Here's part two of this ongoing conversation about the church and its role in our lives and culture and world these days...
Moving toward a "man-max" philosophy of ministry.
In the first part of this post, I discussed my suspicion that we have confused the church (the community of God’s people) with the church institution (the 501c3 tax-exempt organization). This leads to a myopic understanding of Christian mission and service. We can slip into the idea that the only legitimate use of one’s gifts, time, and energy is within the institutional structures of the church organization. In part two I want to explore why we may have fallen into this mindset, and how we can begin to think differently.
Without doubt there are numerous factors behind our exaltation of the church institution above the community of saints that created it, but one critical component may be cultural. In our consumer culture we’ve come to believe that institutions are the vessels of God’s Spirit and power. (The reason for this is a subject I explore in more depth in my book due out next year.) The assumption is that with the right curriculum, the right principles, and the right programs, values, and goals, the Spirit will act to produce the ministry outcomes we envision. This plug-and-play approach to ministry makes God a predictable, mechanical device and it assumes his Spirit resides within organizations and systems rather than people.
You often see this mindset after the death or departure of a godly leader. A man or woman powerfully filled with the Spirit’s breath demonstrates amazing ministry for Christ. Others are attracted to the leader and over time a community forms. But once the Spirit-filled leader is gone, those remaining assume his or her ministry can and should be perpetuated. The wind of the Spirit may have shifted, but they want it to keep blowing in the same direction. So, an institution is established based on the departed leader’s purpose, vision, and values. If these are rigorously maintained, it is believed, then the same Spirit-empowered results that were evident in the leader’s life will continue through the institution. Many ministries and denominations originated in just this way--with success defined not merely by faithfulness but by longevity.
But what we often fail to see is that the Spirit was not unleashed in the leader’s life because he or she had the right values or employed the right strategy. The “fire of God,” as Dallas Willard calls it, was in their soul because of their intense love of Jesus Christ. Rather than focusing on reproducing a leader’s methodology by constructing an institution, we ought to focus on reproducing his or her devotion to God—but that is a far more challenging task. As Willard writes, “One cannot write a recipe for this, for it is a highly personal matter, permitting of much individual variation and freedom. It also is dependent upon grace—that is, upon God acting in our lives to accomplish what we cannot accomplish on our own.”
This is what highly institutional consumer Christianity fails to grasp. It reduces ministry to a predictable machine where the right input results in the desired output, and then invites religious consumers to engage the test-engineered institution for their spiritual nourishment. It is also the assumption behind a good number of the ministry books, conferences, and resources we produce every year. But I don’t believe the Spirit of God is laying dormant waiting for the institutional church to compose the right BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) so he can be unleashed the way a pagan god is conjured by an incantation. God is a person, not a force. And his Spirit does not empower programs or inhabit institutions but people who were created in God’s image to be the vessels of his glory.
As I stated in part one, this does not mean structures and organizations are evil. It simple means that institutional structures should exist to support the Spirit-filled people so they can advance the mission of God through human relationships. It’s not about either people or the institution, but about getting the order right. The institution exists to resource the people. People do not exist to resource the institution.
My Honda Civic serves as a helpful metaphor. Decades ago Honda began using an engineering philosophy referred to as “man-max, machine-min.” The idea was to design cars by allocating maximum space for the human occupants and minimal space for the mechanical components. It sounds intuitive, but in the 1970s—the age of gas-guzzling land yachts—it was a radical approach for an automaker. Since then the notion of ergonomics and user-friendly technology has become pervasive.
What if we approached our mission with a similar philosophy: “man-max, institution-min”? This is not an anti-institutional philosophy of ministry any more than Honda is an anti-mechanical car manufacturer. It simply recognizes that people are both the instruments and objects of God’s mission in the world. Human beings are the vessels of his Spirit, not organizations or institutions. This would mean asking new questions when the church (the community of believers) seeks to advance the mission of the Gospel:
Not: How do we grow the institution?
But: How do we grow people?
Not: How do we motivate people to serve in the church/institution?
But: How do we equip people and release them to serve outside the church/institution?
Not: How do we convince more people to come?
But: How do we inspire more people to go?
Not: How many programs can the church start?
But: How many programs have other churches started that we can help support?
Not: How many people have a committed relationship with our institution?
But: How many people have a committed relationship with another brother or sister in Christ?
Not: How do we make people dependent on the institution for their growth?
But: How do we equip people to grow independent of the institution?
Not: How much revenue can the institution generate?
But: How much revenue can the institution give away?
Not: How many buildings, pastors, and programs are necessary for the institution to have maximum exposure in the community?
But: How few buildings, pastors, and programs are necessary for God’s people to have time and energy to engage the community?
How these questions are answered will vary from place to place and church to church. How the Spirit of God leads one community of believer to engage the mission will look different than another. I’m not attempting to prescribe a single institutional model as normative for all. What I’m trying to do is challenge the assumptions behind the pervasive belief that sees institutions rather than people as the vessels and instruments of God’s power in the world. Learning to think “man-max, institution-min” may be the first step toward becoming a truly missional, rather than institutional, community.
March 12, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
They Love the Church but Not the Institution by Skye Jethani from OUT OF UR Blog
This is a good piece of writing that describes my own feelings at times and the is reflective of the voice of so many of my current and former students...I think in many ways I'm still trying to move forward from my time as a pastor at a megachurch that was completely institutional in its focus and impact...
Have we confused the community of God’s people with the structures that support it?
Dan Kimball, a regular contributor to Leadership and Out of Ur, has written a book titled, They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from emerging generations. The book chronicles the attitudes of younger seekers—they feel a strong affection for Jesus but they harbor distrust, even disgust, for the church.
I can relate to that perspective. In college I studied in the comparative religion department of a secular university and was closely involved with a parachurch ministry. During those years my fascination with Christ and my devotion to him was budding. But I carried a lingering resentment toward the church. For a number of legitimate (in my mind) and illegitimate reasons, I had pushed the church to periphery of my life. I saw it as a superfluous appendage to faith; like a sixth finger or third nipple—pretty harmless but best removed or kept hidden to avoid embarrassment.
That common sentiment changed in me, however, through prayerfully reading the New Testament. I came to see that is was impossible to love Jesus but not his church. As the “Body of Christ,” the community of believers is at the center of God’s mission and work in the world. As Saint Augustine says, “You cannot have God as your Father and not have the Church as your mother.”
I repented. I prayed for weeks asking God to fill me with a love for his church that I knew was absent from my soul. In time my heart caught up with the biblical truth my mind had already conceded.
Fifteen years later I now find myself struggling with a new dilemma. As a young Christian I loved Jesus but not the church. As a more mature believer, I now describe myself as one who loves the church but not the institution. Let me explain.
I genuinely love the church; the community of God’s people who are together striving, and often failing, to pursue Christ and his mission. I love the men, women, and children that I share my life with, worship with, and serve alongside. I have even found myself feeling an unexpected love (although not always) for a critical church member complaining in my office, or the cantankerous person who seems to delight in disagreeing with my perspective on even mundane issues. Admittedly, mine is an imperfect love of the church, but it is real.
What I don’t love is the 501c3 tax-exempt institution we incorrectly refer to as “the church.” For decades we’ve heard the old adage, “the church isn’t a building, it’s the people.” We’ve come to recognize that the brick and mortar structure isn’t the church, but somehow we haven’t come to the same epiphany about the intangible structures of the institution. In many peoples’ imaginations the church remains a bundle of programs, committees, policies, teams, ministries, initiatives, budgets, and events. Most people speak of “the church” the same way they refer to “the government”—it’s a hierarchy of leaders managing an organization that they engage but remain apart from.
I see this dichotomy most clearly when it comes to volunteer service. As church leaders we often feel compelled to draw more people into the institution’s programs to serve. I have, like many of you, scanned the membership roster and marked possible recruits who are not presently “serving the church.” Those focused on the financial end of things keep track of who is “giving to the church.” Even the use of “churched” and “unchurched” testifies to the centrality of the institution in our work. But is it possible for faithful and obedient Christians to be using their spiritual gifts, actively serving others, advancing God’s mission, and financially giving their wealth outside the institutional structures we’ve created?
Sometimes I wonder if we have so confused these two entities—the church and the institution—that our mission becomes the growth and advancement of the later rather than the former. When attendance at a church program is large we say, “the church is growing,” and when attendance is poor we say, “the church is failing.” But is that really accurate? Is the church growing or failing, or merely the institution? Can we even tell the difference anymore?
I am not anti-institution. I am not one of those fluid-organic-anti-linear-pomo-loosy goosey-anti-establishment church people. I believe structure is necessary. Structure is good and even God-ordained. We see organization and structure from the very foundation of the church in Acts. But these structures always existed to serve God’s people in the fulfillment of their mission. Today, it seems like God’s people exist to serve the institution in the fulfillment of its mission (which is usually to become a bigger institution). Most of the curricula available to pastors on spiritual gifts and service focus on getting people to serve within their institution. Rarely does a church recruit and equip saints to serve the mission outside the institution. (Imago Dei Community in Portland, Oregon, is a refreshing exception.)
This is the heart of my dilemma. I sometimes feel the energies and time I pour into the institution doesn’t translate into God’s people being more equipped for the ministry of loving God and neighbor. Could my spiritual and personal resources bear more fruit if poured into real people (the church), rather than into the institution trough they feed from on Sundays? I’m haunted by that question.
I know some of you will dismiss me as a cynic that’s spent too many evenings away from his young family trapped in church business meetings. Touché. But the ranks of those who love the church but not the institution is growing. Willow Creek’s REVEAL study, which has been the focus of relentless conversation on this blog, testifies to the dissatisfaction more mature believers feel toward the institution. I don’t believe they’re rejecting the church. The study shows these believers continue to grow spiritually by serving others and through meaningful relationships with other believers. In other words, they are growing by engaging the church. What they’ve realized they can do without is the institution. George Barna’s 2005 book, Revolution, documents a similar trend.
This is my dilemma. I love the church but not the institution. I want to give my life to serving Christ’s people and equipping them to accomplish the work of ministry. I want to use my Spirit-given gifts to build up the Body of Christ and edify the holy catholic Church whose faithful members surround us as a great cloud of witnesses. But I don’t want to give my life to a temporal institution. For the sake of argument I’ve constructed this as an either-or dichotomy, which it is not. I can be a part of the church (institution) and still faithfully pour my life into the church (God’s people). Discovering exactly how to do that remains the problem.
Have we confused the community of God’s people with the structures that support it?
Dan Kimball, a regular contributor to Leadership and Out of Ur, has written a book titled, They Like Jesus but Not the Church: Insights from emerging generations. The book chronicles the attitudes of younger seekers—they feel a strong affection for Jesus but they harbor distrust, even disgust, for the church.
I can relate to that perspective. In college I studied in the comparative religion department of a secular university and was closely involved with a parachurch ministry. During those years my fascination with Christ and my devotion to him was budding. But I carried a lingering resentment toward the church. For a number of legitimate (in my mind) and illegitimate reasons, I had pushed the church to periphery of my life. I saw it as a superfluous appendage to faith; like a sixth finger or third nipple—pretty harmless but best removed or kept hidden to avoid embarrassment.
That common sentiment changed in me, however, through prayerfully reading the New Testament. I came to see that is was impossible to love Jesus but not his church. As the “Body of Christ,” the community of believers is at the center of God’s mission and work in the world. As Saint Augustine says, “You cannot have God as your Father and not have the Church as your mother.”
I repented. I prayed for weeks asking God to fill me with a love for his church that I knew was absent from my soul. In time my heart caught up with the biblical truth my mind had already conceded.
Fifteen years later I now find myself struggling with a new dilemma. As a young Christian I loved Jesus but not the church. As a more mature believer, I now describe myself as one who loves the church but not the institution. Let me explain.
I genuinely love the church; the community of God’s people who are together striving, and often failing, to pursue Christ and his mission. I love the men, women, and children that I share my life with, worship with, and serve alongside. I have even found myself feeling an unexpected love (although not always) for a critical church member complaining in my office, or the cantankerous person who seems to delight in disagreeing with my perspective on even mundane issues. Admittedly, mine is an imperfect love of the church, but it is real.
What I don’t love is the 501c3 tax-exempt institution we incorrectly refer to as “the church.” For decades we’ve heard the old adage, “the church isn’t a building, it’s the people.” We’ve come to recognize that the brick and mortar structure isn’t the church, but somehow we haven’t come to the same epiphany about the intangible structures of the institution. In many peoples’ imaginations the church remains a bundle of programs, committees, policies, teams, ministries, initiatives, budgets, and events. Most people speak of “the church” the same way they refer to “the government”—it’s a hierarchy of leaders managing an organization that they engage but remain apart from.
I see this dichotomy most clearly when it comes to volunteer service. As church leaders we often feel compelled to draw more people into the institution’s programs to serve. I have, like many of you, scanned the membership roster and marked possible recruits who are not presently “serving the church.” Those focused on the financial end of things keep track of who is “giving to the church.” Even the use of “churched” and “unchurched” testifies to the centrality of the institution in our work. But is it possible for faithful and obedient Christians to be using their spiritual gifts, actively serving others, advancing God’s mission, and financially giving their wealth outside the institutional structures we’ve created?
Sometimes I wonder if we have so confused these two entities—the church and the institution—that our mission becomes the growth and advancement of the later rather than the former. When attendance at a church program is large we say, “the church is growing,” and when attendance is poor we say, “the church is failing.” But is that really accurate? Is the church growing or failing, or merely the institution? Can we even tell the difference anymore?
I am not anti-institution. I am not one of those fluid-organic-anti-linear-pomo-loosy goosey-anti-establishment church people. I believe structure is necessary. Structure is good and even God-ordained. We see organization and structure from the very foundation of the church in Acts. But these structures always existed to serve God’s people in the fulfillment of their mission. Today, it seems like God’s people exist to serve the institution in the fulfillment of its mission (which is usually to become a bigger institution). Most of the curricula available to pastors on spiritual gifts and service focus on getting people to serve within their institution. Rarely does a church recruit and equip saints to serve the mission outside the institution. (Imago Dei Community in Portland, Oregon, is a refreshing exception.)
This is the heart of my dilemma. I sometimes feel the energies and time I pour into the institution doesn’t translate into God’s people being more equipped for the ministry of loving God and neighbor. Could my spiritual and personal resources bear more fruit if poured into real people (the church), rather than into the institution trough they feed from on Sundays? I’m haunted by that question.
I know some of you will dismiss me as a cynic that’s spent too many evenings away from his young family trapped in church business meetings. Touché. But the ranks of those who love the church but not the institution is growing. Willow Creek’s REVEAL study, which has been the focus of relentless conversation on this blog, testifies to the dissatisfaction more mature believers feel toward the institution. I don’t believe they’re rejecting the church. The study shows these believers continue to grow spiritually by serving others and through meaningful relationships with other believers. In other words, they are growing by engaging the church. What they’ve realized they can do without is the institution. George Barna’s 2005 book, Revolution, documents a similar trend.
This is my dilemma. I love the church but not the institution. I want to give my life to serving Christ’s people and equipping them to accomplish the work of ministry. I want to use my Spirit-given gifts to build up the Body of Christ and edify the holy catholic Church whose faithful members surround us as a great cloud of witnesses. But I don’t want to give my life to a temporal institution. For the sake of argument I’ve constructed this as an either-or dichotomy, which it is not. I can be a part of the church (institution) and still faithfully pour my life into the church (God’s people). Discovering exactly how to do that remains the problem.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)