sustainable farming practices rotate both crops and livestock through a given area on a regular basis. The use of cover crops restores soil fertility naturally by fixing nitrogen and adding humus. Without going into great and tedious detail, suffice it to say that diversity is at the heart of any successful, sustainable farming enterprise. (Yes, there are successful farms that operate on the principle of monoculture; whether or not they are sustainable is another question.)

So many of our churches today exist as monocultures. Of the churches represented by booths at our local fair several weeks ago, every one advertised, with very minor variations, “dynamic small groups,” “exhilarating worship,” “relevant messages,” and “exciting children’s programs.” Frank Viola and George Barna, in their book Pagan Christianity, describe the typical contemporary worship scenario:

At the front of the stage is a simple podium, some plants, amplifiers, speakers, and lots of wires…The standard worship team includes an amplified guitar, drums, keyboard, possibly a bass guitar, and some special vocalists. Words are usually projected onto a screen or a bare wall by an overhead (or video) projector or by PowerPoint slides. The songs are typically selected before the worship service. There are rarely songbooks or hymnals.

In such churches, worship means following the band’s prescribed songs. The praise and worship time typically lasts from twenty to forty minutes. The first songs are usually upbeat praise choruses. The worship team will then lead a lively, hand-clapping, body-swaying, hand-raising (sometimes dancing) congregation into a potpourri of individualistic spiritual experience…

As the band leaves the stage, ushers pass the offering plates. This is usually followed by the sermon, and the pastor dominates the rest of the service. In many churches, the pastor will call the worship team to return to the stage to play a few more worshipful songs as he winds up his sermon.

I had to laugh as I read this, because it describes our Sunday morning worship service perfectly. The worship liturgy is absolutely carved in granite. Not only that, but our church now boasts three services weekly, and every one is identical. You would think, with the number of paid staff we have, and the resources available to us, we could manage at least a nod toward those who haven’t yet embraced this monocultural form of worship.

And when the monoculture proves to be unsustainable, we pump up the worn-out soil with free (or low-cost) community meals, more programming, more excitement, more displays of over-caffeinated devotion, and more decibels. When unhealthy chatter, hurt and antagonism arise, measures are quickly taken to kill off (figuratively!), send away, or render ineffective those who threaten the status quo. This system may continue to barrel along yet for quite awhile before it finally consumes itself and collapses, leaving behind a scarred and burned-out landscape that will take years to reclaim.

I don’t know how all this will play out. There is certainly a small but growing group of people who would like to see us move away from this soul-crushing monoculture and toward a more sustainable and life-giving faith practice. What would diversity look like in this context? Can we dream of worshiping in a way that honors and includes all people and preferences? With all the rich and varied expressions of worship from two millennia of Christian history available to us, why lock ourselves into one format and exclude all others?

Our church claims to “embrace constant change.” Let’s see if we can find the courage—and the creativity—to actually embrace some positive change. Let’s have some diversity.

Culling

Note: I’m not sure whether to categorize this as “farm” or “church.” Let me know what you think!

We have a sick hen. For the past couple of weeks we’ve noticed that she just doesn’t seem to be thriving. She isn’t eating much, and consequently isn’t growing much. She is lethargic, and kind of hunches up with her neck pulled back into her shoulders. (Do chickens have shoulders?) I’ve googled “sick hen” and come up with pages and pages of heart-wrenching posts from people with, well, sick hens. Mostly, the hens seem to expire regardless of the measures taken to treat them.

Conventional farming wisdom would suggest that this hen should have been culled at the first signs of unthriftiness. She’ll never pull her own weight. She’ll continue to consume food and resources, putting a drain on the whole system. She may infect the rest of the flock with whatever she has. And we certainly don’t want her to reproduce. Good farmers don’t get emotionally attached to their livestock. We’re business people, and our animals contribute either positively or negatively to the bottom line. The latter should be culled at the first sign of weakness. It’s just business, you know.

Problem is, this batch of laying hens all have names. They came as an assortment, so they all look different. Rusty Comrade, so-called because the children think she looks like a pirate, has only one good eye and an off-set beak. We should have culled her the day we got her; instead, we gave her a name. Then there’s Bighead, who we think might really be a cockerel masquerading as a pullet. (S)he was trying to crow yesterday. If “she” does, in fact, turn out to be a “he,” there won’t be any eggs. To cull, or not to cull? There’s Loner, who survived a hawk attack, but suffered temporary emotional scarring; Robin, who looks more like a pigeon than either a hen or a robin; and Raccoon, who is an acrobat and an adventurer.

And then there’s Booey, who is sick, and should have been culled two weeks ago. We keep her on, though, because… well, because we just can’t bring ourselves to do the job. Some days she looks better. Yesterday, for instance, she bounced right out of the barn with the others when I opened the stable door. She was less hunched up, and was eating and drinking. Maybe she’ll make it after all. I draw the line at calling the vet for a chicken, but for now we’ll doctor her along and hope.

So what do you think? Is this post about farming? Or is it about the church?

Humility

This past Sunday night our family attended a service of footwashing at our church. As I sat in that circle of women, ranging in age from little girls to a great-grandmother in her 80s, I was reminded again—as I always am when I participate in this humble ritual of servanthood—of how important humility is in God’s kingdom. In fact, humility seems to be one of the defining characteristics of God’s people. How often does the New Testament circle back to this theme? Blessed are the meek. The last will be first. Consider others better than yourselves. Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.

It’s hard to be angry with someone whose feet you’ve washed. It’s hard to view as an expendable commodity someone who has washed your feet. It’s hard to be anything but authentic with a group of people who have seen your holey socks and varicose veins. It’s a natural response to want to protect and nurture those whose swollen ankles and chipped nail polish you’ve witnessed.

In our present infatuation with business-model churches, the quality of humility is conspicuously absent. No wonder. Humility doesn’t get you far in the corporate world. So we’ve traded in the master who washed his disciples’ feet for leaders who view the people in their care as eggs to be broken in a quest for the biggest and best omelet. We’ve traded in the mustard seed of God’s kingdom for the kudzu of the attractive and relevant mega-church. We’ve traded in the basin and towel for power and prestige.

Isn’t it time to have the corporate books audited so we can see the real cost of what we’ve done?

Did Jesus Sing?

I love music. It stirs the soul and the mind and the spirit. It facilitates parts of my worship. A brother of mine says that we were created to sing praises to God Most High, and the Bible certainly indicates that this is the case. The book of Revelation shows us glimpses of Heaven, and it is filled with songs. Great songs. Holy songs. On a more earthly level, a quick tour through YouTube shows us that the church loves to sing.

Maybe Jesus didn’t need to sing since he was God in the flesh. But I pause to wonder: Did Jesus sing? Should I sing? To what extent should singing be my faith practice? What role does singing play in the mission of the Church?

Today so many of the church’s resources go into music: multiple up-front singers, instruments, bands, equipment, lights, sound boards, recordings, and practice time. It is notable that songwriters and singers can capture their talent in 3 to 4 minutes and replay it, repackage it, send it on tour, and sell it online to a vast audience, while the spoken word is much harder to find. Are people buying sermons? [Yes, sermons are routinely purchased online and repackaged for delivery from the pulpit (“creative plagiarism,” as Eugene Peterson calls it), but by and large it is pastors, not laypeople, who engage in this practice.]

And yet, teaching and living the word was what Jesus was all about. Jesus was the Word made flesh. God’s revelation to us was with words and actions. The church in Acts grew not by worship songs but by the Spirit-filled preaching and teaching of Spirit-filled men and women. What brought near the Kingdom of God—songs or heart-piercing preaching?

“And when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. We may never know if Jesus sang; we do know that people were drawn to the Kingdom of God by his words and actions. His message wasn’t slickly packaged or designed to appeal to the masses; rather, it was grounded in intimate knowledge of God and firmly rooted in the Jewish scriptures. And through this  the Kingdom of God was revealed to the earth.

Butchering day has come and gone. All told, 14 Cornish Rocks were processed and packaged for the freezer. We froze eight whole roasters, 5-6 lbs. each, and cut up the remaining six birds to package as boneless, skinless breast portions and leg/thigh portions, for a total of about 60 lbs. of meat. We are waiting for our spreadsheet manager to enter the data and tell us the per pound cost of our chicken. Stay tuned…

Our friend Ben, along with his year-old daughter, arrived around 9 a.m. to walk us through the process. We already had a wood fire going under a large kettle of scalding water. The chickens had spent the previous night outdoors in the movable 4×10 foot chicken tractor, so we didn’t have to chase them down. Matt hung a row of hooks under the shed overhang, and this became our makeshift abattoir. Ben slaughtered the first round. Some of us preferred not to watch. Our neighbor brought her two boys over to witness the event, believing that knowing where one’s food comes from is a good thing. (We agree.) Grandpa was the official event photographer.

After the ax fell, the first round were suspended from the hooks by the feet to bleed out. From there they were hauled to the scalding water bath and dunked briefly to loosen the feathers, after which they were plucked. Since we planned to keep all our birds for our own use, we didn’t get too compulsive about removing every single pin feather. Still, plucking was a tedious job that took a long time. When the first five were plucked, Ben showed us how to remove the feet and take the guts out. After the feathers and guts were removed, the roasters were washed and bagged and then placed in the fridge to age for 1 to 2 days.

Matt took a deep breath and slaughtered the rest. He didn’t enjoy it much, but said he’d be willing to do it again. We’re wishing we’d hosed down the shed wall before the blood dried, but camouflaged by the peeling paint it’s not too noticeable. The whole job was done by lunch time, and we were all hungry, though not for chicken. We did have chicken livers for dinner, cooked with bacon and sour cream and served over noodles. Everyone agreed that the addition of enough bacon and sour cream makes just about anything tasty.

The worst part, for me, was looking at these creatures I’d become fond of and knowing that soon I’d be killing them. I had come

Last moments

Bleeding out

Plucking and gutting

to like their big feet and their ungainly movements and their eager squawking when the feeder approached. Once they were dead, they became just another job to do. I also reminded myself frequently that these birds had a far happier life (insofar as chickens know happiness!) than commercially raised broilers. They had room to move, lived each day outdoors, and had access to fresh pasture and an awful lot of sweet corn that got too mature for the humans to eat. All in all, again insofar as chickens know happiness, I think they were pretty happy chickens right up until the ax fell.

We’re having chicken tonight, by the way.

Church, Inc.

Every time we are involved in a conversation about church, the question that always eventually comes up is, “Where is all this stuff coming from?” There is a genuine bewilderment among those who have been part of my denomination for more than 10 years. What happened to solid, meaty, biblical preaching? Why is Sunday School—a time set apart to teach our children the Bible and ground them in basic tenets of the faith—no longer an integral part of our programming? How can church leaders ignore or openly oppose the concerns and preferences of significant portions of their congregations? Why are well-liked and respected church leaders summarily dismissed, either by senior pastors or church boards? Does anyone know (or care) about our denominational core values? Why have so many churches embraced the “get big or get out” mentality? Who decided that “relevance” (narrowly defined as “fun, exciting and attractive”) is more important than faithfulness to Kingdom principles?

Our provisional answer is that it’s coming from the top. Our denominational and congregational structures have evolved (devolved?) to resemble corporations rather than bodies. Administrators and businessmen have replaced the pastors and theologians in positions of leadership. Marketing has replaced nurturing. The success of the enterprise has replaced the value of the person. Decision-making by a few has replaced the discernment of the body. Yes, it’s a much more efficient structure, but efficiency to what end? Are we a stronger body? Are we being faithful to the church’s mandate to live out a different kind of community? Or have we come to resemble the world’s structures so much that we are virtually indistinguishable from them?

One thing we’ve noticed is that those in pastoral and denominational leadership roles, as well as those rockin’ out Sunday after Sunday in the worship band, are firmly in the 40- to 59-year-old range. Baby Boomers, if you will. These are the folks who cut their corporate teeth on Who Moved My Cheese? and the leadership principles of John Maxwell. Yes, there’s the occasional 60-something and a few 20-somethings in evidence, but precious few (at least at our church). On the other hand, we find the greatest levels of discontent among the elders (no surprises here) and the youngers (a big surprise, to us), with a solid showing from the 40-ish crowd. When I’m feeling cynical, I wonder if it’s only coincidence that our churches are so actively courting those who are at the peak of their earning potential…

Footwashing and Communion

We’ve talked a lot about desiring something deeper and more nourishing at church, and also about connecting with some of the more traditional aspects of our faith and heritage. Next Sunday evening at our church there is a love feast, followed by communion and footwashing. This celebration has the potential, at least, to be just such a connection. It’s difficult to trivialize the meaning of what happened in the upper room when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and offered them the bread and wine of himself just before literally offering himself on the cross. The humility of footwashing is a powerful reminder of who we, Christ’s body, are meant to be, both to each other and to our world. It’s also a link with our own church heritage, and also with the ancient practices of the church. We are committed to attending, and we would love to share this event with any of you who have expressed similar concerns. This celebration is by nature something specific for believers. It is meant to nourish, remind, and motivate us to serve others as we have been served. If the church is offering this, and we choose not to attend, then our actions aren’t backing up our words. We encourage all of you who are available next Sunday evening to join us in supporting this service.