The Face of the New Church

In my last blog, I wrote my belief about the contemporary church--that it is sick, perhaps dying.  This is because we are obsessed with institutional success and worldly reputation. 

When it comes to our mission, the church has just about compromised itself into irrelevance.  In our passion to reach the world, we have spent our time trying to copy its means, its methods, its likes, and dislikes.  We've been so busy trying to "reach the lost" that' we've forgotten why we’re reaching for the lost.  Instead of bringing people to Jesus, we've made it our business to bring Jesus to them--in a safe, sanitized version that wouldn't offend anyone.  When we see churches that have athletic programs and day-care centers that are bigger than the church, we really have to ask the question whether Christ died on the Cross to give the world athletic programs and day-care centers.  We've made a safe, comfortable niche for ourselves in a society that allows people to be comfortable with us,  satisfying ourselves that we are somehow of use to an increasingly pluralistic or secularized society. 

This isn't new.  The church has been at peace with the society which contains it for most of the last seventeen hundred years--and for the most part, we've been successful at it. The Charlotte Chamber of Commerce calls itself the "city of churches."  Our nation has a National Cathedral, but no official God.  Clergy open meetings of the Senate and House, and pray at inaugurations.  Clearly, we have nothing to fear from such pluralistic tolerance, and no one much fears us. 

The world is changing though, more than we are.  The world is looking at us, and discovering that Christianity doesn't go with perfect tolerance.  We actually have a stand against homosexuality, adultery, and other things. 

It was such intolerance of the secular society that made Christianity the first forbidden religion in the Roman Empire.  Today's universal culture, which mirrors Rome in so many ways, has no tolerance for intolerance, either.  They are rejecting the church, and the Christian religion as being intolerant and exclusive--which (in fact) we are. 

I don't want this to be downbeat, though.  In fact, I'm very upbeat about the church as a whole.  Jesus said about the church that "the gates of hell will not prevail against it."  It may be that the institutional church is dying, but the spiritual church will never die.  Rising out of the old church institutions is coming a new church--smaller, leaner,  less institutionally driven, but closer to what Jesus had in mind.  This new church does not focus on buildings or programs, but on serious disciples of Jesus. 

Faith is the rock on which the church is built--more than belief, but a living relationship with Jesus. The outer shell of worldly institutionalism may die, but the inner core of the committed will go on.

 This is not my idea, nor am I saying anything new.  It's coming from everywhere, from Fundamentalists, Evangelical, mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians-- from black churches, white churches, contemporary churches, traditional churches, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Catholic--all across the board.  Arnold Toynbee said that one of the great lessons history teaches us is that where there is darkness, the stars come out.  As the old church fades, the lights of the new members of the new church will truly shine.

What will this new church be like?  Personally I don't think it will be "like" anything. It will be diverse in its views, practices, and traditions. But the new Christian church which survives will have certain characteristics.

1.       It will have a passionate faith in Christ. It is not enough to believe in Jesus--we must also have faith in Him--that is, Jesus must be our ultimate concern.  The new church will first of all seek to get closer to Jesus.  Any other pursuit is irrelevant.

2.       It will be a church filled with God's Spirit.  Its members will seek a relationship to God and seek His guidance in everything from the way they get up in the morning to their lifetime goals.

3.       It will seek out spiritual disciplines. Before we were called Christians, followers of Jesus were called People of the Way.  This referred to the Christian discipline of life--prayer, fasting, gathering, forgiveness, giving, and so forth.  The earliest writings of the church outside the Bible were about such things. The Methodists were called Methodists because they followed a lifestyle or method for doing everything.  The Puritans were Puritans because they sought pure lives.  Richard Foster said that spiritual disciplines are not important in the Christian life--they are the Christian life.  The new church must make the spiritual disciplines a real priority.

4.       It will show the love of God to the world. Roman society could not understand Christians. They did not understand why they adopted babies left to die of exposure, why they opposed abortion, why they believed in the equality of slaves and masters, why they evangelized single women, why they refused to go to gladiator games, or why they showed mercy to their enemies.    They did it because they loved. They were willing to die for that love, and they did.   The new church will have to love in the same way, not promoting its own importance, but quietly loving behind the scenes.  The new church will have to follow the old church in this.  We will still be fishing for men, as we do today--the difference is that the only bait we have will be ourselves.

5.       It will seek to live by a corporate rule of life.   The early church adopted rules of life, which were not about laws, but attitudes: charity, chastity, temperance, simplicity, tolerance, honesty, integrity, and forgiveness.  These were a corporate ethos that was strongly taught, and which all new believers were expected to practice.  The new church will need such attitudes in the increasingly secular society of the future.

As I said, there's nothing new about any of this.  It's just a matter of actually being sincere and dedicated followers of Christ.  What's going to be different in the future is that there will be little opportunity for the church to be anything else. We can no longer survive on our sterling reputation as one of the pillars of community life.  We will have go to back to being a small group of radicals in society, without political influence or society respect,  just living for Jesus and for Jesus alone.

I think this is the future of the Twenty-first century church.  And the gates of hell will not prevail against it. 

Blogging Prophets

Last Spring I wrote a blog called  "Blogging as a Spiritual discipline" I have had a lot of thoughts about it since. 

The blogs have assumed  an important role in our society.    They  give thoughts that would otherwise be unsaid a place to be heard.

But blogging forces us to ask-- should all thoughts be heard?  Is blogging good for the world, or simply a form of mental exhibitionism?

I believe blogging has been a good thing for our society—a very good things. At its worst, it's a good way to blow off steam. At its best, it is a modern expression of prophecy.  I am convinced that if Elijah were alive today, he would have a blog.

The prophets of the Old  Testament were men and women who spoke in public places what they believed to be the Word of the Lord. They were not foretellers of the future, but forth-tellers of God's Word, inspired to speak His interpretation of the times.  Though the penalty for speaking falsely was severe, they spoke boldly. The  people listened because they knew that a crazy voice in the wilderness might just be telling the truth. 

New Testament prophecy was different.  There were no penalties for being wrong, but instead people were encouraged to speak in bunches of two or three, and the rest of the  rest of the church  would judge true prophecy from false. (1 Corinthians 12:29-31) Prophets were respected in the church, being included among the elders of the  people. (Acts 13:1) 

There is a point of view which argues that prophecy no longer happens. Personally I find this view  weak, both Biblically, historically, and experientially. Prophecy is still with us, serving essentially the same function today that it always has--as a corrector to the times,  encouraging and rebuking the church towards God's plan and away from  error and division.  It does not necessarily come from people with great intellectual insights or greater education, but from those who in tune with the Spirit of God.  Our education often serves only to reinforce our prejudices instead of drawing us deeper to God.  So today, just like yesterday, we should be alert to prophecy coming from unlikely sources.

One prerequisite for being a prophet is that you cannot keep your opinions to yourself.  A person who keeps his mouth shut can never be a prophet. 

Throughout history, God has inspired individuals  who have inspired us to look at eternal truths.  They have given us new perspectives, challenged us  to think in new ways, and shown us a vision of our times through the light of the Spirit. Unlike the Old Testament prophets, every word they speak is not correct,  but even so God uses them. They are people who are not afraid to speak their mind--which in some cases and to some degree also happens to be the mind of Christ. 

The only people who can speak God's opinion are those who are unafraid to speak their own. A prophet cannot be timid or shy. They must speak up. They cannot be afraid of disagreement or controversy--rather, they should expect that most of what they say will be resented and ill-received.  If they are wrong , they can be corrected by others-but only by people who are also willing to speak.  We cannot correct by silence.  We have to speak out.

Unfortunately, instead of encouraging people to speak their thoughts, feelings, and opinions, we have discouraged people from speaking at all.  We have encouraged "civil"--that is, noncontroversial--, conversations full of platitudes and qualifiers, devoid of feeling or passion, offending no one but saying nothing.  We have squelched robust conversation for fear of offense or error, resulting in the suppression of both error and the truth.  For fear of speaking wrong, we say nothing at all.    False prophets are a problem, but the lack of any prophet is worse.  

Blogging,  tweeting, commenting,  and  talking is vitally important if we are to hear God's voice.  Without it,  things may be more peaceful.  But with it,  we might just hear the voice of God.    But if we say nothing,  the world will continue in darkness and ignorance, because we did not bother to say the truth.

I blog because I believe God wants me to speak my own opinion.  I encourage others to blog for the same reason.  We need people who are willing to stir the pot and  keep the fire on, if our  church and society is ever going to get better. 

The Strength of Synod

Next week may be my last Synod.  The price of attendance has gone up form thirty to fifty-eight dollars.  I have just spent almost two hundred dollars on a hotel room.   When  food and gas are included in the price it should be over three hundred.  Besides the price,  in the future I may not be able to reschedule my classes to accommodate the time away.

 All in all, not much that happens on the floor seems worth the trouble. The impact of most of the speeches, greetings, presentations, urging, encouraging, rebuking,  informing, and thanking will last about as long as the wind it takes to pass them.  Only what effects the actual running of local churches or church institutions makes any difference.  The rest is pageantry.

Thinking back over my last thirty-two Synods, the one thing that I would truly miss are the people I have met. They are truly important, and usually have made the trip worthwhile.

What difference would it make if Synod were to dissolve tomorrow?  Would a single church close if it did?  Last fall I watched four  churches close, yet few of their members remain unchurched today, and those who have not yet found new churches are still going,  visiting around.  They have not stopped going to church, they are just been attending different churches. Any American Christian should be able to find a church.  Any church within our denomination ought to be able to find some Reformed body who would welcome them.  As an institution, we are simply not as important as we think. 

But if the ARP church dissolved, the true sadness of it would not be in the loss of institutions,  but the  disruption of friendships. If this is my last Synod, it would be the people I  would miss, not the institution.

Synod has been for me a time of sorrows and joy.  My thirty-two Synods have been a succession of friendships gained, lost, regained, and gone--colleagues of my  youth have moved on, retired, or simply passed away. There have been times when I have gone up the mountain to celebrate with my friends . Other times, I have gone up sadly, ashamed to meet my brothers, needing their kind words.  Sometimes, I have gone up the hill angry,  but I have always knew that there were people there who knew me, and I them.  This made me feel happy to come,  regardless of the circumstances. 

I have enjoyed the stories of people I have just met, the opportunities to  pray for others and to be prayed for, the chance to network  and share ideas.  Synod has been a place where I could meet heart to heart and soul to soul, and know together the love of God reflected in others.

What happens under the trees and in the dining hall is what Synod is really about, much more than what happens on the floor.  It is the most truly ARP thing about us.

Faith is about relationships--relationship to God and relationships to others.  The business  on the floor is about defending the status quo or reforming institutions, about worrying over money and power and other worthless things,  squeezing and fussing over particulars, so we can go on being institutions.  The structure quickly overcomes the purpose, like a family  that is more concerned about the house they live in than the home inside.  Like that family, we go on fighting over the color of the drapes and the condition of the carpet, neglecting the spiritual and emotional conditions of those we love so we can "get things done." 

Church is a great place to go if you want to run away from God--that is, if you  reduce the Body of Christ to an institution, members of of the Body reduced to church members, shepherd reduced to an office and Christ reduced to a symbol.  The official church moves on,  without the power to touch or heal anyone. In spite of our institutional order, though, the Body of Christ abides and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. 

The strength of Synod has very little to do with what we do, but in what we choose to be--brothers and sisters  gathered in a caring community.  This is what makes us different from all other bodies I know.  We actually see each other face to face once a year.   When we forget the importance of these relationships and think of a denominational meeting as a theology class, debating society, or (God forbid) a political body,  we usually end up doing more harm than good.  When we let our strength, shine, though, Synod becomes a positive experience.

What;s Right With the Church, What's Wrong With It, and How to Fix it

The other night, I attended a banquet where the featured speaker was a well known local radio personality,  who is on a one-man crusade against the organized church.  Although a committed Christian,  he has been so burned by the organized church that he rails against it on a regular, weekly basis. 

After the banquet we fell into a long conversation.  To my surprise I found myself agreeing with most  of what he had to say.  Although my experiences have been slightly more positive than his,  much of what he says is true.  Christ's church has ceased to be an organism and has become an organization,  with all the political and material demands of being an organization.  The church as it exists on earth has to deal with money,  power,  and appearances, which means it is continually falling into corruption, greed, and power politics.  It has become for many a bureaucracy of the soul,  a Department of Motor Vehicles with better music.

If you are reading this and saying "Yes, that is true for the church down the street, but not mine." Think it over.  Who says that a small church cannot be just as impersonal and  vain as a big one, or that a church which flees the trappings of traditional spirituality cannot get caught up in the same machinations that sapped the life out of the medieval church? Do we really think Presbyterians or Baptists are so pure of heart that they cannot forget why they rebelled against the Catholics in the first place, and become like them in Spirit if not in appearance?  American churches often remind me of soccer clubs in other countries,  voluntary organizations which seem to exist to compete against other organizations for bragging rights to the city.  For the truly lost and truly hurting, the church is often just one more building on the street, between the bar and the Walmart.

But for all its faults, the church has got a lot of things right, and we need to acknowledge it.  

First of all it has God on its side.  The church is still the only organization dedicated to getting out God's Word and leading people into a relationship to Him.  Can you think of another organization capable of leading people to a better life?   I can't.  Winston Churchill once said that democracy was a very bad form of government, but that all the others are so much worse.  The same can be said of the church.  Education,  entertainment,  publishing, mass media and all the other institutions that form modern society are infinitely worse, and every bit as hypocritical.   How does  government (for example) have the gall to say "we're here to help you," when everyone knows they are here to buy votes, so our elected officials can have great influence and get fat pensions.  Or how does the news  media--any news media-- have the nerve to say they are here just to report the news objectively? 

No, all of human society is corrupt, to one degree or another.  Where there is the potential for corruption, corrupt people will go. But that is a long way from saying that churches are only here to be corrupt.   A horse has a purpose and it has flies, but it does not exist for the flies.  Churches are sinful and corrupt as well, but they do not exist for that purpose alone.  When we scrape away the dirt of the world,   underneath there are still congregations of ordinary people who love God and one another, read the Bible,  and do the best they can to live clean in a dirty world.  Like a dirty child, underneath that disheveled mess  is something  beautiful and worthy of praise,  which the world cannot fully drive way, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against.

But my friend is right.  The church is deeply flawed, mainly because if has forgotten it's initial purpose.  What went wrong with the church is that it forgets that we are not of this world, and  relies on worldly programs rather than heavenly realities.  We lose our focus on heaven and  look after earthly things. Then we become obsessed with keeping our institutions running.  We pay big money for things we do not need, in order to put  on an attractive and prosperous image.  Then we must maintain that image at all cost, and we lose our passion for God.  We are a real Body of Christ though--we just act phony.

Look at the architecture of a typical church.  They are designed to create the illusion of  transcendence--high ceilings,  high pulpits,  and stained glass windows that are intended to make us look holy and grand.  If a person  dressed with such grandiloquence, we would call them pompous.  Modern churches who deliberately avoid such "churchy" designs do the same thing with  lighting tricks,  video screens and smoke machines.  All this is intended to fool the eye, and make it seem as if God were there, whether He is or not.  When you think about it, it isn't much different from a witch doctor putting on a wicker mask and dancing around a village.  We pretend to a greater intimacy with God than we actually have.

Ultimately, there is no cure for the institutional church. Those who try, wind up recreating it in some other form somewhere else.  There is, however a cure for those who are inside it.

First, we  can stop being phonies.  Let us admit that we do not have all the answers, that we are still looking for God's will, struggling to live out our faith as best we can.  There is no point in condemning our leaders, just as there is no point in following them blindly.   Let's all just be honest and open to the Spirit.  We don't know all there is to know about God, but we can seek Him.

 Second, we can quit substituting programs, which do not work, for relationships.  Jesus taught his disciples to love the lost, not develop marketing strategies. 

Third, we can love one another.  Jesus told Peter to tend His sheep, not fleece them.  Let's care more about one another as people rather than what they can do for the church.  Then maybe we'll actually start looking and acting like Jesus' church.

A Church or a Chapel?

The word “chapel” was believed to have derived from a holy relic—the capa or capella of St. Martin of Tours.  This relic was carried into battle by the French army as a token of God’s favor. The priests who carried the relic were called capellians, or in modern vernacular chaplains. Later, other holy relics went with them.  When these totems were not employed in battle, they were stored in a reliquary called a chapel.  In time, these reliquaries became the main place of worship for the noble families.  The keepers of the reliquaries performed religious services for the benefit of the nobles who owned the buildings, doing their weddings, baptisms, funerals, and other services.  In time these priests, called chaplains, became very powerful.

Chapels, were not churches, though.  In fact, in many ways they were the opposite of churches.  The Greek word for church—ecclesia-- means a group of people called by God to meet together, to seek Him and do His will.  God brought His people together without regard to race, status, education or background.  In the early church, anyone who wanted to could come together and seek Him.  Farmers and lords met together on equal footing.  Not only that, but they also had an equal calling to do God’s work. The early church was called the Body of Christ, an organic structure in which God distributed His spiritual gifts and divine personality,  for the purpose of furthering His kingdom on earth.   The people who met together were not related by blood or nationality, but by faith and love. It was an army, not a hospital, dedicated to doing and finding His will together.

Chapels in the medieval context were not for all people—but for the private use of the royal family. The blessings of the chapel were not for everyone, but only for those who the royal family said ought to be blessed.  Power and authority did not flow from God to the king, but from the king to God, or at least to the representative of God’s house who he commanded to be there.  The chapel existed for the king’s benefit. The church exists for God’s.

Now for the big question--which churches are churches and which are chapels?

Looking at the religious landscape there are churches on every corner==many having only one or two families attending.  Most of their people have the same last names.  Many have less than seventy attendees on a Sunday. 

Big churches are not really that different. They may have more last names on the role, but there are usually a few influential leaders who have real power.  Often, it is a single, lordly pastor who controls everything.  On paper, they exist for lofty goals—winning people to Christ, transforming lives, feeding the poor and the hungry, but practically they are institutions whose real goal is to stay alive as institutions, supporting big preachers, big programs, and a big organization, that must constantly be fed with people and money to stay alive for the purpose of being whatever the lords of the church want it to be. 

Before we can decide whether a church is a chapel or a church, we need to ask what conditions are necessary for a church to be a chapel.

Before a church can be a chapel, there has to be the assumption among its leaders that there is nothing unique about it. If we think we are the only true church in town, it is harder to be a chapel. Our consciences would convict us that we had better open our doors for anyone, because there is no one else who will.  However, if we think we are just one of a hundred other churches, who have no unique message, then we can assume that some other group will take care of the rest.  Like the segregated churches of the old South, we can assume that someone else will minister to the inferior people, and we do not have to do it.

Second, we have to assume that the reason our church exists is for our comfort.  It exists for the same reason our living room exists, for a place we can relax, be ourselves and do whatever we want.  Our living room is not for refugees or for the homeless, but so that we can feel comfortable at home.  We can say “this is mine, and I’ll do whatever I want here.”  Only if we think of the church as our own private property can we think that we can get away with keeping outsiders out.

Third, we have to assume we should have nothing to do with the rest of the world except to impose our will upon it. When St. Francis of Assisi had the audacity to go preach to the Muslims instead of killing them during the height of the Crusades, the church in general was highly displeased.  The only time the medieval priests went forth was to wage war on their neighbors. Then they would trot out their holy relics as a sign that God was on their side, not the enemy’s.  Others were the enemy, not the mission field.  It is not much different from churches who march against abortion and gays, but otherwise stay within their walls.

Finally, in order for a church to be a chapel, the flow of power has to be from the church to God, not God to the church.  In other words, there must be a higher source of power in the church than the Bible and the Holy Spirit.  In a chapel, there is always a king or noblemen who wields the real power, while the other peons sit back and let them. 

The church is God’s instrument for doing His will on the earth. The chapel is an instrument for legitimizing our work in the eyes of God.  Maybe we need to ask whether the place where we worship is a church or a chapel. 

Pastoring the Pastors Part 2

A friend of mine recently told me about his honeymoon in Switzerland. While he and his wife were walking along a mountain path, he heard a young girl scream. There, on the other side of the railing that lined the path, was a girl, about nine or ten, hanging for her life off the side of the mountain.

My friend,  being a pastor,  first asked himself four questions.

First, did she deserve to be here? Obviously, she had been disobedient to her parents, so she was there of her own accord. We cannot expect someone to come to our rescue every time we disobey.  After all, our actions can have serious consequences.

Second,  was this girl capable of saving herself?  As a rule,  ten year old girls are wiry, energetic and fairly flexible. Chances are if he did nothing she would be all right. She might be worried now, but she would find some way of climbing up.  After all, we should not do for others what they can do for themselves.

Third,  was this be best use of his time?  After all, it was their honeymoon. Switzerland is a largely pagan place these days.  He could see stopping to tell someone about Christ--after all, that would be a matter of their eternal salvation. But just to rescue a girl he did not know who  God may have already predestined to destruction--he was not sure.

Fourth,  would it not be better to pray for her?  He was not sure of his ability to save her, since he himself was not that strong, and leaning over the rail would be dangerous.  Prayer however, is always appropriate, since God can save her, and even if she were destined to die, her eternal safety would be secure.

My friend  asked nothing like any of these of course. He and his wife pulled her to safety.

I mention this to illustrate what we so often do when we come across someone in crisis.  We first want to access blame. Second, we access their abilities according to our judgment, not theirs. Third,  we assume our time is more important than theirs. Fourth, we apply the pious cop-out of generous prayer, rather than putting our prayer into action.

Two days ago, I published a blog about pastoring pastors. It occurred to me later than if I did not follow up on what I wrote, I would be guilty of doing the same thing. 

We can't just say that pastors and their families, especially pastors undergoing difficulty,  need pastoring, we need to actually do it. 

So here are some practical suggestions that I think we should consider.

1. Establish a denominational office that would work like a Human Resources department of a company.  They would be responsible for circulating and maintaining data forms,  educating pastors as to their benefits in retirement and insurance,  helping to counsel pastors through life transitions, and generally be a resource person for the personal needs of pastors and their families.  This person would have no authority, only the responsibility of smoothing the way for pastors and their families to manage the crises of their lives. This person should be knowlegable not only of resources available for pastors, but (in a denomination as small as ours, at least) of the pastors themselves, and how our system works.
2. Encourage every presbytery to have a pastor of pastors. Ideally this would be an older pastor, retired or semi-retired, with the time to go visit each pastor in their church and in their home. They would receive expenses and (if possible) a small stipend for this. They would not have any authority in the church structure to hire or fire, but would be there in the same capacity as a pastor has in a church.
3. Establish a system of mentors and coaches for pastors, similar to what we have for mission developers today.  Coaches would function to show young pastors around the system, and to offer advice and counsel. Mentors would function as spiritual directors,  giving them a confidant and accountability partner. This doesn't have to be a pastor. It should definitely not be a member of his own church, but it should be someone who does not mind asking hard questions such as "how's your prayer life?" or "How are you doing with your wife?" or "What are your  biggest personal struggles?"
4. Have a system of retreat houses for pastors and their families, where they can go for spiritual and personal retreat.  Preferably this could be done on a presbytery level.  I know that Bonclarken often opens up their facilities for this, but I do not think that most pastors know or remember this at a time of crisis. Many times, a pastor may not want to go to a place where he is liable to run into people he knows.  Perhaps people who own time-shares or vacation homes could be persuaded to open up these for a week for a pastor's family in exchange for  tax deduction from the presbytery or synod.
5. Organize small groups across the denomination so pastors can fellowship with other pastors and encourage one another in spiritual disciplines. Having people to meet with weekly face to face is ideal. If this is not possible, modern technology gives us many other options,  phone conferencing, instant messaging, video conferencing, and Skype,  just to name a few.
6. Connect pastors with larger networks for pastors in mutual support.  There are numerous prayer meetings, such as prayer summits which bring pastors and laypersons together across denominational lines. 
7. Have groups of laypersons from a large number of persons who can assist displaced pastors and their families, as well as pastors. If you want to kill an idea, give it to a busy pastor! But if you want a job done right, give it to a layperson who has a passion for it.  Surely there are people around out presbyteries who can come alongside pastors who have lost churches and help them find jobs,  shelter, personal, and financial support.

Anyway, these are a few possibilities that are out there. 

If we want to help the church, help the pastors.  They will do a better job for us, if they know that they are being covered by support, not just in prayer, but in practical living as well.

There are pastors and their wives today who are hanging by their fingers.  We have a responsibility to hear their cries. 

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. 

Four Visions of the Church

The vision of the Christian Church is to establish an ancient dream in a modern world.  Jesus said   "Upon this rock, I will build my church."
Two thousand years later, we cannot even agree on the shape of  the edifice that was supposed to go on that rock.  Will it have stained glass windows and arches?  Will it be a plain wooden box? Will it even have walls?  There has never been a definitive answer to that question.  We can only speak of a variety of answers--thousands of permutations and designs. 
I believe there are four basic church shapes,  based upon the intentions of the people who dwell in them. The true church lies somewhere in between these four shapes.
These shapes are a continuum between two intersecting axes--the cultural and missional axis.  The cultural axis is how they see themselves. The missional axis is how they see their mission to the world.  They represent four separate visions of the church's place in society.

The Bride of Christ

There are no words which adequately describe the relationship of Christ to His church. So when we talk about it, we have to use analogy and metaphor. The New Testament uses several metaphors to describe it—he Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, a royal nation, a chosen priesthood. No metaphor though is more powerful or descriptive than the Bride of Christ.


The New Testament gives two references to the church as the bride. The longest is Ephesians 5:25-33

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

This passage tells us several things we need to know.

First it tells us how much God loves us. He loves us like a bridegroom loves his bride.

Second it tells us how God thinks of us as one person. We are His bride, not his brides.

Third, it tells us the importance God places on our relationship to Him. No human relationship is deeper or stronger that the one between a husband and wife. Yet Paul says that this sacred relationship is only a picture of a greater relationship in heaven. Our relationship to God is more important than our relationship to our spouses—or for that matter our children and grandchildren.

The other reference is Rev. 21:9

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb."

The two great traditions of the ancient church were the Western, exemplified by Paul, and the Eastern, exemplified by John. If the same metaphor in John and in Paul, it must be important. The whole church must have used it.

This metaphor came from the prophets of the Old Testament. Isaiah says in Isa 62:3-5

You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. . .for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a maiden, so will your sons marry you;as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride , so will your God rejoice over you.

Jeremiah uses a similar image in Jer 2:2

"'I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me

We are the bride of Christ, not yet the wife. That does not happen until heaven. The wedding happens in heaven, while we are on earth, we are just engaged.

The image of the church as fiancé has special meaning to me right now. Two of my daughters are engaged. The house is full of talk about weddings. I think I understand what a bride must go through before she gets to the altar.

There are many parallels between the pre-nuptial state and the state of the church. There is a sense of hope and anticipation, as well as the romance and excitement. God wants us to love Him as passionately and as deeply as an engaged couple loves each other.

In our society, though engagement has a crazy side to it. We are obsessed with the wedding and not the marriage. Engagement has become a time of temporary insanity in which we throw caution to the wind and spend like drunken sailors--thousand dollar dresses, ten thousand dollar receptions, bridal carriages, limousines, orchestras, flowers, and every imaginable indulgence. We spend what we do not have to make every detail perfect. The fuss about weddings is the reason some couples choose to elope.

As the bride of Christ, we do not have to worry about the wedding or the ceremony. Our heavenly Father is paying for all that. We do not even have to plan it. It will be done for us in heaven, with the angels of God as attendants and servers. So what is left for us to do, to be the bride of Christ? What do we do in our engagement period? Several things:

1. We get to know our spouse. Before you get engaged, you think you know your girl friend. You don’t. You just know the face she wants to show you during courtship. But when you get engaged, you really begin to get to know her. Hopefully, you get premarital counseling. It’s amazing the answers that come when we sit down and face some honest questions. Getting to know each other is the main task of this period of life.

The main task of the church on earth is to get to know God. Worship is the first way we do this. Worship is getting your eyes off ourselves and onto Jesus. As we do all things for His glory, He reveals Himself more and more; It takes a lifetime to really know Jesus. In that lifetime, we need to stay close in prayer and worship.

2. We get to know ourselves. In the movie Runaway Bride, a woman gets engaged several times, but never gets married, instead, she keeps running away from the altar. At one point in the movie, someone tells her that the problem is that she does not know how she likes her eggs. When she was with one fiancé, she liked them poached, with another, she liked them scrambled, with another fried. She tried to please the man by pretending to be just like him, and having the same likes and dislikes. But we cannot be phony for a lifetime. Sooner or later, we have to face ourselves.

In the church is we often put on false faces. We pretend to be better than we are. It takes a lot of faith to be honest to God. There is a word for putting on masks. It is called hypocrisy.

3. We burn our address book. In the wedding ceremony, one of the questions we are asks is this—forsaking all others, are we willing to keep ourselves only to Him? If we are not willing to do that. We should not be getting married.

The church needs to purify its love for Jesus. We do that by forgetting the interests which have occupied us in the past. Married men still notice pretty girls they do not pursue them. Instead, we look to ur spouses to be our total fulfillment.

How often we are guilty of spiritual adultery! We need to look to Jesus and Jesus alone for our fulfillment. Cut off everything that will come between us and our relationship

4. We must learn to work in concert with God. Every relationship is like a dance. One leads, the other. Christians are always looking for some magic formula for righteousness. If we keep these commandments perform these rituals, we are going to be right before God. But it does not work this way. Relationships require learning the intimate details of our spouses life, responding to their moods, and hearing what is left unsaid.

There is no magic formula for knowing God’s will and His ways. We just as we work in concert with Him. It requires a lifetime of living to know His ways.

5. We deliver the invitations. God may be planning the wedding, but he expects us to deliver the invitation. When the wedding feast of the Lamb comes, and the church is united in final matrimony to God, who would you like to see as guests there?

Now is the time to invite other people to join us in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Who would you want to bring as a guest to it? We have to invite them today.

The only reason God has not taken us to heaven (though He is just as anxious to do so as we are) is that the number of those who are to be there is not yet full. We must grow to the size God wants us. We must reach the others who are supposed to be wedding guests.

If you are not telling others about Jesus, then you are neglecting the greatest task you have. It is the one thing that God has left for us to do. Invite others now, so that the wedding will be full.