I had an epiphany yesterday while in the shower. Okay, “epiphany” may be a strong word, but I did come to a…shall we say…a conclusion. I was listening to a sermon by Sam Storms, one of my favorite speakers and pastors, the Senior Pastor of Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City. Storms is a wonderful speaker and it dawned on me just how many wonderful speakers that I can listen to right at the touch of my fingertips. I can download podcasts and sermons from some of the best speakers in the world, particularly American speakers. There is literally so much free biblical content out on the web, it is amazing. As far as biblical knowledge is concerned, there has never been a time in the history of the world when so much knowledge is available at the touch of a button. Why is it then that America continues down a moral slide that seems to show no bottom? While I do believe that some of the statistics and other historical facts may be skewed from the past as to how “moral” of a society we once were and if we were really founded as a Christian nation, any good student of history knows that America at one time was at least one of the most religiously civilized countries in the history of the world. But yet we continue to spiral downward. The answer I think comes from a flawed misunderstanding of what the church is and how it should be.
I was not able to attend church services this past week due to having some family in town. It’s the first week I’ve missed in a while, mainly because I have been the one preaching. One thing that struck me this week is how much I missed church. And honestly, it wasn’t the preaching that I missed, although the church we have been attending has great preaching (and I’m not talking about me). It wasn’t even the music that I missed, although that is good also. It was the sense of community.
I watched part of a documentary this weekend on serial killers. Criminologists are trying to figure out what causes these men and women to want to kill numerous people and why this phenomenon, while being present in other times and cultures, really increased during the mid-20th century. One of the criminologists said he believed it was because of a lack of community. There was no community, in many cases for many of these people, no family even, to solve problems in that context. Instead, they pushed down whatever it was, and eventually, it drove them to kill numerous people. That’s a startling statement. The 20th century trend of fatherless and motherless households lead people to begin to withdraw from many social networks, like church and community organizations, and eventually drove some of them to such a radical individualness, that they sought to solve their own perceived and perverted needs through violence. In one startling statement a criminologist who was an expert on serial killers estimated that there were 200 active serial killers right now!
I live in a small town that is connected to a larger town that is connected to an even larger town. For those of you keeping score, I live in the town of Navarre, Ohio, population about 1400 people. We are right next to a larger city, Massillon, Ohio, population just over 30,000. Massillon is connected to a much larger city, Canton, Ohio, population about 80,000. To be very honest with you, I love Navarre. It is a quaint little place with a small-town feel to it, but with the convenience of living next to a larger city. On Fridays, when I go to the bank, I know almost all of the tellers there. When I drive up the street and pick up a pizza for dinner, I know the owner (at least by face). On Sunday mornings, when my wife and I stop at McDonald’s for breakfast before church, we know most of the workers (again, at least by face). I even have family that own a coffee and candle shop in town and if I am there on a Saturday morning, I usually know most of the people in there, too. It is not unusual to drive around town, for whatever reason, and see people that you know and wave to them. It’s even not unusual to see people you know at Walmart as you buy your groceries. To be honest, especially as I am officially now in my mid-30’s, I like that. On Sunday, I missed the opportunity to connect with people that I share what is the most important part of my life with, my relationship with Christ. I didn’t get greeted at the door. I didn’t get to check in with people to see how they’re doing or sing any songs as a community of believers. And I missed that. Monday morning, in the shower, I felt a little bit sad and even a little disconnected as I began my work week. It is indeed a wonderful and blessed thing to be able to share with other people your hopes, fears, praises, prayer requests, tears, and laughter knowing that they are going to share theirs, too.
I am not saying that if you do not go to church, you will turn into a serial killer. What I am saying is that it is time we turn our attention in a greater way toward community, and I mean intentional community. The radical individualness of the 20th century turned many of our churches into mega-churches which were sometimes cookie-cutter versions of saccharin Christianity. It is very possible for a single person to walk into one of these mega-churches and sing the songs and listen to the sermon and walk out and never speak to a single soul. I know this because I have done it. Again, hear what I am not saying. I am not saying that all mega-churches are bad. I have belonged to at least two of them and my experiences have been mixed, but mostly good, and the mostly good part was because I took the time to find where it was that I should serve, based upon my spiritual gifts and natural talents. Indeed, many mega-churches are very biblically-based and do actually engage their community which may be part of why they have experienced such explosive growth. However, I am beginning to wonder why churches are so intent on gathering thousands of people to a given location, usually in the suburbs, and why they are not trying to intentionally sending those people out to plant other churches in urban areas, in other suburbs, and even in rural areas, right here in America. Our whole American church structure seems to have fallen victim to the American culture which is much more about being entertained than about actually worshipping God. Worshipping God is not all about coming to a church to sing great songs and listen to a great speaker. Francis Chan references this in Forgotten God. Often, people will leave a church service and talk about how good the singing was and how good the pastor’s sermon was but never encounter or worship God. Perhaps it is time we re-examine how we are doing church. While preaching is important, indeed vitally important, to how we worship as a community, it is certainly not the only thing and it does us no good if we do not take a moment to help our church community engage what they have just heard. Are we really willing to walk alongside someone, for example, who was just convicted by the preaching of the Word that they are living in a relationship that is not pleasing to God and/or that violates Scripture? Are we willing to walk alongside that person, as a community of believers, and help them do what is necessary to rid their lives of sin and to begin the often tough walk of being a living sacrifice?
The answer to this, as radical as it might sound, is to limit the sizes of our churches. Again, hear me out. I am not saying that we deny people the ability to know Christ. Heaven forbid. If your church is preaching the gospel and has experienced phenomenal growth because of it, praise God! Keep ‘em coming! However, it may be time for you to think about the community aspect of your church. Some churches that never grow beyond, say 200 or so people will not struggle much with this, but others, as they grow into 500+ people will have to have a way to connect. What are you doing to foster community? For a church to have a “community feel” to it, you have to somehow break it up into smaller groups. You could use the term “small groups,” “community groups,” “life groups,” or another term. It doesn’t really matter what you call them. But you need to have a place where a member of your church community can pray, praise, laugh, cry, celebrate, or mourn with a group around them offering mutual support. If you don’t have this, and your church is larger, say 500+ members, you need to ask yourself what is keeping the people there? Is it the personality of the pastor? Are they being entertained? Are they only coming for the “programs” that might keep their kids out of their hair for a few moments? Generally, the way to identify this is to think if your church ceased to have this thing, whatever it is, would the church stay afloat? For example, if the pastor resigned, would people stick around for awhile or would they just leave to find the next entertaining pastor? I use this example because I know of a church a decade or so ago that lost their pastor and almost immediately, church attendance fell to half and then the church split. Apparently, the church was built on the personality of the pastor. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an entertaining, passionate, articulate and well-spoken pastor, but if that is all your church has and the majority of the people come just to hear the pastor speak, you are not being a biblical church. Awesome worship music is great, but it isn’t true worship if it doesn’t lead you to lay your life down for God. Programs are pointless unless they are fostering community and spiritual growth.
But when I say “limit the size of our churches,” I think it may mean an even more radical step. How about taking a portion of your church, say 25-50 people, who may be in another part of town and driving out to your church, and let them leave and start another church? Or simply another campus? I am encouraged by the latest trend of satellite churches which offer a pastor speaking from a centralized location that is beamed via satellite to other campuses that are spread out in other areas, some in the suburbs and some in the other parts of the city. Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church, in the Seattle area, recently became the first church (to my knowledge) to become a multi-state satellite church, having planted a church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In turn, each of these churches generally have what is called a “campus pastor” that is able to walk people through their responses to the sermon and help them engage them. In addition to that, each of these satellite campuses offers their own times for worship that include allowing the campus pastor to speak on issues that may be for that congregation only. While I say I am encouraged by this, I think that maybe this is not being done quick enough. Now, I have very limited ministry experience, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but instead of setting up another campus when your church reaches 2500 people, how about thinking about it when the church gets to be around 200-300 people? Are there 25 people in a church of 300 that are willing to commit to leaving to start another congregation in another part of town or even another town altogether in order to reach other people, to foster community, and to help grow people spiritually? The only time I have ever seen this done is in a small independent, fundamentalist Baptist congregation in Michigan. They intentionally had a relatively large group of people (in comparison to the size of their church) leave to start a new congregation in another part of their metro area.
One more aspect of this that I think has not been lost on some of the satellite church leaders but may have been lost on some of the smaller church leaders is that it may be time to think about changing up the traditional order of service. Many of the larger satellite churches will have start with one or two songs, go into the sermon time, and then have an extended worship set that will allow the church community to respond to what they have just heard. This way, the service climaxes with an extended time or our response to God’s Word rather than an invitation that is tacked on to the end of a service and it gives the church community a chance to identify people who need special ministry time and offer it to them. As a preacher, I do not like to give a sermon unless I give the people that are listening a chance to respond. Perhaps it is because of the tradition that I grew up in where you would give an invitation to just about anything; I’m not really sure, but I feel uncomfortable in simply preaching and leaving and sometimes even the one song that we sing for the “invitation” or “ministry time” just doesn’t feel like enough time for a person to really engage what they have just heard.
Okay, I have to confess-I didn’t get all of that from an “aha!” moment in the shower; it is something that I have been thinking about for awhile. What struck me different this time was the aspect of church attendance that I missed, that particular aspect of community. Again, I’m just a guy with limited ministry experience, so perhaps I am being too idealistic or something. Feel free to comment and tell me so. Am I on to something or did I completely miss the boat?
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