The Hostile Crowd

I just  reread the Abilene Paradox, by Dr. Jerry Harvey, a professor of organizational management at George Washington University. Using parables drawn from history, fantasy, the Bible and everyday life. Harvey makes a deeply profound point about human nature. His central thesis is that peer pressure does not really exist.  It is a figment of our imagination created to cover up  our fear of separation from the crowd. Most of us  will do almost anything to avoid being separated from the group. So we go along with the crowd, sometimes doing things we know to be evil, not because anyone makes us or says anything to pressure us, but just  because we fear standing out and being "different."

Harvey begins with  a story of his family's trip to Abilene which turned into a disaster. After it was all over, each person in the family admitted they did not want to go to Abilene.  From this, Harvey argues  that it is possible for a group  be stampeded into  none of them wants or desires.  From that little story,  Harvey goes on to talk about lynch mobs and the holocaust.  The holocaust would have been impossible without the complicity not only of the German people, but some of the Jews as well.  If no one stands up to an idea that is wrong or evil,  then it inevitably becomes reality.

What causes us to go along, even when we hate where we are going?  Harvey says it is loneliness.  We were created to be in relationship with others.  The fear that others would not accept us drives us to conform--even when that fear is groundless.

This has a profound and truly frightening implication for the church.  As you probably know, America is the most church-going major country in the world.  Until recently,  forty percent of Americans attend once a month. Today that figure is going down, at a rate of about one percent a year. 

The reason, I believe, has a lot more to do with conformity than theology.  Many, if not most church-going people in America do so less from theological conviction, but because they come from church-going families and live in church-going neighborhoods.  They go because they always have, and because they are part of a church-going crowd.   They are part of a church going culture.  The desire to fit in keeps them going--at least for now. 

We have built our churches on the desire to conform.  Our youth and music programs have are built largely on peer-pressure.  We have reasoned if we can get the crowd, we can get the individual.  So we use mass-media approaches to attract a crowd so will have a place to belong.

Here's the problem with this approach, as I see it.  The church crowd is really one component of a larger crowd which is louder and more encompassing than our crowd ever could be. If the church demands conformity, then the world surrounding the church demands much greater conformity.  Our goal is to move people to inner, individual spiritual experiences. The goal of the larger crowd is simply get people to conform.

That larger crowd,  which we call "the world,"  is better at manipulating people to conform than we ever were.  We do not have the television, radio, or mass media capabilities loud enough to drown out the insistent calls for Christians to become part of the conforming community.  Until now, we have always assumed in the church that the larger community was friendly to us.  But now it is becoming unfriendly to us.  Religion itself is falling into disfavor with the world.   This has been brought out by a pair of studies from Pew Research, one showing the growth of the non-religious, and another showing the worldwide increase in religious persecution.

For centuries, we could comfortably say without embarrassment that we attended church without embarrassment.  But now,  that generally welcome feeling towards church is disappearing.  Those who come to church because as a means to conform, are going to other place.  They are seeking their conformity elsewhere. 

If we rely upon conformity to be our friend,  we are in trouble.   As this anti-religious movement picks up speed,  churches held together mostly by superficial activities and social conformity will be threatened.  We  will become like the unpopular schoolgirl who threw a party and nobody came.

If Harvey's thesis is right (and I believe it is) then it is not outside pressure which threatens us but our inner fear of ostracism.  No one is saying to us we cannot be Christian, nor are the likely to.  No one is threatening to pass laws banning churches or to gather up Christians for internment.  The most annoying thing we face are to be thought peculiar. But it does not matter, being thought peculiar is enough to make many Christians head for the hills in dismay.  Our biggest fear is to stand out as different. 

Harvey suggests that fear of loneliness is a spiritual issue.  We must have faith and courage to overcome fear.   We to clearly and boldly live out our faith even when others may not understand why. We must teach our children not to fear being peculiar. 

Harvey also realizes that we cannot stand against the fear of loneliness without support.  For Christians,  he suggests heeding Jesus' words in  Matthew 28:20  "And lo,  I am with you always, even till the end of the age."

Necessity requires us to put our relationship to God before the crowd. When we do so, we must remember that Jesus also had to stand along before the crowd.  It is part of what it means to live with integrity.  Our relationship to God must be more important to us than life itself.  Along with that, Christians need to support each other in a hostile environment.  

The pressure to conform does not exist, except in our own minds. Nevertheless, we must seek help from God and form others to keep from allowing the crowd to steal us of what is mot precious in life--our faith and our integrity.

We don't "do" church

Some time ago a church sign caught my attention.  The sign announced a new sermon series entitled  "Why do church anyway?"

I understood what the preacher was driving at.  We often go through the motions of faith without thinking.  We come to church, sing songs,  go to Bible studies, all without a clear end in mind, because those are things seem to be expected.  It certainly makes sense that we should think how we should do things at church.

But do we "do" church?  Really?

Church is not a verb. It is a noun.  It's not something we do; it's something we are.

The church is the visible Body of Christ on earth. It is not a voluntary association like the Lions club or the Rotary or even the Republican party.  It does not exist a purpose, any more than our families exist for a purpose.  It exists because it exists,  just like you and I.

Suppose we substitute a person's name in the sign instead of the word church?  Suppose we say why "do" Mary,  or why "do" John?  The only time  "do" in used in such a context is crude slang for killing or having sex.  Either way, they become the object of either anger or desire.  To think of the church in such utilitarian terms is to depersonalize it, to deny its essence,  the very essence which makes it the church. 

We don't "do" family--we are a family.  We don't "do" church, either--we are the church, existing as a community because God put us here.  We are related by blood--not our own, but Christ's, and that means we are responsible for and beholden to each other in a bond that is greater than that of our own flesh. We are fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers in the Lord,  called to love each other in Him.

The church is not a means to an end, not even a good end like evangelism or social justice.  It  is an organism, not an organization.  Organizations exists for a purpose.  Organisms exist because God made them for His own glory. 

The problem with the modern church is that it thinks it must  have a reason to exist.  If we applied the same utilitarian standard to infants,  the elderly, or the handicapped, it would be horrific.   If the bonds between brothers and sisters, fathers and sons,  were only important if they furthered some greater  purpose,   then the world would be a horrible, loveless place.  So why should the bonds between Christians only exists for a greater purpose?  Why can't a church just be?

The modern church, both in its traditional and  contemporary forms, has been often guilty of treating its members as mere utilities.  Contemporary church leaders in their zeal to win the lost, have often seen their members as unimportant in themselves  unless they further the cause of church growth and evangelism.  The preferences and comfort of older members are often cast aside in favor of the new, the experimental, and the innovative.  We spiritualize the abandonment of the old, calling it "pruning the dead wood" or of "throwing out the old wineskins."   C S Lewis once commented that Jesus told Peter "Feed my sheep" not  "perform experiments on my lab rats." 

The traditional church is no better, in fact it may be far worse.  Traditionalist want nothing to do with  "do" church in a differently, confusing outward form with inward conviction,  freezing the church in whatever era they feel most comfortable, allowing church ritual and expression to become increasingly irrelevant and archaic.   They, too, favor the members who can best maintain our institutions,  pay for our preachers, and bring prestige to our tarnished denominational names.

The church isn't something we do.  It's a family--a fellowship of men, women, and children in which everyone is loved, everyone is important and everyone is cherished.  When the church is viewed as a means to an end, it ceases to be a family and becomes an adornment to our egos.  It becomes  a way for pastors to prove their superior worth by performance instead of by  humbly accepting God's gift of grace. 

With all due respect and to Rick Warren (who I really do admire), I've seen the "purpose-driven church," and frankly it sickens me. I would rather have a church which goes nowhere but loves everyone than one where its members are merely means to an end. 

If there is an a way to "do" church then it should be with love, and grace,  praising God and being in favor with one another. 

Pastoring the Pastors, Part 1

I once heard John Maxwell tell about his minister father who served as a pastor from the 1920's to the 1950's. After retirement  he made a list of names of his fellow graduates from  seminary in the '20's and what happened to them later.  Out of the twenty men who  started with him, only two retired as pastors.  The majority dropped out of ministry in  the first five years. 

Sad, when you think about it. The ministry is a career with a very high casualty rate being tough on pastors and families alike. There is a reason we call the ministry "spiritual warfare."

Recently, I did something similar to what Maxwell's father had done.  I made a list of twenty names of ministers I have known in my thirty-two years  of ministry, who had served for at least five years, and what has happened to them.   I admit it was not a scientific list.  I just put down the twenty ministers in my church that I had known the best.  But I think it is a fair cross-section.   Here's what has happened to those twenty

--Six of them are currently out of the ministry.  As far as I can remember, none of them left voluntarily. They left because of strife within  their church, their family, or both. 

--Seven of them transferred out of our denomination.  Not one of those six would ever think of returning.   Ever.  In most of those cases family strife, internal strife, or denomination strife caused the change.

--The other eight are still are serving  within the denomination or have already retired.

After looking at the list,  It seems that more people are burned in the ministry than are blessed by it. According to one survey,  seventy percent of pastors reported that the ministry had had a detrimental effect on their families.   The pressures of the ministry are devastating and  long term. 

--Here are some statistics that appeared in Alan Fading's blog

--Eighty percent of seminary graduates do not stay longer than five years.

--Fifteen percent of foreign missionaries return home after a single year due to burnout and depression. Thirty-two percent of planted churches die within four years.

--The ministry is one of the highest professions for clinical depression.

I admit this may be a subjective judgment, but I cannot help but think that our little denomination is particularly unfavorable for ministerial retention and satisfaction. I have met many former ARP pastors, but I have never met one who wanted to come back in.  The main reason they cite for this is a lack of support.  There is a general impression among those who have left that they were abandoned.  I  remember a comment that one former colleague said to me after I had left a church--"What friend got you?"

I take remarks for what they are worth.  It is natural for those who have been hurt to make comments which are really just sour grapes. Many of those I have met,  even while saying the church abandoned them, will name individuals in the church who helped them.  Yet the complaint seems so universal that we must take it seriously.  If only one  of these hurting pastors is right, then that is one too many. 

When a pastor becomes ordained, he is no longer a member of any church, but is now a member of presbytery. Presbytery is now responsible for his spiritual well-being as well as his spiritual discipline.  A pastor's spouse may join a church, as may his children,  yet everyone knows that if the pastor leaves, or is asked to leave, the family goes with him.  The spiritual care of the pastor's family therefore depends upon what presbytery decides to do with the pastor. If the presbytery removes a pastor from his church,  they are also de facto removing his wife and children from the church as well.  At that point, the entire family is left without the spiritual support of a Christian church.   Yet at this time, when the pastor and his family needs help, who stands with him?  There will be an expression of concern from the Minister and His Work committee,  a few calls of assurance from others that they will be there for them if they think of anything to ask, and if they are not too busy.   There will be an offer to have lunch sometime, and lots of people wiling to pray for them, since prayer is cheap and never takes much time, but that's about it. 

Pastoral care of pastors is a hit-or-miss proposition.  If they have close friends in powerful places, they may receive tremendous support. If they do not, they can be all but ignored. 

Let me ask a few more practical questions.  Why do we not have a structure in place to help pastors?  Why do we not have a structure for helping pastors transition into other careers?  Why do we not assign particular churches to look out for displaced pastors and their families?  Why do we not have regular debriefings of pastors who are forced to leave churches, to see how we may help them, and more importantly to see what we can learn from them?  Why do we not have support groups for pastors and their families?  Why do we not have a system of regular pastoral visits of pastors and their families?  Why do we not work with pastors in helping them establish and maintain their spiritual disciplines?  Why do we not have anyone on a presbytery or synod level who is responsible for the pastoral care of pastors?   Why do we continue to solve our pastoral problems by asking the pastor to leave, even when we know it is not the pastor's fault,  when we know that the problem is with the church, but it is easier to replace the pastor than fix the church?

The reason is obvious. Pastors are expendable.  There is always a line of naïve young men lining up to move into even the most difficult situation,  ready to be chewed up and spit out, like their brothers before them.

When I have brought these things up in the past, I have been accused of wanting to have bishops in the church, who would exert power above. That's our problem--we only see the relationship between pastor and presbytery as a power relationship.  Having a person responsible for being supportive and friendly seems beyond our grasp. 

In John 17,  Jesus prays in His high priestly prayer that the Father would make us one with one another as we are one with Him.  In John 13 he tells us that loving one another is the mark of being a disciple.  So--where is the oneness?  Oneness is not something we work to have. It is there already.  We are mutually accountable to each other, whether or not we even know each other.  If one of us is injured we all suffer.

Sometimes, our little denomination reminds me of a partially dead tree.  Here and there we see new, green life, and we rejoice for it. But we also see dead branches, cut off from the rest, rotting and termite riddled,  where the life never touches.  The whole tree suffers because of it.    

It comes down to this--we ministers need to see ourselves as members of each other's families.  When one brother stumbles, other brothers need to help him,  both officially and unofficially.  We do not have to know them well to recognize the organic connection that exists between other members of Christ's Body--in particular members of our own Presbytery. That is the unity we want in our churches. It ought to what we crave between pastors as well.