Is your church ISO9000?

I found myself in one of those meetings again.
Oh this wasn't a church meeting, it was several years ago at the company I used to work for.
They were starting a quality program, following in the footsteps of the Ford Motor company's "quality is job one" theme. In a nutshell it basically talked about doing your job better, documenting everything, and whammo, your doing better work.
Everybody is happy right?
We starting having what seemed like dozens of meetings monthly. We talked about how to do our job's better and how we could make the process smoother.
Sounds really good doesn't it.
One problem.
We didn't talk about our customers.
What was their needs, how could we serve them better.
In our meetings we focused on ourselves, and I began to wonder, was even all the time we were taking in these meetings, causing us to ignore our customers even more?
Which brings me to today's church landscape.
Somewhere the church adapted business ideas to church growth and development. It was reasoned that if it worked for Jack at GE, it will work for the church.
So we all sat down and ground out purpose statements, I guess for some reason we forgot why our church exists.
I can just see Paul talking to the elders at Cornith, "look your never going to get anywhere until you have a bunch of meetings and come up with a purpose statement".
I know I sound cynical, and I know the church needs reminded from time to time what it's supposed to be doing.
But I really dislike the purpose statement.
It would be fine if we really believed and practiced what we spent so much time writing. The truth is we write a beautiful statement, but then we just keep doing things the way we always did. The other thing is this, have we become so out of whack that we need to be constantly reminded what we are here for? If that's the case we have some serious problems anyway.
I guess I hate working on something, just for the sake of working on something. If we are going to do things better, then let's do it, all the way. If your going to take up my time and just talk about doing things better, then I can find better uses for my time.
In all of this I'm afraid we are missing the point of ministry, and gauging success on numbers alone. Numbers are nice, but moving people closer in their relationship with Jesus is even better. I find that when we do that, numbers don't become a problem.
I heard today that Ford is laying off. It's really sad that many people are losing their jobs.
Did Ford become more concerned with their profits than their customers? If Ford's culture was truly the best quality going, would they be in this mess?
Tough questions.
Maybe a better one is, which model is the church going to follow?
Ford or Jesus Christ?
Hmmmmm.

Take care of things...

"Take care of things until I get back"
Those words still echo in my mind. I was all of 10 years old, the oldest child in my family and my Dad was leaving.
He had to leave a lot when I was young, he worked at a pipeline company and sooner or later a pipe somewhere would start leaking. It was usually far enough away that Dad would have to be gone for weeks at a time, coming home only on the weekends.
Being 10 I really didn't think about it that much, Dad always came home. When he would walk in the door Friday night my sisters and I would jump on him and hug him, just tickled to death to see him again. I will never forget that oil smell in his clothes. It didn't matter what he smelled like.
Dad was home.
As I grew older I began to realize what "take care of things while I'm gone" meant. Dad's job was dangerous, he would weld on pipes that only moments before had oil, gasoline or other flammables running through it. I watched them carry my dad home once, he had broken his foot. He had been on fire, had a ditch cave in on him, and eventually he was crushed by pipe rolling down a ditch on top of him. He survived but it damaged his back to the point he couldn't do his job anymore. I never thought for a moment he wouldn't come back.
On the weeks he was gone my job was to take care of the chores, mowing and keeping wood in the stove. When we lived in the country, I fed the chickens and slopped the pigs (thankfully we only had 7 pigs and it didn't last very long). Dad counted on me to keep things going while he was gone. To keep an eye on things, help Mom and look after my siblings. Mom did most of it herself but I helped where I could.
Now that my father is with the Lord I still hear his words, "take care of things". What that means to me is that my responsibilities are to my family. My wife, children, Mom and my brothers and sisters. Dad would want me to watch over things for him in his absence. It was taught to me in my youth and I take that very seriously.
I have thought about what Jesus said when He left earth. He was saying take care of things until I get back. Take care of my family, my children. I will return, but until I do I want you to continue the work I started. Love each other and care for each other.
If I had to sum up what the church needs to do, it's to take care of things until our Father comes back. We are the Jesus that people are going to see. We are his representatives in His absence. We are to follow in His footsteps, not because of our feeling of duty, but because we love our Lord so much, we want Him to return and be pleased with us.
Church isn't about membership, money or service times.
It's about taking care of things until He returns.

What it's all about

The room was slightly dark as my mother in law walked into the room.
She went to the nursing home to visit an elderly lady who was not expected to make it through the night. The oxygen mask could not hide the smile she gave when my mother in law squeezed her hand.
"I'm going to see Jesus, maybe tonight"
As my mother in law shared that with the Bible study group, I couldn't help but say a few "amens" to myself, my eyes teared up.
And my load lightened.
I can get really wrapped up in life. My plans and ambitions. What I feel is important. I can get equally wrapped up in church leadership. Doing stuff. Go, go, go.
And, to quote Solomon in Ecclesiastes, it is meaningless.
I don't mean that we should just sit around and be depressed because of that, but we should remind ourselves about what life is really all about.
It isn't what you see on the commercials you watch. It isn't the latest church growth fad. It isn't wealth or a hottie on your arm.
Should we work in church? Of course, but are the things that we feel are important, REALLY important?
Are we showing love or are we just talking about showing love?
Are the church doors really open to anybody or is their people we would rather not see in "our" church?
Is the property of the church, it's money and it's buildings more important than it's mission?
You see when it's all over, is it really going to matter if we had a balanced budget?
Tough questions.
And answered, at least I feel, by a little old lady who was excited and looking forward to seeing her savior face to face.
You see everything in life needs to prepare us for that meeting. I think we get so busy sometimes we wouldn't have enough time to meet with Him.
Think I'm kidding?
How much time do you spend each day talking to Him?
Don't have the time? Hmmmm.
I wish anyone who reads this success and happiness.
Just make sure in the end you can smile and say...
I'm going to see Jesus, maybe tonight!!

Keep on keeping on

I had forgotten I had it.
In 2000 a brother in Christ had given me a devotional, it was neat, but I had packed it away into one of the many piles of books I have.
Being the new year I thought I would try to get myself back into some serious devotions.
Why had I stopped?
Well that is an interesting question.
Before my father passed away I was doing a devotional, keeping a spiritual journal, and even walking on a treadmill!!
And then my world crashed, my Dad died.
This may sound weird but even the town seemed like a different place because he was not in it anymore.
I know this may seem like a strange reason to stop doing devotions, I wasn't mad at God, my Dad had made the bad choices. It just seemed like my stride had been broken.
This brings us to today.
Being the new year I thought it was time to get back into it. Some serious time into God's word and some serious prayer time.
I opened my 6 year old devotional and guess what the first topic was about.
Perseverance.
You know, going strong even when the tough times come. Working even when the end is no where in sight.
Paul likened our journey to a race, a really long race. Which got me thinking.
I hate to run.
Running long distances is not my thing. When I was younger I would have much rather run the 50 yard dash instead of a long distance run. Face it, running a long race takes endurance, endurance comes from running, did I mention I hate to run?
You see if we are going to run in this race called life, and run it in a way that reflects Christ, it will take endurance. It will take training our hearts and minds to think in a new way, it means devoting time to our Savior and His words. Only then can we be prepared to handle all the stuff that gets thrown at us while we are running on the track.
But it means taking the time. Personal study, prayer and corporate worship are the means by which we gain endurance. We have to make these things our number one priority, even when we lose our stride, even when we just don't feel like it. We will have rest one day, but until then we must keep training.
So I have committed myself to get back into the word everyday and spend some serious one on one time with God everyday. I have to say it has made a difference already.
Now if I can just get back on the treadmill...