It's my sense that one of greatest opportunities facing almost any church is turning its gaze outward. Still caring for and nurturing its people, but calling church to be church by embracing the genius of God's plan to grow as disciples as we go and make disciples.Some time ago I laid my hands on an article written by Glenn Drysdale which he'd titled, "Addressing the Inwardly Focused Church Culture." I felt Glenn hit the nail squarely on the head in this piece, and I wanted to share his thoughts with you. It's a fairly long article, so to make it a bit easier to digest, I'm going to break it up into two posts.
"The question that sometimes drives me hazy— am I, or the other, crazy?" --attributed to Albert Einstein
This question has been pondered by many church leaders in the midst of struggling with an issue. Sadly, the issues are usually all about us. In my previous article about turning a congregation’s focus outward, I discussed the transition to a permission-based leadership style, where leaders decide to let the work of the church be done by the church. One final story will illustrate the importance of this.
A new member in our congregation recently told this story about why he decided that this was the church for his family. One Sunday while he was talking with one of our shepherds, a member of the congregation asked him where the thermostat was located and how he could adjust the air conditioning. This elder said, “I don’t have a clue.” He asked two other elders standing nearby, but they also did not know where the thermostat controls were located. It simply wasn’t part of their job as shepherds.
After listening to this discussion, this new member said that given his background and what he had seen elders do in previous churches, he knew this was the church he wanted to be a part of. This story reaffirmed for me that our new ministry system is doing exactly what it should; it defines our leadership roles and releases us to do what is most essential. On occasions when I have assisted leadership teams in implementing this permission-giving ministry system, the results have been joyful and effective.
In one recent study of church conflict in various churches, 85% of conflicts involved control issues. This is no surprise to most church leaders. In the same study, 64% of all conflicts involved the vision and direction of the church.
This is a related issue, since control-based leaders or members often desire to control the direction of the congregation. Those who seek to exert undue influence in furthering their own agendas are controllers, and a permission-giving ministry system will neutralize their controlling tendencies. Only then is it time to take the next step of addressing the self-focused church culture, a subject to which we now turn our attention.
It has been said that the greatest obstacle to the coming of the Kingdom of God is the church, preoccupied with her own existence. Consider these six basic spiritual needs of Americans:
* The need to believe that life is meaningful and has a purpose
* The need for a sense of community and deeper relationships
* The need to be appreciated and respected
* The need to be listened to and to be heard
* The need to feel that one is growing in faith
* The need for practical help in developing a mature faith.
Since these spiritual needs are present in our community, here is the question that we must ask: why are so few of our discussions about church matters focused around meeting these needs? It is no wonder that church is often seen as irrelevant by non-attenders today. Our focus is typically inward. The following true stories illustrate the problem. In one congregation on a Sunday morning before Christmas, one elder arrived early to display a Christmas tree on stage in the worship center. Christmas is a time when church attendance often increases, and guests would appreciate the festive spirit, he thought. He saw no need to communicate about this with the other elders.
When another elder arrived that morning and saw the Christmas tree, he promptly moved it from the worship center. Other elders, as they arrived, were pulled into the dialogue, and tempers flared. Some said it was a biblical issue; others felt it was a matter of wrongly trained consciences. In the end, the festive spirit turned into something much darker.
In one congregation, a man commonly known as “The Jesus Painter,” who portrays Christian themes in his paintings, left a couple of his works of art for the church after participating in an event. One elder hung the paintings in the worship center, and when worshippers arrived the next Sunday morning, the paintings generated considerable discussion. A few wondered if the paintings were idolatrous. The paintings were later taken down after intense discussion among church leaders, and relocated to a classroom.
While a few believed the paintings involved the sin of idolatry, none admitted to worshipping the paintings or the objects depicted in them. Others felt disappointed, confused, and hurt. Some wondered if they could stay in a church where such internal issues seemed so central in the life of the congregation.
We won’t all have the same opinions about the above incidents—but the issue is often not the issue at all. In the above cases, I believe that the greater issue was the inwardly-focused nature of the leaders and members. Instead of seeking ways to be a blessing to their communities, they expended inordinate amounts of energy addressing internal issues. Certainly, maturity and sensitivity are important in decisions about congregational practice, but no one was determined to have fallen away from faith as a result of the above conflicts, while the inwardly-focused nature of these churches might have kept some from coming to faith and certainly did not make the Gospel attractive or, as the KJV puts it, did not "adorn the doctrine of God."
Just as in decorating that Christmas tree, we are to decorate the Gospel by our lives. That didn’t happen in the above events.
Paintings, Christmas trees, whatever else aside: how can we move our people away from a focus on internal issues and toward our mission of reaching people in our communities? Here are some suggestions. (To be continued)
