Transforming Church

I was rushing from one appointment to another and missed lunch. It was 3 PM and I had a few minutes, so I pulled into McDonalds. No one was at the register, when I walked in. In a few seconds a truck driver walked up and stood behind me. When another 30 seconds passed, he tapped me on the shoulder and said,
“Hey Mister, can you see me?
I can see you.
Why can’t they see us?” I just shook my head. A young woman headed in our direction. I made a pithy comment about thinking this was fast food. Her response was instructive. She said, “Mister, we have a lot to do around here besides just serving the customer.”

Be Disciples, Make Disciples, Feed the Sheep
The consultant went on to talk about how critical it is for service organizations to keep themselves customer-focused. When we stray from that focus, the bottom line always suffers. As I spend my time working with churches, I find this story rings true here as well. Churches have many reasons for existing today, and they aren’t all about making disciples. Many are far from Jesus’ call to mission.

You can state the mission Jesus gave us in many ways, but it is, in essence: Be Disciples, Make Disciples and Feed the Sheep. That is the main thing, the bottom line in churches.

Rampant Busyness
Busyness is rampant in the church today. We try to do so many good things that we loose time to focus on what’s really important, or to align our time and resources around what God is calling forth. Or, even to spend time in prayer and meditation seeking God’s will.

Church officials are so busy dealing with conflict situations and working with struggling churches on life support that there is not time to help healthy churches on their journey. I got an email this week from a church leader in the midst of a vicious attack by the controllers who could not stand any move to reach out to new families in the area and develop offerings to attract the unchurched. The woman who wrote was responding to last month’s article, Dealing Decisively with the Club. Their regional officials refuse to support those who are calling for a new, healthy vision for this church. Sadly, I find this story repeated around the church.

No Synod, Region or Judicatory has the resources to meet the needs out there today. In the business world, we called it the Sales Manager’s Dilemma. In any sales organization, there is a normal distribution with low achievers, mediocre performers and stellar sales people. Most sales managers spend their time working with those on the lowest rung, when the best they can hope for these people is to help them get to mediocre. Better they should focus on those in the middle, and help them move to excellence. Regional Offices are often overwhelmed by the crises in dysfunctional churches that they have little time or resource to help the basically healthy but struggling churches.

God Blesses Churches that Follow His Leading
I firmly believe God blesses the churches that listen, discern, and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Churches that are plateaued or in decline have somehow cut themselves off from this blessing. When we get distracted from the main thing by our busyness and self-serving, we lose our connection to our local community, its needs and those around who are still searching for a spiritual home.

Throughout history, God has withdrawn His blessing from His people when they quit listening and obeying His direction. Mike Foss said recently, “Temptation is anything that distracts us from the mission God lays before us.” Well, there is a lot of temptation out there.

I have seen Synod leaders begin to do some healthy work in this arena by giving long-suffering congregations permission to die, and then suggesting they take the money from the sale of assets and give it for the starting of new Mission starts. In the Southeastern Synod (ELCA) we have been able to launch many more missions than normal funding would sustain by the gifts of dying churches.

People create Inwardly Focused Churches
I suspect that churches become inwardly focused because their people are inwardly focused. I think we all come to the church to see our needs met. However in a healthy church, the focus does not stay on us. Healthy churches draw us into an experience of the living God. Through that experience, we are transformed. We yearn for a deeper connection. We begin to shape our lives around Jesus’ example. Slowly, our focus moves off ourselves, and to the others around us. We begin to be sensitive to the needs of friends, co-workers, family and our community. As we follow Jesus’ example, we live to serve those needs, and our lives become much richer and we experience the deep satisfaction that brings us peace.

Stuck People create Stuck Churches.
Sadly, I’ve seen many long-time church members who have not made this shift. Churches that are stuck don’t act as a catalyst in changing lives. People are free to persist in seeing the church and pastor as primarily there to serve them. A culture of neediness grows, and people do not move toward health or a deeper spiritual journey. Instead, they stay where they are, and attack anyone who seeks to change a status quo to one that has Christ at the center, instead of us. Codependency grows as people have needs, and many pastors need to be needed. It can become a vicious circle, difficult to exit.

Those who swim against the current to change this situation cannot expect a warm reception. Often, it seems that no good deed goes unpunished. You don’t have to read far in the Bible to see that the gift of prophecy is not well received. How many were chased out of town, attacked and even killed for holding up a mirror and showing the people how God was looking at their behavior?

Our TransformingChurch web community was created as an oasis for those who are trying to call their church back to health. Transforming churches is a lonely and painful business. Finding kindred spirits can help us persist when things get tough. We learn from each other what we don’t learn in seminary or from our Church officials. We are a grass roots community, connecting people on a spiritual journey back to the ancient/future church.

Three times in the email I got this week, the woman fighting “the club” gave thanks for finding out that she is not alone, that others are fighting the good fight. She got strength by just finding that others are also taking the courageous stand. Help us help others by spreading the word and inviting others into our virtual community.