There Has to Be a Better Way

I just finished leading a church through a vision retreat. We only had one and a half days and had a lot to cover. The church is very conservative and though all present were key coworkers and leaders, they were all at different stages in their thinking on the church. Most did want and hope for change, but how much and where? And, even when we agree on the need for change and can agree on what needs to be changed, it is still a lot harder to actually overcome the inertia to do it and then work on all the other areas that this change affects to stick with it over the longer term. It reminds me of a statement by Shaun King, former pastor of of Atlanta's The Courageous Church. He says:

"Political campaigns based on radical change win.  Books written about radical change sell.  Sermons on radical change boost Sunday morning attendance.  The idea and thought of change is exciting to people, but mistaking that excitement for an actual willingness on behalf of those people to change now or later could be a miscalculation."

I'm praying that this church will be able to actually make some significant change even if not radical. Whatever reservations I have are not so much a lack of confidence in that church as it is a general statement about all of us. It really is exciting to go to a conference or a meeting and be challenged with making great changes, but then you go home to "the real world" and there is just too much to distract. Maintaining the status quo may not be the best, but it is a lot easier and more comfortable to most people.

I'm still thinking about the discussion raised when Pastor King resigned from the Courageous Church several weeks ago. I'll quote him again, "Big buildings. Huge crowds. Few disciples. I'm not with it. It's inefficient and just doesn't feel right with my soul. This is not a rejection of big buildings or huge crowds, but an indictment on how few disciples are being made in the process of it all. A better way has to exist."

I've been coming to similar conclusions over the years where I work. We talk a lot about how we must impact society and that the church is a lighthouse to the community, but in reality, how much impact is the church having on their neighborhood much less on society. If it were just my church or the country I worked in, I would need to look around at local issues, and certainly that is a part of what must be done. But, the problem is pretty universal and that means that we also need to look at the whole model of "church" that we've been doing. We must go back and think further about what we are doing and why.


That means going back to the original mandate. I would say that what we call the Great Commission was not really a mandate for missions but a mandate for the church. This Great Commission is not referring just to one of the programs of the church raising money for people who "go." This is the mission of the church--to make disciples of all peoples. Certainly our first "target" would have to be those we are closest to, but the mission of every church is the world.

But, I've been saying that all along in this blog and I don't want to focus on overseas missions right now. Even if we overlook the "all nations" part, we still have to look honestly at the rest. How good are we at actually making disciples--not converts, not members, but disciples. I don't think we're doing very well at all.  I'm ready to really rethink our idea of what the church is, and I believe that we have to start from this "mission statement" for the church. If the mission of the church is to "make disciples," that means that we order all that we do around that statement. The ultimate question for everything that we do should be, "In what way does this help us to make disciples?" and, "Is this the most effective thing that we could do to make disciples at this time and with the resources that we have?" Of course, we also need to think about whether we are giving the "all peoples" part a strong enough priority in our work, but let's skip over that for the moment. Even if all we are looking at is the immediate circle of people we have contact with (relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors), are the things we are doing really what is needed and are they the best way to accomplish what Christ has demanded that all believers do? One way to start on that is to go back to the beginning and look at the early church.

If you think about it, Jesus' mandate was audacious if not even a little ridiculous. Before Jesus ascended into heaven he had the small band of disciples gather together on a nearby mountain. There was the core 11 (Judas had betrayed him and was now already dead) and beyond them were maybe a few hundred more. They were ordinary people without a lot of education or money. They were fishermen, farmers, and even at least one tax collector. Probably most of them had never traveled beyond what is a daily commute for some of us. They knew very little about the world. They were out on the edges of the Roman Empire and Jesus' challenge was the world. That must have seemed unbelievable to even imagine that this group could do. But, not only that, when Jesus told them to make disciples of all nations (all peoples) that's about all he said. How should they proceed? Who should lead this movement? How should it be financed? I think that if I were there, I'd probably have said, "You've got to be kidding. You can't leave us with this and nothing else? How in the world can we even start on this?" You've got to give us a plan. You've got to be practical.

And yet's that's basically all that is recorded. Just do it. You figure it out. That's your mission. Get it done. It seems so radical, so huge, so impractical, and so skimpy. He does tell them that all authority in all the universe has been given to him--in other words, the outcome is already certain and he is already ruling. He does tell them that they will receive power when the Spirit comes down among them, but the strategy and planning are pretty open.

While that must have seemed scary and inadequate, at the same time, it is also freeing. There isn't a set plan beyond a few fundamentals. Other than those few things, it's all open. It means that we can be as creative and imaginative as we want and experiment as we see fit within those boundaries.

So, if we have some much freedom, why is it that all churches look basically alike? Yes, there are some huge differences in some areas and there are differences in theology, but they still look about the same (I'm talking about the "church" as a body and not about buildings, though that is true of buildings also). Some are liturgical, some free and open. Some are traditional (some even "ancient") and some contemporary. But beyond those surface things, churches still follow basically the same model.

If we have been given so much freedom, why are we still following the same basic models? And, especially when that the church is not keeping up and not fulfilling its mission, how is it that we are not crying out for change?

I want to explore that over a number of posts and hope that I can instigate some thinking and some discussion. I'm gathering a team to start a new church in the next year or so and I want the help. I don't want it to be just one more church. I want to go back to the beginning--both the original mandate and also the early church. We are in a different world than 2,000 years ago, but that doesn't mean that we can't learn from them. The growth of the church during those first few centuries was phenomenal. Some of the reasons for that don't exist today and can't be duplicated, but there still has be be a lot we can learn.

I'm listening. Let's talk.