This follows hard on the heels of the first assumption. Seminaries teach this, church councils expect it and congregants welcome the idea: that pastors and ministers are paid to serve them. In one sense there is merit to this assumption; that the minister is supposedly the chief servant and s/he sets the pace and models what servant-discipleship is. However, the Bible is very clear that the primary purpose of the minister is not to serve the congregation by being at their beck and call. Rather, their act of service is to equip others (the body of Christ) to serve. Ministers of God are not servants “on call”. Rather, they should be regarded as people who have been trained to train and prepare the body of Christ to be the church in the world, to be servants “on-call”. In fact, those who are called to serve the congregation are the members themselves.
Viewing this through the lens of our baptismal covenant, we realize that baptism creates a community where each person is gifted, called and chosen to participate in Christ’s mission in the world. Baptism is being recruited into God’s mission. The work of the church community then is to help each person live into their baptism, to discern their gifts and call, to participate in God’s mission of reconciliation. The prevailing paradigm (ordered minister as CEO or Lond Ranger or ’the minister’) robs all the people in the congregation of that exciting adventure. It creates a community that fits well into consumer society (individuals choose whether or not to consume the services of the church, often based on their own personal perceived needs and desires and preferences).
There is a myth within the assumption that a pastor’s primary role is to act as the congregational care giver. The word Shepherd has been used in this way, much to the detriment of the growth and maturity of believers. Let me explain. If congregants are constantly kept in a state of spiritual dependency (constantly being fed), they will not grow as mature disciples. Children who are not weaned away from milk do not transition to strong adolescence and adulthood. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 3. Pastors should see themselves more as spiritual parents who take new believers from being babies to reproducing adults, independent and able to stand firm on their own. The world of community development has moved away from this as captured in the adage “teach a person to fish and you will feed him for life”. However, it doesn’t seem as if our congregations have moved away from the dependency model predicated on inaccurate biblical interpretation and a convenient transactional model of being the church.
The problem has two sides to it. Firstly, many lay folk do not like to be equipped for service. They would rather pay the minster to serve them and serve on behalf of them. Secondly, many ministers themselves do not like to equip and train others for many reasons, the chief one being the fear of losing control. And so, the system becomes a self-serving, downward spiraling circle that leads to burn-out, conflict, attrition and finally death or a church in hospice.
Assumption 4: Inviting people to attend church is the best way to expose them to the gospel.
It used to be partially true. There was a time when western society was driven by and familiar with a Judeo-Christian worldview that included familiarity with church even though many might not have attended church services. We have all probably heard of or witnessed crowds gathered in churches where preachers proclaimed the cause of the gospel and where many are convicted of their ways and turned to Jesus in a moment of penitence. That was decades ago when entering a church building (except for a wedding or funeral) was not a challenge for most of the community. For that society, church was part of the social system they were accustomed to and that played a part in their lives, even if it was only to baptize their children, get married and be buried.
Not anymore. North American society has transitioned to a post-Christendom culture where church has taken on a different meaning: viewed sometimes with contempt and mostly as irrelevant. In addition, thousands of newcomers (immigrants) to North America do not consider “church” a part of their socio-religious world let alone never having been inside a building. Expecting such folk to ‘come to church” is an unfair and unrealistic expectation. So, what is the antidote? The best way of exposing such communities to the gospel is through the lives and mouths of all of those who attend worship to be equipped and then sent out to live in their world: their homes, neighbourhoods, offices, schools, restaurants, apartment buildings and the marketplace. Which takes us then back to our responses to the previous sets of assumptions — about equipping the body of Christ to be the Church in the world. Are we seeing a pattern here? An integration of the different parts of a whole? That, if we are to take seriously our mandate to take the good news of the gospel to the world, we need to equip, empower and mobilize the church (body of Christ) to be those messengers. Since, by our baptism, we have been made the “good news of the gospel” in the world, God’s Spirit has been given to us to authorize and equip us for this way of being. God’s Spirit has ‘mobilized’ us — sends us out. We get to be in the world as a people who are living in response to the Holy Spirit, rooted in God’s life-giving grace. I cannot see it any other way unfortunately and I don’t see any other option in the bible either. Jesus modeled this and the early church did this with eagerness, without formalizing the process. Even before they had the written instructions as we have them now (the New Testament), they were talking and living the gospel in their daily interactions with everyday people.
Assumption 5: Evangelism is God’s strategy to grow the church.
Jesus mandates us to proclaim the good news of the kingdom. That’s a mandate for every believer. However that’s not his strategy for growing the church. Yes, evangelism can lead to more people becoming Christ followers. That is a fact and happens everyday as people turn from a life of self-centredness to Jesus-centredness. But that is just the first step in Jesus’s growing and building his church. Remember, he told Peter that he would build the church (Matthew 16:18). Contrary to what many believe he never asks us to build it. Instead he asks us, in fact commissions us, to disciple people (whom he has called into a living relationship with him) by teaching them all that he (Jesus) has taught us and by baptizing them into the community of saints which is also called the Holy Catholic church a.k.a. the worldwide body of Christ. The intent is that every disciple disciples others and that through this organic process of multiplication, the body of Christ would grow and mature. There is an entire body of teaching that supports and accompanies this assertion that cannot be reproduced here for lack of space. But this is an important and critical principle to know and apply if we are to see any movement of the church in the trajectory it ought to be taking.
It seems that we as a church have almost entirely jettisoned this approach. By leaving matters of faith and discipling in the hands of paid staff who are so busy that they themselves cannot find time to disciple themselves or anyone else, this biblical methodology has been systematically dismantled and replaced by a clergy dependent, program driven, consumer focused, ineffective and skewed version of the mandate and vision that Jesus had in mind.
Evangelistic programs (used to be called outreach programs) are just that. Programs. We need to move from a programmatic approach to an organic one, where instead of spending resources in setting up elaborate and expensive ways of proclaiming the gospel, we instead equip ordinary believers to model and proclaim the gospel in ways that are authentic, personal, contextual and culturally appropriate. This does not negate the great efforts of reaching hitherto unreached people groups or innovative ways of proclamation but, this should not be our primary strategy. The early church grew because every believer, a follower of the way, had a story to share and did so with eagerness and courage. Yes, the church grew due to persecution but that was because those persecuted had an experience of faith worth dying for. Praying, the study of scriptures as they had it then, telling of stories of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the lives of the apostles, baptism and observing the instructions of Jesus at the last supper were hallmarks of their journey of faith and the reason for the spread of the gospel. Sadly, many of these practices have been abandoned by our congregants/parishioners and have been entrusted instead to the hands of specialists a.k.a. ordered ministry workers to be done on their behalf. That is an inversion of the biblical guidelines for building his church. As a result, we now have generations of church going Christians who lack biblical literacy, are nervous and reticent to pray and have no story to tell. Even if they do, many do not know how to articulate it. That sadly is the state of today’s church.
Assumption 6: Buildings belong to the congregation and are assets to be used in any way the leadership decides.
It is fair to say that the primary occupation (in fact obsession may be a more correct term) of many church councils over the past two decades at least, has been about how to manage their buildings. Generally speaking, due to declining membership, finding ways to maintaining buildings and its attendant expenses (heating, water, cleaning etc) has assumed top priority for most church leaders. Yes, many are also exploring innovative ways of repurposing their buildings so that they serve the larger community as well as their own. In the meantime, many new immigrant communities of faith are desperate for space and cannot seem to get access to some of the buildings used by the established church. Some would attribute this to racism but I would dive even deeper.
Here is what I think lies at the heart of the issue: understanding the difference between ownership and stewardship. Ownership presupposes a sense of entitlement. Churches and denominations that embrace the concept of ownership believe that they are free to do anything with their assets (i.e. building and fixtures) without accountability to anyone outside themselves and least of all to God. Those who approach what they own with the mindset of stewardship hold a different view. Uppermost in their minds is how they steward these resources (that they don’t own) to serve the best interests of God and God’s kingdom purposes. Church buildings although for purpose of legality need to be owned by some entity, should be seen as resources that must be stewarded and managed for the good of the kingdom. That way councils will not need to be overly stressed about how to “keep” their buildings and turn their attention to how they may steward the use of these buildings to extend God’s kingdom. The idea of being a steward changes perspectives and places legal owners in a posture of meeting obligations rather than an automatic embrace of the concept of rights.
Is there a way forward then or is this all hyperbole or rhetoric? Judge for yourself but make sure the standard you use for such judgement is the bible, not religious practice, history or culture.
For those who are keen to think of and implement a new way of being church, there is hope. A healthy, vital and flourishing community of faith that is living our their baptismal vows is in alignment with God’s purposes but, how we get to it is our choice. There are lessons to be learned as we observe some churches that have shown us ways of being healthy. In my follow up article, I will propose some ways and strategies we may consider going forward. The path is long, narrow and lined with mine-fields that can decimate us if we deviate. But, with a Jesus-centred focus, the Holy Spirit’s guidance and the gift of travelling together in community, we can be the church that God wants us to be.
