Category Archives: Church

Not as you envisioned it

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unityChurch is never going to be exactly the way you envision it. And that’s a good thing.

In the midst of this discussion of churches making an effort to include more Latinos in their congregation, I thought about that hard fact. Church is never going to be precisely how you want it to be.

Frankly, church is messy. It’s made up of flawed humans who are struggling with spiritual desires and human desires. Someone rightly said that if you get two adult Christians together, they aren’t going to agree on every point of doctrine. And they aren’t going to agree on how to “do church,” be it doctrinal points or not.

Not long ago, I read an article where someone mentioned that, in ministry, their goal was to have everyone happy about 80% of the time. Seems like a good rule of thumb, especially if you’re willing to include yourself. 20% of the time, things won’t be done the way you think they should be.

But the fact is, if everything were done the way you think it should be done, it still wouldn’t be as you envisioned. Because you are one of those flawed people struggling with human and spiritual desires. Your vision for the church isn’t perfect.

So recognize that your congregation will take on its own form. Allow the Holy Spirit to do the shaping. You can dream and plan, but be willing to change those dreams and plans to mold them to the reality that comes.

Church is never going to be exactly the way you envision it. If you let it, it’s going to be much, much better.

photo source: MorgueFile.com

Us and Them in the church

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dog and catI wanted to continue the discussion about “us” and “them” in the church. I think one of the greatest challenges that Christians continually face is this question of groups/factions/cliques/parties within the church.

On the one hand, let’s accept the fact that we are always going to find those with whom we feel more affinity than others. It’s okay to have friends. As I heard Lynn Anderson say once, it’s okay to have circles in the church if everyone is in a circle.

I’m talking about rivalries. That feeling that “they” are trying to do something that “we” don’t want them to. Sometimes it’s about language. Oftentimes it happens based on age. Sometimes it’s about outlooks. It can be about worship styles, preaching styles, songbooks or pew Bibles.

The problem is, for most of us, this suspicion of “them” arises time and again throughout our Christian life. It’s not a one-time decision, but a continual choice to NOT label, to NOT distrust, to NOT scheme to get our way instead of their way.

We need to emphasize the things that unite us, for they trump all that may divide. In Christ, there is no us nor them, there is only we Christians, we church members, we brothers in Christ.

I’d like to hear your suggestions as to how to overcome the natural tendency to be factious.

photo from MorgueFile.com and Longridge Kennels

Restoring the church

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Before moving on, I want to touch on one other statement I made last week, one that touched off quite a bit of discussion. I said that I disagree with the idea of restoring the first century church. Even I wrestled with the wording of that, and I may not be expressing it well. I see a difference between seeking to restore New Testament Christianity and seeking to restore the first-century church.

So let me try and dig the hole a little deeper. :-) In last Thursday’s post, I wrote,

We are to attempt to be the church that God wants us to be. We should be a biblical church, seeking to live out the norms of the Bible in a twenty-first century world. The goal of the early church was to be like Jesus. We should imitate that goal. We don’t try to be like the first-century church. We try to be like Jesus.

I see a difference between trying to restore the ideal of the New Testament church and trying to restore the first-century church. The first-century church was trying to be the New Testament church in their own setting. There was much failure. Much humanness. I don’t want to restore that. I do want to strive for the same ideal they were after.

Let me quote myself a bit more (!), from some of the comment thread from last week’s post:

The problem I see is that there is this myth of uniformity among first-century congregations. That’s why, for example, people take the qualities of elders list from 1 Timothy 3 and combine it with the one from Titus 1, rather than recognizing the differences that exist in those lists. They were similar, but not exactly the same, for the needs of the different congregations were not the same.
It was right for the Jerusalem church to continue practicing Judaism. It would have been wrong for the Galatian church to do so. Holding up the portrait of “the first century church” ignores the fact that the church of the first century was quite diverse.
Those Christians were living out the principles of Christ in their situation, both in terms of time and in terms of place. Going back to the elders lists: it was right for the Ephesian church to avoid the appointing of new converts. That church had existed for decades when Paul wrote Timothy. Not so the Cretan church, which is why that qualification doesn’t appear in the list Titus received. By talking about “the first century church,” we overlook those elements and try to create a homogeneity where there was none.

Again, maybe I’m reacting to the connotations around “restore the first-century church” or the misapplication of that idea. What I fear is that people think that the first-century church enjoyed this idyllic pure form of Christianity which led to a golden age of peace and harmony. I’ve grown up hearing, “If we could just restore the first-century church, Christians around the world would be united.” The idea is that if we can restore the exact practices those Christians, we can enjoy a time of unity.
But they didn’t. If we restore their practices precisely, we can expect to have precisely the same types of problems they did.
I see “New Testament Christianity” as describing the ideal, not the flawed human pursuit of that ideal. I’m much more comfortable with pursuing the ideal…
When Josiah found the Book of the Law in the temple, his reform didn’t consist of looking to see how previous generations had lived the Law. It consisted of looking at the Law and studying to see what God expected of people. I think that’s what restoration should be about.

So does any of that make sense anywhere outside of my own mind?

Spiritual realities and the true church

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In my travels, I often run across literature with titles like “The marks of a true church” or “How to recognize a New Testament church.” I won’t claim to have read all of them, but the ones I’ve seen fail to do what they claim to do. That is, they don’t focus on the things the Bible says about what makes a church a true church.

Yesterday we talked about online behavior and spiritual realities, how our behavior on the Internet affects us spiritually. That doesn’t just go for what we do on the computer; I think we need to see that how we treat others affects who we are, as well as making a statement about who we are.

The big “mark” to look for, of course, is love. That can sound trite, yet the Bible repeatedly identifies that as the most important thing. If what we’re doing doesn’t lead us to love, doesn’t produce love, doesn’t reflect love, then what we’re doing isn’t godly. It’s that simple. Again, I know that Jesus got angry and Paul wrote some harsh things, but none of that gives us license to proceed in a way that doesn’t reflect God’s nature. God is love.

We also need to be looking for the rest of the fruit of the Spirit. A Spirit-led life will produce the things listed in Galatians 5:22-23. And we will pursue those things, as a church, or we will be a carnal, worldly church.

None of that impedes our obeying God and seeking to do His will. But if in that pursuit of God pleasing we quit following the Spirit, we will never achieve our goal. You can’t “do the right things” without the fruit of the Spirit.

That’s why we need the big picture. That’s why we need theology. Focusing merely on behaviors won’t get us there. We need to look at the spiritual realities behind the behaviors.

Church websites: Final suggestions

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It’s silly to finish up a blog series with a Monday post, so let’s just say there will be a pause in this series after this post. It may be a pause of several decades, but we’ll call it a pause.

Let me offer some final tips as I round out the series:

  • Content matters, but make it web content. People make quick decisions about a site. Cute will catch their attention, but content will keep it. That content needs to be prepared with the web in mind. Keep it brief, when possible. Use headings and highlighted text to make the content scannable. Don’t be afraid to rework and rewrite to tighten the copy.
  • Use good imagery. There is a debate about stock imagery (cheap and professional, but possibly repeating what other sites have) versus real photography (potential complications due to real life issues). Whichever you choose, make sure the quality is good. Optimize the photos for the web, when possible. A big part of that is reducing the size of the image so that it loads quickly.
  • Make navigation easy. Help people know how to get around. Headers, menus, buttons… use what it takes to help people get from one place to the next.
  • Think about what’s above the fold. That’s an old newspaper term, referring to the way a paper is typically folded in half. On the Internet, it refers to what people see without having to scroll down. Put information above the fold, especially your call to action.
  • Anticipate and answer questions. People go to your site looking for information. Think about what information on outsider would want, and make sure it’s there. Consider having a Frequently Asked Questions page.

Those are some final thoughts. Anything that you would add that would help people improve their church website?