Church Member? Great! So, what?

So, you belong to a church, huh? Made a profession of faith perhaps, said some kind of vows in front of the church--something like, "I promise support this church though my prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness." That is an awesome first step, but now what? Does merely belonging to a church make you a Christian--or a "better" Christian?

Since living in Columbia, I've been a member at several gyms. I joined Gold's gym when I first moved to Columbia because they had a bunch of great, free-at-no-additional-charge classes. They had great parking, an indoor track, an indoor pool, a smoothie bar, lunch time yoga, a hot tub and descent showers. Programs and things I thought made a good gym, and things I  thought I had to have. But all those awesome things about Gold's Gym did not motivate me to go every day, or every week, and I really didn't take full advantage of all the flashy this and that they had to offer. So, once my membership ended, I looked for something new--somewhere that would provide more accountability than just simply all the bells and whistles. I went to the opposite extreme--Carolina CrossFit. If you want some in-your-face workout accountability, well, CrossFit is the place. But I found it also kind of cliquish. I never felt at home; it was hard to connect. Sure, I appreciated the group WODs; they challenged me physically, but other personal and relational connections were missing. So, I went back to gym shopping. Now, I am a member at Brickhouse which is a great mix of Gold's and CrossFit--great accountability, hospitality and opportunities.

But even though I have found my gym "home," and even though I have my little key ring card, that doesn't suddenly mean I am going to start looking like some of the studs who workout at Brickhouse. Simply having a membership does nothing for me physically. Fit-by-association is not a reality; I will not get stronger simply by  showing up or having my membership card on my key ring. It doesn't matter if I am a member at Gold's, CrossFit or Brickhouse, if I don't put in the work--the sometimes hard, painful work even on days I don't feel like it--at the gym then chances are that I am never going to really get in shape.

Unfortunately I think too many people today treat finding a home church very much the same way I went about finding a gym. Testing, trying, staying awhile, moving on, getting disgruntled over something, leaving, coming, and going until finally a connection is made. And it is not uncommon for such a process to be repeated over and over in our very mobile lives. And too often when we finally feel at home and our church shopping is over, we settle in to a comfortableness, a sleeping stupor not meant to characterize the end of such a journey. Because really the end of "church shopping" is the beginning. The problem is that the goal of finding a church becomes an end-goal in and of itself. The goal was to find a church. Period. Done. Found. Accomplished. When really the actual goal of finding a church should be to find a place and people where we can grow and be nurtured as disciples--a place that not only welcomes, but challenges us to grow more and more into the image of God.

Even with just as few as 3 years in ministry, I have witnessed this church home-finding process on a rather frequent basis. I have seen people come and go from our church for various reasons. Recently one former member came back after finding a home at a much larger church than ours. He said to a group of us with a huge, satisfied smile on his face, "It is just so nice to not really have to do anything at church except show up." My heart ached not only because of his statement but I know that such a sentiment is all too widely shared among church people today. Membership at a church has become more important than the reason we gather in community.

It doesn't matter where you are a church member. It really doesn't matter if you have perfect church attendance--unless church is starting to change you, how you live, how you engage others, how you work, and so on and so on; unless church is starting to live in and through you beyond buildings, a church membership is like having a gym membership and never working out. Whether the church is big or small, God gathered us into community for the sake of growing in discipleship so that we can make and nurture more disciples, transforming our world for the glory of God. That does not and cannot happen by just showing up. What did God say to the church in Sardis in Revelation 3:15? "I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You’re not cold, you’re not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit." Just being a member seems to me to be synonymous with being lukewarm, and well you see how God feels about that! 

The reality is that we cognitively know all this as church people, but the message and importance of being church together hasn't seeped into our hearts in such a way that activates change in how we are church beyond the geographical brick and mortar of the place we gather to participate in works of piety. We easily forget that church membership is just another word for discipleship, and well discipleship is a lifelong process that requires responsible grace which means work and participating with God in all God is presently doing in this world. Such a life is going to be filled with ups, downs, good, bad and everything in between. Such a life is not a lukewarm, stagnant life. It is as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 being the body--the hands and feet--of Christ in our world, and if you know the ministry and life of Christ, Jesus never sat still for very long except to pray and commune.

Just the way being a member at some gym does not make you automatically physically fit---sure that would be nice--in this same way simply being a member of a church will not make you a disciple who is growing more and more into the image of God, nor will the church have any relevance if we are not making disciples for the transformation of our world. Just like there are no short cuts or easy, quick, convenient ways to get in shape without putting in the work, the same is true of discipleship. Our culture is obsessed with the quick and easy and convenient. Such values have slipped into our church culture. The fact is that discipleship does take work; it does take long-term commitment and discipline.  We, the church, exist to worship God by growing in discipleship, so that our lives reflect God's glory more and more and through us our world will be changed. There is a greater purpose for being a church member than simply a member in name only.  So, you're a member at a church? Great! Now, what?

"A Church is the People, a Church is not a Building"

St. Paul Lutheran church in Pomaria, SC was a beautiful gray granite-walled church with beautiful imported stained glass windows said to be the pride of their church. The church building went up in flames this month, January 2013. In the aftermath of the horrific church fire (no one was hurt) that burnt St. Paul Lutheran church to a condemned crisp, Rev. Brent Nichols said, "A church is the people, a church is not a building." In other words just because our building is destroyed does not mean we, the church, are destroyed. Our building doesn't make us who we are. What a great take away and reminder in the midst of a horrible incident that the body of Christ is not walls of a building, but the body of Christ is you and me who simply gather in one common place to worship, and then from there are sent into a world in desperate need of hearing the Good News of Christ.

Unfortunately many of our identities as church people are wrapped up in a church building; a church building does make many who they are, or so it seems. Wouldn't it be great if we referred to the greatest pride of our church as our people instead of stained glass windows or ornate pews or an organ or a fountain or any other fixture, brick or mortar. Sometimes I wish we still just worshipped in homes because too much time and way too much money are spent on building issues. Whether it is something that is broken that needs fixed or replaced, or something that was moved that has members agitated, it is easy to feel consumed, as a pastor, by the brick and mortar; it demands almost more time than homebound or hospitalized members, preys on the sensitivities of people, brings out the worst in people and creates more conflict than it should. Our buildings, though they are inanimate, somehow, have great power over us. They have become places we worship rather than places we simply gather to worship.

We recently refloored our education wing of our church building. We had an asbestos problem that had to be attended to because of the potential harm to people--especially our preschoolers who spend a lot of time on the floor. I never would have imagined that such a simple renovation could have brought out the worst in people. I wish people got as passionate about bible study curriculum or planning worship as they did about floor choices. I wish as many people showed up for Sunday School and Bible Study as they did for church council and trustee meetings about the new floors. And even though the floors have been redone and laid, the problems--mainly relationship problems persist. People are still not talking because so-and-so said or did such-and-such, and of course we have people non-stop complaining, more passionate and consumed with their dissatisfaction and disapproval of the new floors than other spiritual matters going on within our church--like the fact that we have yet to have a profession of faith in the last two years, or that one of our teenagers gave birth at 6 months and is struggling to make life and death decisions for her twin premies, or that our church has 18 homebound or hospitalized people who are hardly visited by their church family, or one of our pillars of the church is deciding to move away to be closer to her children, or we have members in our church who can barely pay rent, utilities or buy groceries. But such concerns are on the periphery because look at those floors!! If such time, energy and financial resources could only be used for those other problems.

The whole process disheartened me greatly. I know why the church has trouble keeping young clergy--or people at all. I used to chide people who complained of being "churched-out" but now I understand. Our priorities our skewed and the object of our worship is no more than things that wither and fade as Isaiah 40 talks about. When our focus and passion and centerpiece of our gathering is on a building, then yes, such a gathering is exhausting and draining. The church was never meant to be a place that depletes. Jesus said, "Come to the fountain of living waters and I will give you water that will quench your thirst..." And yet, so often church--when focused on such withering, trivial things--is often hopeless work that doesn't seem like any real change is happening in the lives of people so real change is not coming to our world by the very people God has called, empowered and equipped to transform the world for his glory because we are too occupied with floors and such. Our church buildings, our places of worship, have become obstacles--the Golden Calf of our day, if you will.

Yes, today, we need reminding of what really matters. "Church is not a building, church is a people." Not only a people, but people of God, made in God's image. Remember in John 2 and Matthew 26 Jesus talked about tearing down temples--tearing down buildings and raising up a new temple? Jesus was talking about his body as the temple of God--what does that mean for us today? We, God's people, Jesus followers, are the church. Maybe we ought to start focusing a little more on the inside and outside of our selves--God's temple, the church--so that through us we can truly begin to change to world, making God's presence in the world known in all corners of this world.

Sacred Community

Becoming a sacred community is not easy. Yet, it is what we are called to be as the body of Christ, the church. The Greek word for church is “ekklesia” which literally translates “called out.” There is something sacred about being called out by God; all who call themselves "Christian" are to be called-out people not only when gathered as a community of faith, but in the daily ups and downs of life. But far too many people today settle for just being a part of a church rather than a sacred community being called out by God to do God’s work together in the world. At the core of being a sacred community is knowing and being known by other people in the community, and this is not just simply knowing names—though that is a very good place to start when getting to know someone. The foundation of a sacred community is relationships. Jesus taught us this by the way he lived, taught, traveled, worshiped, prayed, and even ate. 

I can’t tell you how many stories I've heard about people who have gone to church for 10, 20, or 30 plus years and do not know the people of their church community because either they sit on the opposite side of the sanctuary, or they are not in their Sunday School Class or Men’s Group or UMW.  True sacred community is being more than just a group of loosely connected acquaintances who happen to gather in the same place at the same time every week to worship. Sacred community is really knowing and caring for each other’s hopes and fears, success and failures, strengths and struggles.  However this is what makes true sacred community both so worthwhile and yet so difficult. True community requires us to be vulnerable, exposing our true selves and sharing our thoughts and feelings. Rather than presenting the side of ourselves who we want and choose people to know. Not only was this at the core of Jesus' ministry, but John Wesley established bands and classes for this very reason. One of the first questions asked at each band meeting was, "How is it with your soul?" That's not simply a "Good morning, how are you?" That's a question that asks and expects the respondent to be vulnerable, transparent, open.  Opening yourself up like that is a huge risk, and yet without such a risk—without being vulnerable and honest with one another—true sacred community can never be reached.

So on a scale of 1-10, how well do you rate your church as a sacred community? Be honest.

1              2              3               4               5               6               7               8               9               10

When we are honest with ourselves about where we are—both in strengths and weaknesses—we can begin to learn and grow into the sacred community—the ekklesia—that God is calling us to be as God’s body, the church. It should be the goal of every church to grow more and more as a sacred community. I, the pastor, cannot do it alone because, remember, at the core of a sacred community is open and honest relationships. “I am the church; you are the church; we are the church together.” May it be so. 

(This blog is much in debt to a book I am reading right now by Jamie Roach called Sacred Community; it is a part of the Ancient Faith Series put out by Barefoot Ministries. I highly recommend this 8-week study. It is geared for youth groups, but anywhere you read "youth group" or "students" you can substitute "church" and "people" and glean lots of really good, in-your-face, reality-check lessons for the church as a whole.)

Change

This coming Sunday, January 13, I am preaching on Genesis 12:1-9. This afternoon as I sit reading commentaries, journal articles and such, I am continuously drawn back to these words in the pericope: "Abraham was 75-years old when he departed Haran." That might seem like a strange verse to be drawn to, but not so strange when you really think about Abraham, his age and what God was asking Abraham to do--especially in the context of what we--an aging church--might be called to do as God's people in the here and now. 

God was calling Abraham to leave his country, his kindred, his father's house, or in other words to leave familiarity, comfort, long-held traditions for the unknown, the uncomfortable, the new. God did not initially tell Abraham where God was leading him, nor did he say how long it would take to get to wherever God was leading Abraham and his family. God simply said, "Go and I will show you the way to the land where I want you to go." And it seems that without too many questions or even a hint of hesitation, Abraham went. Quite a leap of faith, I would say--especially at his age!!

As a pastor of an aging church, I know that while change is not easy for anyone, change is especially not easy or welcomed by people near and around Abraham's age. But just as God sought to bring about change in the world through Abraham, so too is God seeking to bring about change through the people sitting in our pews today--many, if not the majority, of whom are Abraham's age and older. And so, as I read this verse about Abraham's age and his willingness to walk by faith and not by sight into God's mysterious unknown, I am both encouraged and discouraged. 

I am encouraged because these verses give me hope that God can and does so often work miracles to bring about the impossible through impossible beings--such as Abraham and Sarah who were aging and barren and yet, God used them to be the parents of generations as numerous as there are stars in the sky. There is hope in these verses for our aging church that has been steadily declining for over a decade. We are the seed of Abraham, and so we--the collective "we" both young and old--inherit Abraham's bold faith to follow God into the unknown, uncomfortable and new, knowing that we are partnering with God to bring about God's promises and glory in this world. This is something both young and the more seasoned in life need reminding of for fear of becoming too rigid and stuck in our ways. Our purpose is God's purpose--God's way, not our own; this is true of God's people regardless of age. But we need the Abraham's and Sarah's of our church--the chronologically gifted--to be willing to lead us through these changing times; the young look to the Abrahams and Sarahs who boldly lead and embrace where God is leading today's people. 

But these verses also bring me angst, discouragement and fear because I know the majority of Abraham's fellow 75ers in our churches today, and I do not believe they are so welcoming of change--even if that change is truly being led and guided by God. There are some very loud-voiced aging congregants among us, in very non-Abraham fashion, who are resistant to change, to leaving the familiar, comfort, long-held traditions even though we watch as our tower of Babel--our Christendom church--crumbles and declines before our very eyes. Even such awareness of the state of our church today has not motivated some aging congregants to embrace change, allowing God's promise of his presence to guide and comfort them through the unknown, the uncomfortable, the new with the promise that such a journey will bring glory to God. 

No, instead any attempt or the mere mention of change leads to toddler-style temper tantrums, the digging in of heels and threats to leave the church. Nothing could be further from the example Abraham and hundreds of others in the great cloud of witnesses has set for us as people of faith--people who are called to walk by faith and not by sight. Of course this is a broad-brush generalization because not all of Abraham's peers in the church today are resistant to change in the church; there are several Abrahams among us, but this post is largely informed by past experience. No matter our age, we all need reminding that faith is the assurance of things hoped for and certain of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). And such a faith does not fear change, but recognizes that even in the midst of change--however uncomfortable, inconvenient, and unwanted it may be--God is present, guiding, leading, loving us through the difficulties and adjustments that accompany change. 

My DS posted an article by Rev. Gary Brinn titled, "Secrets Your Pastor Can't Share in a Sermon." Number 8 on Gary's list was this: "When you insist on 'the way we do things in this church,' I'm wondering when you stopped worshiping a living God and started worshiping a building and its resident bureaucracy. Give me half a chance, and I'll help you drop the average age of worshipers and give this church a future. Many thousands of churches close every year. This doesn't have to be one of them. But it's your choice. When you are ready to look forward instead of backward, I'll be there to lead the way. That is, after all, what you keep telling me I'm supposed to do." 

At the heart of Abraham's no-hestiation leap of faith into the unknown must have been the heart of God. All we do--including church--is not for ourselves, but for God. Gary's words resonate all too deeply in me and my context and present experience of church, and such words are connected to this story of Abraham. Too often many of us--both young and old--double speak, saying one thing while really meaning something else. We say we want to grow the church and make disciples for Jesus, but what we really mean and want is to grow the church and go about making disciples our way, at our own pace, within our comfort zone and where and when it is convenient for us. 

Abraham had to let go of control to bring about God's vision, promise and blessing. Abraham had to submit to change God's way, not his own way, and guess what that meant for Abraham?!? Leaving EVERYTHING known, familiar, comfortable, easy, convenient behind. How, we might ask, did he do this? Paul says it so perfectly in Hebrews 11:8, "By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going." All Abraham carried with him into the unknown were the promises of God.

What will the church of post-Christiandom, of today, of the future look like? I do not know. What I do know is that God is calling me to lead the church into the unknown, the unfamiliar, the new while leaving the "way we've always done church" behind. It would be nice to have a few Abrahams on my side because without the aging congregants leading and ushering the church into a new era as Abraham did in Genesis, we will not make it very far. 

I daily pray that God will raise up Abrahams in my congregation because we are one step away from shutting our doors, and frankly, I am depleted as a pastor and preacher, hanging on to hope and burdened with dead weight that refuses to admit and submit to the radical changes that are needed in our churches today. God's call for Abraham to leave everything was extremely radical, and I imagine not easy on Abraham, Sarah or any of their household. The only thing certain about the future was God's presence, and that was enough for them to give up their comfort, their home, their traditions, the known, the familiar and take a leap of faith. May it also be enough for us, as we decide to walk in the footsteps of Abraham rather than to continue to live according to our own wills. Because like Abraham, we are God's hope for God's people to be as numerous as the stars in the sky. It is up to you, to us, church, to participate with God in bringing about his glory in this world. May we not be so short-sighted or limited in our vision of the future that God's glory days are behind us.