Category Archives: Church

The imitation of other Christians.

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When I was young, we had a cat. A female cat. Those were the days before the big “Spay and neuter” campaigns, so this cat had lots of kittens over the years. However, she had some serious shortcomings as a mother. The biggest one was the fact that she had no idea how to carry a kitten.

Instead of lifting her kittens by the nape of their neck, she would put her teeth on any available body part and drag her offspring across the porch. Apparently, she had never been carried when she was a kitten, so she hadn’t learned the proper form.

That brings me to the other side of the coin of yesterday’s discussion. As a church, we need to be focused on Jesus, on imitating Him. But we also need to be aware of the need to set an example for one another. That’s a frequent admonition in the New Testament, either to set an example for others or to follow the good example set by others.

I think Paul said it best to the Corinthians, when he said, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1) It’s not just “imitate me.” It’s “imitate me as I imitate Christ.” The Corinthians had seen Paul; they hadn’t seen Christ. But as far as Paul’s life lined up with what they had been taught about Christ, they were to imitate it.

Older Christians have a responsibility to teach younger Christians. Much of that teaching will happen whether we are aware of it or not. I remember one evening when we were hosting some young people in our home in Argentina. The need arose for me to discipline my son, and I did so on the spot. (It involved physical violence toward his sister with a Lincoln log… but we won’t go into that) After punishing my son, I spent some time playing with him in his room before returning to the group. One young man commented, “You know that we are learning how Christians should raise their children by watching you.” That was a sobering thought.

We should imitate good examples. And we should seek to be good examples for others. I like what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2: “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2:2) If we do it right, we create a chain of disciples, all seeking to imitate Christ and learning to do that by watching others do the same.

The early church

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Had an interesting thing happen at the Lipscomb Summer Celebration at the first part of this month. I went over to where the Spanish classes were being held, and the brother in charge apologized to me for not having invited me to speak. I told him that wasn’t a problem, that I was there to listen but would be happy to speak for them at some point in the future. Then one of the men said, “But you can help us out, right?” I said that I would be happy to the next year or some other time. He said, “No, I mean today.” Long story short, I was asked to give a talk that afternoon on “The Early Church.”

So obviously, this wasn’t a class that I spent weeks preparing for. But as I put my thoughts together, I realized something that I should have realized before. We often look to the early church as our model. The early church didn’t, at least not primarily. Sure, there were things that they learned from one another. But their goal was to imitate Christ.

The apostles didn’t go around saying, “Look at the church in Jerusalem and do the things they do.” They said, “Look at Jesus and try to imitate Him. We will try to imitate Him as well, so you can look at us and imitate us, but only as we imitate Him.”

Fact is, when we set out to imitate the early church, we have to ask “Which early church?” The church in Jerusalem where thousands still lived according to Jewish law? The chaotic Corinthian church? The confused Galatian church? We talk about “the early church” as if there were uniformity across the landscape… and there wasn’t.

If our churches are made up of people who are doing their best to imitate Christ, we will have the right kind of church.

Pretty obvious, I know. But sometimes I’m a little slow to pick up on these things.

How Preachers Can Disrupt A Church

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I said yesterday that I would talk a bit more about preachers and congregational dissatisfaction. I’m sure that any preachers that read that were excitedly looking forward to getting dumped on. And I could do that, I guess. But a lot of the problems that come up aren’t the fault of preachers.

For example, so many churches seem to live and die by how exciting the preacher is. Skilled preachers can fill pews; bad preachers can drive them away. I don’t really know how to change that, apart from encouraging preachers to do the best they can. It’s another aspect of how we do church that I don’t find to be healthy. Too much focuses on the assembly, and too much of the assembly focuses on the preacher.

Most preachers wrestle with what one book called “the drum major” tendency. It’s the desire to be up front and leading that often makes them good at what they do; it’s the same desire that can cripple a church.

Much of the health of a congregation has to do with the behind the scenes things that a preacher does. Visiting people is a vital part of a minister’s contribution to a healthy church. Counseling. Studying the Bible with outsiders. So many of these things go unseen, yet are so important.

Anyway, here are some things that I see that a preacher can do that lead to congregational dissatisfaction:

  • Be lazy in study
  • Be unbalanced in preaching, focusing on the same topics time and again
  • Be insensitive with change. All Christians need to be changing and growing. Preachers, however, can be impatient and push congregations to change too much, too fast.
  • Be indifferent to a lack of change
  • Display a sense of entitlement. In most congregations, people naturally reach out to preachers in a loving way. When preachers take that for granted, it hurts a church.
  • Fall prey to one of the three major temptations of preachers: girls, gold and glory. Preachers need to be above reproach in their dealings with women and money. And they need to constantly check their motives to escape the trap of seeking recognition.
  • Join in power struggles within the congregation
  • Follow the fads more than the Lord
  • Preach the truth to a congregation that doesn’t want to hear it
  • Preach the truth in an unloving way

Those are some that come to mind. What else can you think of?

Who are the shepherds of the church?

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Since several of my readers are preachers (or have played one on TV), I feel the need to speak to the role preachers play in people leaving a given congregation. Preachers have always had an influential role in our brotherhood; there has been a conscious effort over the last few decades to give them even more power. For the record, I’m against it.

It reminds me a bit of the situation of Israel in the days of Samuel. “We want a king like all the nations around us.” We want to make our preachers pastors, senior pastors! This will help us to be like the churches around us. Just as it was a terrible idea back then, it’s a terrible idea today.

It’s interesting to me that about the time the business world moved away from the “Lone Ranger at the top” model, churches decided that was the way to go. Businesses moved to collaborative leadership; churches moved away.

I support the elder model, where the elders lead. Ideally, the ministers provide biblical teaching, helping the pastors to feed the flock. But the elders remain the ones responsible for the congregation.

A big reason for this has to do with tenure. Preachers come and go. There are exceptions, but by and large, preachers are at a congregation for a relatively short amount of time in the history of that congregation. A healthy congregation will have continuity in the eldership, consistently raising up new men to serve alongside those who are already there.

I remember one congregation that I love that went through a rough time back in the 1980s. A minister came in (associate minister) and pushed for the congregation to create a detailed vision statement. This led to months of committee meetings, with almost everyone in the congregation stating their opinion as to where the church should be going. Discussions became heated and hard feelings were created. Finally, a vision statement was created. I don’t know that the ink was dry on that statement before the minister that started the whole process had taken another job. What he left behind was the heartache and strained relationships.

I’ll say a bit more tomorrow about the role of preachers in congregational dissatisfaction. But for now, I’d like to hear your thoughts on elder-led congregations versus minister-led congregations.

5 Valid Reasons For Leaving A Church

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It’s time to look at the other side. What are some good reasons for leaving a church? (Or changing congregations, if you prefer the terminology. We’re not talking about leaving the Church, as in leaving Jesus’ body, but in leaving a local church).

Here are some that come to mind (and yes, I’m stealing some of these from the comments):

  1. The church is teaching heresy. I believe this is claimed far more often than actually occurs, but there can be a time when a congregation comes to teach things that go against the core of what our faith is. The time can come for sorrowful separation.
  2. The church won’t respect a difference of conviction. A friend of mine became involved in a house church network. The leaders were strongly Calvinistic and were concerned because my friend isn’t. My friend agreed to allow them to do an in-depth study of the topic with him. When they had finished their study, my friend remained unconvinced. This was unacceptable to these leaders, and my friend was eventually forced to leave.
  3. My presence is divisive. If I should determine that there is a spirit of division within a congregation and that spirit would not be present if I were not there, I pray that God would give me the courage to leave.
  4. My spiritual health (or that of my family) is in danger. This can be an especially hard call, but I do believe that someone can be in a state of spiritual weakness to where they can’t survive in certain environments. This is often associated with new Christians, but can affect different people at different times. Again, this is an extreme.
  5. I’m leaving to go aid somewhere else. We had this come up at the previous congregation that I worked with. One couple had stopped attending. I went to visit them, and they said they were wanting to aid a nearby struggling congregation. I told them that as long as they were going toward something and not running away from something, that I fully supported them. (They were back the next Sunday and have attended consistently since then)

Those should be enough to start with. Help me round out the list. Other reasons have been mentioned the last few days; feel free to repeat some of those.