A Major Shift Part 2
Our Present Reality
The denomination that I have served in launched a new program during the last decade to revitalize the movement. Their view was that the root of the problem in our church was members' inadequate knowledge of the Bible, so a biblical literacy program was proposed as a solution for plateaued and declining churches. Like many, I too believed we had a huge problem with church congregations that had become untethered from solid biblical truth, which could adequately underpin the birth of disciples and uncompromising Christian worldviews. For too many years, a primary diet on Sunday mornings, which by default had become the main evangelistic outreach opportunity for the church, was a preaching to felt needs with a heavy emphasis on popular trends. The idea was to make people feel good about their church and themselves, in a way that would bring them back wanting more, rather than sending them out needing less.
The goals of disciple-making had changed. Congregants were being fed to fatten and make them comfortable. Pastors sought to build and maintain huge herds rather than well-cared-for flocks, and the end goal became producing long-term attendees who contribute to the church's ministries. With large staffs, massive buildings, and cutting-edge ministries to children, youth, and seniors, strong financial support was essential. As a pastor, I certainly felt the pressure to provide for these things and carry out missional projects, which had me counting nickels and noses like most of my colleagues. As I reflect, I also recall times when my course was altered to provide for those vital ministry needs above many of the causes of Christ. Those causes were never repudiated or publicly embraced, but in the institutional church, actions may be altered if the right words continue to be spoken. We create a form that looks like the real thing. The Pentecostal church does not believe in creeds, but there are sacred words and phrases that, when repeated from pulpits and classrooms, bring comfort while living an opposite reality. This is a danger to everyone schooled in “church-ianity” but wholly ignorant of “Christ-ianity. It is a word without spirit and movement, devoid of divine life. But sadly, the institution we call the church can continue to exist and, in fact, thrive at times under those terms.
This strategy, of course, gets approval from its surrounding culture. Those who worship success will sing its praises, and those demanding excellence in presentation will laud its newfound relevance. And further, the denomination will reward the pastor’s leadership, which has replaced theology as the core of our professional attentions. Because of these culture-pleasing factors, which are the present-day giants in the land, we are swimming against the current, making a return even more unlikely. But the story of God among men is incomplete without shepherds, so return we must.
Return
“Return to me, and I will return to you.” Malachi 3:7
Desert places make returning home difficult. These barren places invite fear, fear of failure and of death. Captive Israel looked at traversing 530-900 miles of inhospitable terrain from Babylon to Jerusalem, the shortest crossing of the Syrian desert. Those who made the journey did so at the risk of their own lives. Professionally speaking, any move back to a shepherding model is risky for pastors. At the same time, it is richly rewarding!
The danger lies in the fact that culture, human greed, Satan, and a host of other factors have not changed. Every pastor with a shepherd’s heart has a proverbial “target drawn on his or her back.” Zechariah prophesied, “Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter,” to refer to Jesus and his crucifixion. Jesus quoted this passage when speaking of his disciples’ plight at his arrest and trial. But these words are not limited to our Lord. They speak of a principle that has stretched through the ages. A leaderless people soon become lost.
First Steps
The hardest part of a dangerous trip is deciding whether to go. The mental and emotional strain of “counting the cost,” as Jesus says in Luke 14:28, is vaunting. Going with the flow of things is perhaps the easiest of options, but for the true believer with a pastor’s heart, not the most rewarding. As a rancher, your legacy is typically your large buildings, high attendance, and dollars raised for missions. But the shepherd’s reward is in the intimacy he shares with his or her congregational members. They are his treasure.
The year was 258 AD, and Emperor Valerian was persecuting the leaders of the church. Sixtus, the Bishop of Rome, along with many of his deacons, had been martyred. Now Valerian's attention was aimed at Lawrence, who, as a deacon, was charged with bringing the emperor the riches of the Roman Church so that he might be personally enriched. The faithful servant of Christ was given three days to collect the gold and silver and present it to Valerian. For the next three days, Lawrence went through the city gathering the poor, sick, and lame and blind inhabitants, whom the church regularly helped with food, shelter, and medicine. On the third day, Lawrence appeared before Sixtus with these living riches of the church, saying, “These are the treasures of the church,” dooming himself to a martyr’s death by fire. Later, the church conferred sainthood on the deacon, and the Perseid Meteor showers of August, aptly called The Tears of St Lawrence, remind us of this great patron of the poor. If called upon to do so, what riches would we bring before the king? Where is your treasure? Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matt. 6:21
Pastors and churches must value what we say we value. We must reach the lost, but what if the lost are in our pews every Sunday morning, singing in our choirs, and attending our men’s and ladies’ fellowship meetings each week? They have already been warmed by the fire of God; perhaps they will be more easily reached. What if we are gathering large groups who are “sorta saved,” as one young lady termed her life, meaning the lost are us. We must decide where we desire to leave pieces of our hearts before they are all taken up by things that will not matter eternally. Our first step may be to ask ourselves as pastors: “If we were not judged according to present-day measures, how would we minister?”
The next step we must take is to repudiate and reject the idol of greed that rules our nation and the world. Simon the Sorcerer attempted to buy the gift of God, but many today are selling it. Of course, that would never be the stated objective; to profit from the gospel would be wrong, but to carry on the work, to do things better, and to provide for the staff so that they may live a part of the American dream, what could be wrong with that? Nothing! But wealth is seductive, offering those who acquire large sums a false sense of confidence and security. I cannot count the number of times I heard that the church must be run like a business. Later, the trend deepened as Church Growth Conferences became Leadership Conferences and businessmen became the keynote speakers. Most of them were not known for their Christ-like life but for their business acumen and success. Although I never heard a speaker discuss cattle raising or beef production, I was inundated with tips on how to do things better, based on business principles. Combined with the Positive Faith movement, which infused the church with a materialistic fervor, the new day in which businesses acted as churches had arrived. As an overseer in my former denomination, I discovered the reality of this new day, as evangelism took a back seat to financial gain as churches created multiple campuses and branches. I remember well the words of one leader who said he wanted to start a church in a small town across from three of our own congregations because there was “money on the table” he didn’t want to leave. He did so, despite strong protests from our other churches and pastors. In his mind, money had become the prime mover of the mission. I wish that were a lone sentiment from our pastors, but as old church properties were closed or abandoned, many became too business-minded to be of any heavenly good. The smart leaders were students of their surrounding culture and learned, through business principles, how to give people what they want because the customer is always right. If enough of Jesus was sliced into the middle, the people happily ate the sandwich.
What remains is a church lacking in prophetic edge and Pentecostal power but broadly accepted by the community, which translates into filled parking lots and pews. With the approbation and applause of those attending, the “we must be doing something right” was evidence that God was pleased.
The second hardest is the first step itself. We must repudiate and repent of the worship of greed and material wealth. It was no accident that Israel’s rejection of Jehovah at Sinai led them to worship a Golden Calf, an idol crafted from their precious jewelry, indicative of the influence of the gods of their former empire of captivity. Deeply embedded in our nation’s soul is the spirit of mammon, and the church must declare war against it. Doing so will effectively put an end to much that the institutional church needs to exist as it now does. Revolutionary change must occur, and the ministry must transition to pastors who work primarily for God and not for financial gain or institutional greatness.
"Return to me, and I will return to you," says the Lord Almighty.” Malachi 3:7
Having spent forty years in ministry
