Thursday, August 31, 2006

Is restoration possible?

I've been reading the Emerging CGGC blog (emergingcggc.blogspot.com) and boy does my head hurt.
If you want to see some very forward thinking by some very bright people within our denomination, check it out. You may not agree with everything, but it will make you think (thus the reason for my headache).
As you have probably been able to pick up from one of my blog entries, my church is at a crossroads.
And I'm happy to report that the elders and pastors got together and had some serious and frank discussions about where we are as a church.
One of our elders (we will call him "Ed") asked a great question.
"What would we be doing if we were planting or starting a new church?"
That question really struck me, since I happen to know a couple of church planters. Now I know nothing about planting a church, wouldn't know how to even begin. But it did get me thinking about traditions and how we do church.
Anyway back to the Emerging blog, I came across this from the blog entry "What kinds of churches are we planting?". The author of this is a talented church planter named Steve Sjogren and it's from his newsletter;
If personally watched for a number of years a very gifted, nationally known pastors, speaker and author in the 70s (I know you weren't born yet) try to reverse the trend of his Southern California denominational church and renew it to see the Spirit of God fill his church with newness, a sense of expectation each week, etc. I watched him work tirelessly week after week. When I arrived on the scene of his weekly services, he had been tireless working away at renewing his congregation for over a decade. It was obvious to me as a rather intuitive person that his people resistant to the message of walking in a life of the ullness of the Spirit, of giving their lives away to others, of being inviters. It was heartbreaking. After seeing this patter up close over a prolonged period of time I made a couple of good, long-term decisions: 1. It would be a waste of a good life to devote myself, my ministry call and strength to that approach considering my desire to see change come upon a congregation (Im not wired for a snails pace change over decades of ministry), and 2. That the idea of renewing a congregation was debatable if it was really possible both according to church historical observation and the teaching of scripture (namely Jesus teaching about the message of the new wine needing a new wineskin that just makes sense and of course it is inspired scripture).
I understand Steve's heart, the task before us seems kind of like digging a hole through a mountain with a teaspoon.
Why pound your head against a wall for a church that doesn't want to move in a new direction?
I have to believe that God is in the restoration business, He does it time and time again. I also know that restoration comes only when the people repent. That means change.
So it comes to this, and it's pretty simple.
1. We continue on the way we are. We will survive for years, but with a diminished staff, and a much smaller missionary budget. The attendance will continue to slip slowly, and there will be little life.
2. We change, and really I'm not sure what that will mean. We will have to stop talking about dollars and talk more about people. We will have to identify the needs in our community and address them. It's not a lot, but it would be a start.
What will really scare some people is that option 2 won't help the churches perceived money problems, in fact it may make them worse.
I have looked around at other churches, and I find we are not the only church at a crossroads, that many have turned cold. What does the future hold for them?
David Miller commented that "at least we see the crossroads" and he's right. I'm thankful for pastors and elders that know something just isn't right. The biggest challenge for us will be to lead the people.
And it's very possible they will decide not to be led anywhere.

Friday, August 11, 2006

In the garden

It had gotten way out of hand.
I kept looking at my green bean row, and I didn't like what I saw.
Because of a major weed problem, it was hard to see the beans.
So I put on my bib overalls and decided it was time to weed the garden. Fortunately it was just one row, but bending over pulling huge weeds out, while protecting the bean plants I wanted to keep, was a major time consuming deal.
As I sweated and pulled the stubborn green enemy I thought to myself; man I wish I had done this sooner.
I had to ask myself; why did you let this get in this condition?
I had no excuse, I had walked by the garden several times and saw the mess, but I always had thought, I'll get it later.
Later finally came.
So while I was sweating it came to me, at times my life had gotten the same way.
Things that we shouldn't let get going in our lives begin to flourish, they began to crowd our lives. We know we should do things different, but yet we refuse to really deal with the core issues. So over time we let things take root, and before long our lives get in a mess.
I don't think it ever sneaks up on us, slowly over time we let this go, we let that go. We notice it once and awhile, but really don't want to put out the effort to change it.
I think it's good that we take an honest look at ourselves from time to time. What has gotten in the way of living like we should? Have we let our guard down and allowed things to take hold of us that shouldn't be there?
It was hard work making my beans look better. It will take much more work to be the Christian God wants me to be.
But it is always worth the effort.

Monday, August 07, 2006

The Crossroads

Here we sit.
Eyes looking down.
I glance around the room and I see worry, I see questions.
How did this happen?
How did we fall this far?
What do we do?
One voice says "cancel our second service", another says "the people look like zombies in our service".
The joy is gone.
The money is running out.
Another voice, "we have no twenty year olds", yet another "were not growing, in fact were shrinking".
Ah the good old days, plenty of money and plenty of people, good people, nice people. Everything we did turned to gold, if we wanted it, we bought it.
It seems that we didn't even have to work for it, everything just fell into our laps.
The services now seem cold, the people now have grown older.
What happened?!?
Here we sit.
At the crossroads of our church.
The choice is simple.
Continue the same way, and surely the results will be the same. The path that leads to irrelevance, leads to death.
Change what we do?
Can we do that?
And what do we change?
The questions far out weigh the answers it seems.
And God seems so far off.
And what do I do?
What can I say?
It frustrates me, makes me angry.
I don't have the answers.
I could say simple things like, "go contemporary, love people, be friendly".
But I know the core issue is comfort.
Down deep, really deep, our people are comfortable.
They like it when they know everyone, they know when we will end the service so they can make it to the diner.
They know they have fulfilled their Christian duty by being in church. They've done just exactly what they think Christians should do.
Nothing less, nothing more.
How do you fix that?
And do they really want to fix it?
Here we sit.
At the crossroads of our church.
We look at the road on the left.
It's smooth, nice, and there is lots of pretty things to look at. It will continue until there is nobody left to travel the road.
I look at the road on the right.
It's rough, uncertain, scary. To travel it means saying goodbye to comfort, to thinking only of ourselves, and goodbye to feeling safe. And it may be the only way we survive as a relevant, healthy and growing Christian organism.
Here we sit.
At the crossroads of our church.
And I'm afraid the road on the left may be our choice.