Serving The Church
Posted on August 28th, 2008 by The Reformer into the Comments From Others categoryA City Business regular recently had this to say:
Until leadership gets over themselves and stops taking up all of their congregations time by expecting them to be in church “every time the doors are open” things will never change. I believe there are a lot of selfless caring people in church that would gladly sacrifice their lives for others but they have been brainwashed into thinking that they are in the will of God by sacrificing their lives for the church.
I have to say, I couldn't agree more. When I was a youth pastor/leader at a semi-connected MFI church in Portland, I spent 5 out of 7 nights a week doing church related things. At first I was completely psyched about it. I felt like I was truly living God's calling on my life. But after a year or so I started to get burned out. I was getting paid pennies, working many long days, and had very few non-christian friends. I became claustrophobic as I was constantly surrounded by Christian things. At that time I was too naive in my understanding of the Gospel to get what was truly wrong. Now 10 years later I realize what it was. I was dedicated to the external and not the internal. I wanted to please people and not Christ. The church had become my entire life and I had completely shut out the outside world. I was one of those brainwashed people who sacrificed my life for the church - all in the name of living righteous, yet I was empty.
When I finally left that church and helped start The Well in NE Portland, I discovered what working for and going to church was truly about. I only went into the office a few hours a week. I was there for only a few hours on Sundays. I felt little to no pressure as a leader in the congregation. Why? Because there was no expectations for me to be anything other then myself. Everyone understood that the church was just our meeting place, not our final destination. There was no ego, or pride, or attention seekers. None of the other bull sh*t that took place at my former churches went on at my new church. The focus was on Jesus, people, and the truth of the Gospel. Sure we had idiots and knuckle-heads in the congregation (what church doesn't?), but funny thing was they never seemed to stay around very long. Eventually they went back to the churches they came from because the traditional human-centered, works-based Christianity that they were seeking did not exist, and those people didn't know how to handle it. They waited week after week for someone to acknowledge their "goodness" or put them on a pedestal as being an important member of the church and when that didn't happen, they left.
I say all that to say this. Yes, church is a place made up of weak, sick, sinful people so there is no perfect church. However, there are good churches that put Jesus first and foremost. Not in words, but in actions. These churches constantly preach the cross. They focus not on what we can do for Him, but what He has already done for us. They do not exists for money or attention and don't run like a business. There are no big conferences, futuristic websites, weekly entertaining celebrity speakers, or pastors who demand the spotlight. There's just Jesus. And for the people who work for and attend these churches, that's all they really care about.
So if you find yourself attending a church that loves Jesus and people more then anything else, hold onto it with dear life. There are few around.
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August 29th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I find this quote interesting. There are lots of different kinds of people in the world, and there should always be room for everyone in the body of Christ. I personally am on the other side of the spectrum - I like expectation, and find it hard to exist in an environment where my presence is neither necessary or expected of me.
This is the reason why churchs like The Well tend to stay small. If you don’t require anything of people, then people will only stay as long as the coffee is good and the friendships survive. You will never hear about a church that prides itself on NOT asking things of their members to have long-term impact on the world. Because who will be there to see it happen?
I really identify with your call to see churches get back to being all about Jesus. I want to see the hype fade away and the message of the cross take prominence. But do you really think that the solution is a church culture that doesn’t expect anyone to contribute? A place that discourages people from leading others?
When I visit a church that doesn’t expect anything of its members, I look elsewhere. Because history shows us that churches lacking a cause survive only as long as the members inside.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Thank you for making my point. This is what I don’t like…people wanting to be recognized for the “value” they bring to a church. It’s arrogant.
You nailed it again. I believe churches are suppose to be small. If you got more then 500 members, split off and send half of them to another part of the city.
Three for three. Thanks for giving me great examples of what I was talking about. I like going to church with people who don’t want to be recognized for their service to it.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Whoa there! I never said I went to church to be recognised. You judge me way too harshly and too quickly. I said I like “expectation”, which is different than recognition.
Expectation is like being in a family - you both give and receive, help out with the family chores, and benefit from the family dinners. Freely we have received, freely we give.
Seeking recognition is selfish. Wanting to contribute so that you can be noticed is what Jesus said NOT to do. But when I see a place that doesn’t expect anything of it’s members, I see a place that is going to have a hard time building long-term family unity.
Oh sure, when you first start up it can be great. You are meeting based on the common interest of not wanting to put long hours into the church. Fair enough. But what about five years from now? What about ten years from now? What about your kids growing up in this environment? Do you really think people are going to want to join your “club” based on the commitment to not have an agenda?
It’s like The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything. Sure, they makes a cute cartoon and it’s kinda fun to watch. But do you really want to be WITH Larry on that boat? Or, when your life is a mess, do you want to call the lazy pirates to come to the rescue?
August 29th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
AJ,
The Well wasn’t founded on the “common interest of not wanting to put long hours into the church.” It was founded on the common interest of knowing Christ and glorifying Christ in this world. It was founded by a group of people who had “done church” and “done Christianitiy” in ways that proved ineffective, even destructive.
I was not at the Well in the beginning, so I won’t speak more to that. I have been there several years, however, and I can tell you that there are expectations there. Every single organization has group norms. The expectations are just not the same as they are in other, aka legalistic churches, in which most of us have previously served. The expectations are to seek Christ, to pursue knowing him and him crucified, to be salt and light in the world that God has planted us, yo share the gifts and talents God has given us with our community, and to give according to God’s leading and in proportion to what have and can give. We are not, however, guilted, “prophesied” or otherwise manipulated into making church take up more time in our weekly schedule than our sleep, work, or family time; or into sustaining the “pastor as king” cult-model; or into all of the other nonsense that we’ve experienced before. The Well doesn’t “discourage us from leading others.” Actually, the opposite is true. However, our church doesn’t define leadership as a hierarchical, narrow, model like CBC and MFI do. Leadership is about service, leading by example/modeling, and equipping the saints for the doing of the ministry. Not monopolizing the lime-light. Not titles. Leadership is inclusive rather than exclusive. It’s also done by a team of elders, which is way more biblical than the “pastor as king” model, sorry to break it to you.
The Well has an agenda. It’s just not the same agenda as you have, or CBC or other MFI-type churches. We have a vision and mission, and we are moving forward in accomplishing it. Our definition of success and success indicators are just very different than CBC’s. I would like to raise my kids there, and actually am doing so. I can tell you that I would never, in a million years, raise my kids in CBC or any other church like it. Nor would I raise my kids in a lawless church, the flip side of the legalistic CBC coin. The best thing I can do is to instill a deep and authentic understanding of the Gospel into my children, and to do so in a community that does not judge their personal value based on their “spiritual or moral performance” or ability to adhere to the long lists of do’s and don’ts, or “measurable contributions” or their “time served.”
The Well is “doing things” and I have no compunction to detail those out for you in an attempt to persuade you that the church is “legitimate.” I believe the church is eight years old. So, we’ve passed the five year mark and are nearing the ten year mark. I don’t see it losing momentum. So, I’m thinking you don’t know much about us.
At any rate, I get that you don’t get the Well or churches like it. I spent my childhood in an alcoholic family and most of my adulthood in legalistic Christiainity/churches; the similarities between those two environments far outweigh the differences, which is fairly disturbing. Most of us are far more comfortable with rigid and demanding “expectations” because most of us struggle with legalism, with wanting to earn our salvation and our value and with needing to be needed in order to feel meaningful and important. That’s called the sinful nature. Self-orientation. Thinking we can earn anything from God through our behavior, through our works. Praise God for delivering me from that bondage. I pray that he will do the same for you.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Points taken. Just a little about me: 1) I do not attend CBC, or any other MFI church. 2) I have not attended The Well - only read about its distinctives on this blog. Everything I know about the place comes from here: nothing more, nothing less.
Forgive me if I came across like I was attacking your church. Far from it. What I thought was interesting was how you praised low expectations on church members as the Biblical ideal. I cannot find anything like that in scripture.
Also, you drew the line at 500 members for a heathy, Godly church. Since when? Where does it say in the scripture that churches are supposed to be small? Or large for that matter? I attend a church of about 500 people, and it is considered large by most people in our rural community. On the other hand, we get visitors from Africa on a regular basis who joke that “this isn’t a church - it’s a Bible study”, referring to our relative small size compared to their churches.
In the Bible, and in history, we find churches of all sizes and shapes. Various organizational methods have been tried, and all have succeeded and failed over time. Do you really think that your recent “reinvention” is going to fair any differently?
August 29th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
AJ said:
Point well taken and I wholeheartedly agree with this. If the church is committed to making disciples, building community, planting new churches, reaching and serving their community then who cares what size the church is. As soon as you get caught up in determining what size a church should be then you need to take a harder look into the book of Acts, it affirms both (big & small).
AJ quoting Reformers post:
To which AJ said:
AJ, did ya hear Reformer? he said:
AJ, at the Well there are expectations, but those expectations are rooted in the “Priesthood of the believer.” In other words, there are plenty of churches that have expectations and that can be a good thing, but where it goes awry is when a church sets themselves up as the “mediator” of your Christianity. Usually in these environments your spirituality get’s ransacked and all you become is a mindless mechanical Christian that get’s drawn away from a person (Jesus) to a set of man-centered principles and propositions. The Priesthood of the believer promotes diversity, not uniformity. It drives you to the cross as the standard-bearer for Christian living and service. So when Reformer says The Well’s expectation of him was to be himself, I think he is not discrediting expectations, but those expectation are rooted in the cross and flow out of the cross. He is free to be what Christ wants him to be, not what I want him to be, big difference.
If you truly want to understand The Well’s heart, I think their discipleship model is based on Galatians 4:17-19:
Also, I agree with you AJ that the bible doesn’t subscribe to the idea of low expectations for the Christian, in fact it is quite high. But in those expectations are we requiring people to conform to a church culture or Christ? I think the Well’s all-encompassing focus is to help people “get the gospel, love the gospel, live for the gospel, share the gospel and serve others through the gospel” this is the expectation I think all churches should have. Now, in terms of my personally relationship with the Well, do they have a long way to go to live this out? yes! Do they fall grossly short of these expectations? Of course! But to say the church is small because of low expectations is ridiculous. I know tons of mega-consumer church that require hardly anything from you and that’s why their churches are huge, so the idea you constructed is baseless and built on a house of cards. Jesus was the greatest “gatherer” and “scatterer” of people at the same time, especially when He laid down expectations, so this idea that expectations makes your church grow is furthest from the truth.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Very good points! And I appreciate the clarification. I think that has been the most positive and encouraging description of The Well I have read. Again, I didn’t mean to pick on the church - I just read into the association of “what I love about The Well is…” and “…they don’t expect anything of me…” Your point about man-centered expectations vs God exceptions is a good one. I think that all churches and all Christians should be reminded of this on a regular basis.
I am not from the Portland area, and I am not involved in any sort of MFI organization. But I have visited CBC a handful of times, and have fellowshiped with their leaders. From my impressions, I have concluded that they are sincere in their worship, and passionate about the cause in front of them. Not perfect, but sincere and passionate.
I don’t know if I would make CBC my home if I moved to NE Portland, but I do know that I tend to thrive in environments that are fueled by a cause. I enjoy the momentum of living for a greater calling, and like to think that I am discerning enough to tell when I am serving man or serving God.
I don’t want to pick a fight over the legitimacy of this blog’s concerns. I just want to make the point that some people are meant to be in a high-expectations church, and that doesn’t mean that they are being manipulated into serving. I love to serve. And my wife and I go through seasons where we serve more or serve less. But if we were doing all this because man expected it of us, we would have burnt out a long time ago. All service should be to God - the leadership just takes care of the paperwork.
The Well sounds like a better and better church all the time!
Please don’t ruin your church’s reputation by suggesting that any of us who enjoy putting in long hours at church are shills. Like it or not, all of us choose to get up on Sunday and worship. Nobody is forcing any of us to be here.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:00 am
AJ says :
Satan is sincere and passionate about what he does. Jim Jones probably was too…..
August 30th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Don’t compare the CBC leadership to Satan.
And don’t compare their motives to Satan either. Do you know them? Do you know what it’s like to pastor a church, to attempt to bring the kingdom of God to earth in a biblical manner with all manner of self-righteous opposition coming against you? Do you know what it’s like to attempt to hear the voice of God amidst all the other voices of the world screaming for your attention?
Do any of us understand what a typical pastor, in MFI or not, goes through. Or are we all comfortable with believing that any pastor that harmed us in the past sits in an office with an evil smile on his face drinking scotch and wondering how else he can manipulate the lives of his congregation. This hardly seems fair, and it does nothing to edify or encourage our bretheren in Christ.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
calm down, jaspercreel. No-one was comparing pastors to satan. LL simply stated that sincerity and passion is an inadequate reason to follow a person.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:00 am
Why all of the defensiveness against serving in your church? A clever cover so the real issue gets lost? Go for it. Serve away! Meanwhile dole out a few words of encouragement to those of us that are called to serve in other places. The problem is I’ll bet you’ve never even heard that there are other places. Hence the defensiveness. You don’t get it because in the churches we all go to the emphasis is always on getting everyone to serve right at the church. People are not encouraged and released to serve wherever the Holy Spirit leads.
The place we all go to worship is supposed to be just a building (you know a sheep shed.) How many times I’ve heard that one! Does the pastor always have to have every member totally committed to the church building and every thing that goes on there? Or is there a balance? Why are people made to feel guilty for being called to serve somewhere else? How can we be salt and light if we never get beyond the four walls of our church buildings? Again it goes back to balance.
AJ said: I don’t want to pick a fight over the legitimacy of this blog’s concerns. I just want to make the point that some people are meant to be in a high-expectations church, and that doesn’t mean that they are being manipulated into serving. I love to serve. And my wife and I go through seasons where we serve more or serve less. But if we were doing all this because man expected it of us, we would have burnt out a long time ago. All service should be to God - the leadership just takes care of the paperwork.
If you are called to serve in your local church and you and your wife love it don’t confuse it with being in a high expectations church. A lot of us work and serve behind the scenes and outside the church. We take care of our own paperwork. Don’t confuse the different ways in which people choose to serve with high or low expectations. It’s called freedom.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:27 am
jaspercreel said: Do any of us understand what a typical pastor, in MFI or not, goes through.
Funny you should ask. Every Sunday, whether we wanted to hear it or not.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:30 am
Wow, never expected to cause such a stir. Good stuff. Storry it took me so long to respond. I was out of town this weekend. Anyway….
Well this kind of destroys your argument then. If you are making judgments based on posts where you can't understand a persons tone or reasoning, rather then your actual attendance, then you really don't get it.
Sorry that was my bad. I was not trying to set an exact number of what I believe is a big or small church (again, when you can't hear someone's tone or reasoning, it's hard to get where they are coming from). Anyway, I personally don't like large churches. They are informal, unsocial, and disconnected (in my opinion of course). So I personally don't want to attend a church of 2,000 people. Makes no sense to me. The reason I tossed out the number 500 is because you were criticizing the Well for being small, like that's a bad thing. The only time I've ever heard someone do that is when they have ego and pride over the fact that there church is so great because they have 2,000 members. That kind fo reasoning is pure stupidity. So let me restate myself. If God wants a church to be big, it's going to be big and that's a great thing because that church can do things that a small church can't. But just because a church is small doesn't mean that they are not being used of God (which is what your statement implies).
This is great, classic example of the problem. You do realize that the creators of this blog and most of those with posting abilities and a majority of the regular commenter’s spent years at CBC or a related MFI church? Just because you've visited a few times and "fellowshipped" (love that Christianese) with the leaders does not give you the same basis that we have for calling them out. Spend 12 months or so working behind the scenes, then let us know how you feel. Bet you it would be drastically different.
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
Back at you. Nobody on this blog can hear tone through a comment thread. Including you. I’m not attacking The Well, I’m just pointing out that your comment about one church being good and one being bad based on leadership’s expectations of people is subjective. I personally prefer that sort of environment, and regardless of your assumptions of me, I HAVE been in both types of churches. My comment about size was not to criticize small churches (again, I have been in both types), but to point out that churches that don’t ask anything of their members tend to not last very long. And I stand by that statement.
Some other people later chimed in that they are asked to serve at The Well, and that it is a healthy place to grow and serve. Fair enough. My opinion of The Well has changed as more people have painted a picture of their experiences there.
Nope. Didn’t say that. Didn’t imply that. Churches of all size will be used of God. Including CBC. Including The Well. End of story.
I doubt it. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. And the reason why is because I HAVE worked behind the scenes at a number of churches, and found that my overall satisfaction stays higher in the kind of churches I have lobbied for.
I have also talked with CBC members about the issues brought up on this blog, and they have told me the reasons they keep attending. It doesn’t negate the experiences talked about here, but it certainly doesn’t make them wrong for staying. Some people actually prefer churches like CBC. And strongly disagree with the notion that the Institutional Church is doomed. It just might take another 20-30 years to see who is right.