Truth be told, the church has never met my needs. That's odd to me since I've been in it my entire life and now serve her full-time. What's odd to me is that people in church keep telling me that we need to do things to "meet people's needs."
Really?
I mean, I suppose the church has met my deeper needs in some ways that I cannot articulate, but the meeting of needs I most frequently hear about have to do with externals: services that last no longer than an hour, 15 minutes sermon about kids and families, events that are fun and high-energy, leadership that doesn't challenge, etc....
I hardly ever hear anyone say, "I think our church should help me get over my selfishness and greed" or "I wish our church would teach me how to be humble person in a competitive workplace." No one ever says, "Goodness, I wish this church had a word to say about the fact that water is thicker than blood and that life is about baptized brothers and sisters in Christ and what they do together in the world, more than about my immediate family." Where are the voices saying, "This church could really be something if we learned to live peace-filled lives and love folks like Osama bin Laden and that crazy guy over in Iran."?
Here's my question: In the church's frenzy to "meet needs" by having active kids and youth ministries, clever preaching, entertaining worship complete with the style of music we like, the lack of prophetic voices, and all at a cut-rate prices, are churches failing to met anyone's true and deepest needs? It seems to me, that many of us in the church are lying to people. We imply that we can meet their needs, yet offer them something that satisfies their wants, but never get close to their needs.
What do you think?
Showing posts with label ranting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ranting. Show all posts
Monday, May 21, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
The Cusp of Riches
My wife, Rochelle and I have been talking and thinking a lot about missional living and radical giving. The world is such that there are people in need no matter where you look and everywhere you turn, which means there are myriad ways to offer gifts to those in need.
Truthfully, I have always struggled with giving. Part of the reason for this has to do growing up poor and feeling as if you didn't keep as much as you could, then you would run out. Increasingly though, I'm learning that that kind of scarcity thinking is antithetical to the gospel of Christ.
I'm not the only one, though. Many of us have trouble giving, don't we?
Two weeks ago Rochelle was leading a Bible study from the book of James. The apostle James has a lot to say about taking care of the poor, orphans and the widows, showing favoritism, and pure religion. One of the women in class, who is very generous and very wealthy made a few defensive comments about the rich and giving. But, what Rochelle wanted to say was "Wait, don't get offended because you're rich. You're one of the good ones, you're one of the few people who are working to get this right."
And, in my experience with the wealthy folks at my church, that has been largely true. It's never the wealthy or the poor who have difficulty giving, and even giving to the point of sacrifice. It's most frequently those of us on the cusp of riches that are most resistant. It's those of us who aspire to more cash and comfort that always want to be stingy, who want to know where every dollar we give to someone or some organization is going, it's those of us whose chief sin is lacking trust in God to be faithful and to care for us that secretly hate to give and consider giving a kind of divine stick-up.
Many folks, I'm finding, resent giving. I can tell because they add all sorts of qualifiers to their giving. I've seen families in need have to undergo a full-on financial anal probe to get 200 bucks from the church, and I've seen people have to account for where every dollar given them by the church . Now, in our highly competitive, capitalists-driven America, we call these questions and qualifiers "accountability." But is it really?
Jesus says this curious thing in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, "Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you." He adds no qualifiers. He never says that we need to know where the gift goes or if the person is "worthy" or "needy" enough to receive it. I think the Lord is saying, "Your job is to give. Don't worry about what happens next."
Interestingly, the next topic Jesus tackles is loving our enemies. Perhaps the two are connected. Perhaps we sense that those who ask of us are somehow our enemy, as if they are taking something from us that we don't want to give away. Perhaps as we learn to give, we are also expanding our capacities for love--to the point of loving those who are stridently opposed to us.
How might this re-thinking of giving reignite the churches' vision and mission in the world? How might a church bent on giving without expectation or question help us reflect the Kingdom of God?
Truthfully, I have always struggled with giving. Part of the reason for this has to do growing up poor and feeling as if you didn't keep as much as you could, then you would run out. Increasingly though, I'm learning that that kind of scarcity thinking is antithetical to the gospel of Christ.
I'm not the only one, though. Many of us have trouble giving, don't we?
Two weeks ago Rochelle was leading a Bible study from the book of James. The apostle James has a lot to say about taking care of the poor, orphans and the widows, showing favoritism, and pure religion. One of the women in class, who is very generous and very wealthy made a few defensive comments about the rich and giving. But, what Rochelle wanted to say was "Wait, don't get offended because you're rich. You're one of the good ones, you're one of the few people who are working to get this right."
And, in my experience with the wealthy folks at my church, that has been largely true. It's never the wealthy or the poor who have difficulty giving, and even giving to the point of sacrifice. It's most frequently those of us on the cusp of riches that are most resistant. It's those of us who aspire to more cash and comfort that always want to be stingy, who want to know where every dollar we give to someone or some organization is going, it's those of us whose chief sin is lacking trust in God to be faithful and to care for us that secretly hate to give and consider giving a kind of divine stick-up.
Many folks, I'm finding, resent giving. I can tell because they add all sorts of qualifiers to their giving. I've seen families in need have to undergo a full-on financial anal probe to get 200 bucks from the church, and I've seen people have to account for where every dollar given them by the church . Now, in our highly competitive, capitalists-driven America, we call these questions and qualifiers "accountability." But is it really?
Jesus says this curious thing in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, "Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you." He adds no qualifiers. He never says that we need to know where the gift goes or if the person is "worthy" or "needy" enough to receive it. I think the Lord is saying, "Your job is to give. Don't worry about what happens next."
Interestingly, the next topic Jesus tackles is loving our enemies. Perhaps the two are connected. Perhaps we sense that those who ask of us are somehow our enemy, as if they are taking something from us that we don't want to give away. Perhaps as we learn to give, we are also expanding our capacities for love--to the point of loving those who are stridently opposed to us.
How might this re-thinking of giving reignite the churches' vision and mission in the world? How might a church bent on giving without expectation or question help us reflect the Kingdom of God?
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Dehumanizing
I’ve noticed of late how easy it becomes to dehumanize people. A couple of things got me thinking about this. First of all, I have been talking to my wife, Rochelle, about theology, professors and the culture of critique that is inherent in the academy and the church; how most professors and preachers I know can deconstruct anything and tell you the missteps any other theologian or practitioner have made in their thinking. Second, I recently posted a comment on a friend’s blog about what I believe is the harsh, cruel and dehumanizing treatment of contestants on the audition episodes of American Idol.
It all reminds me of an episode of The West Wing, when Toby is speaking to President Bartlett about the difficulties the president had as a child with his father. As Toby attacks Bartlett’s dad, the president responds, “Can we talk about my father with a little respect? He was my father, not some Dicken’s character.”
What he was saying is that when people aren’t in the room, when we don’t have to deal with them face-to-face we turn them into something other than human. For the aforementioned professors, as well as armchair theologians and intellectual elites, a person becomes what they write or say – or what the reader interprets they wrote or said. I can hear the discussion now, “Have you read so-in-so? He totally misses this,” or “Such-in-such has no idea about ______.” People somehow cease being humans with families and hopes and dreams, with a bright future and terrible foibles, and simple become an object for others to judge, criticize, or toss aside.
Take those American Idol kids. They stand in line for days, and sing for any number of talent scouts before moving along. Most are sent home! Only the best and the worst are allowed to enter the inner sanctum for Randy, Paula and Simon and the TV cameras. They’ve been passed up the line, their delusions of talent only spurned on be the actions of others. Why? So they can get into the room with the judges to be belittled and ridiculed. Can you imagine the sheer heartbreak, after believing you can sing and having producers of American Idol pass you up the line, only to be called “horrible, awful” or “the worst singer ever?”
A community of people can only come to the point of performing this cruelty on one another when we get to the point that people are no longer people; when they become objects! They have been dehumanized! No longer that creation that Psalm 8 proclaims is “crowned with glory.”
I wonder what might happen if the next time I was setting my jaw to deride someone if I thought about their family, their fears, their hurts, their hopes and their dreams. What would happen if, regardless of what their gifts are and are not, I saw them as fearfully and wonderfully made?
I think in that moment, they would become more human to me and I would become a little more human too.
It all reminds me of an episode of The West Wing, when Toby is speaking to President Bartlett about the difficulties the president had as a child with his father. As Toby attacks Bartlett’s dad, the president responds, “Can we talk about my father with a little respect? He was my father, not some Dicken’s character.”
What he was saying is that when people aren’t in the room, when we don’t have to deal with them face-to-face we turn them into something other than human. For the aforementioned professors, as well as armchair theologians and intellectual elites, a person becomes what they write or say – or what the reader interprets they wrote or said. I can hear the discussion now, “Have you read so-in-so? He totally misses this,” or “Such-in-such has no idea about ______.” People somehow cease being humans with families and hopes and dreams, with a bright future and terrible foibles, and simple become an object for others to judge, criticize, or toss aside.
Take those American Idol kids. They stand in line for days, and sing for any number of talent scouts before moving along. Most are sent home! Only the best and the worst are allowed to enter the inner sanctum for Randy, Paula and Simon and the TV cameras. They’ve been passed up the line, their delusions of talent only spurned on be the actions of others. Why? So they can get into the room with the judges to be belittled and ridiculed. Can you imagine the sheer heartbreak, after believing you can sing and having producers of American Idol pass you up the line, only to be called “horrible, awful” or “the worst singer ever?”
A community of people can only come to the point of performing this cruelty on one another when we get to the point that people are no longer people; when they become objects! They have been dehumanized! No longer that creation that Psalm 8 proclaims is “crowned with glory.”
I wonder what might happen if the next time I was setting my jaw to deride someone if I thought about their family, their fears, their hurts, their hopes and their dreams. What would happen if, regardless of what their gifts are and are not, I saw them as fearfully and wonderfully made?
I think in that moment, they would become more human to me and I would become a little more human too.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Peace Keeping 3
Even though every sermon any of us have ever heard about peace—particularly if that sermon originates from Galatians—has told us that peace is not the absence of conflict. The idea here is that we can be people of peace, and have communal and individual peace even when everything around us is in the midst of tumult. This is a Biblical view of peace, but in reality the way we practice peace in the church is about trying to get to a place of peace as the absence of conflict.
This often comes when a church is looking to replace or hire a new staff member. Churches are replete with stories about one minister being too active or too controversial then leaving for another church or being fired and the very next minister being the most uninspiring, milk-toast, oatmeal talking person ever. Churches tend to swing from one side of the pendulum to the other. In this example, the new pastor comes in and gives the church what it wants in terms on not upsetting or challenging anyone, then the next thing you know, the church looks up and wonders why nothing is going on, why they’re not growing and why no new strides are being made. The reason is peace as the absence of conflict.
Some in the church have bought into the idea that peace, as the absence of conflict is always good. I seriously question that proposition. Like I said before, the transformative process by nature is not peaceful.
The church is supposed to call people away from the kingdoms of this world. Those kingdoms are the very air we breathe. We are bathed in it. We can’t escape it. That’s why the church cannot afford the absence of conflict. This, I think, is what Jesus meant when He said that He came not to bring peace, but a sword. The Savior is not interested in senseless violence, but rather He knows that to live as He is calling us to live, we would naturally be set apart—and set at odds—from the kingdoms of this world.
For example, white churches in the south repeated implored Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement to simple wait for equality and not cause domestic disturbance. This—as the absence of conflict—is peace. Yet, their position was not right. If someone had gone into a southern white church in the 1950’s and said, “Hey, we should everything we can to bring about equality for all races,” then he or she would probably have been run out of town. Yet it is the process of disrupting the peace that advanced the kingdom of God and made both the society and the church a truer reflection of the heart of God.
Peacekeeping is often opposition to God.
This often comes when a church is looking to replace or hire a new staff member. Churches are replete with stories about one minister being too active or too controversial then leaving for another church or being fired and the very next minister being the most uninspiring, milk-toast, oatmeal talking person ever. Churches tend to swing from one side of the pendulum to the other. In this example, the new pastor comes in and gives the church what it wants in terms on not upsetting or challenging anyone, then the next thing you know, the church looks up and wonders why nothing is going on, why they’re not growing and why no new strides are being made. The reason is peace as the absence of conflict.
Some in the church have bought into the idea that peace, as the absence of conflict is always good. I seriously question that proposition. Like I said before, the transformative process by nature is not peaceful.
The church is supposed to call people away from the kingdoms of this world. Those kingdoms are the very air we breathe. We are bathed in it. We can’t escape it. That’s why the church cannot afford the absence of conflict. This, I think, is what Jesus meant when He said that He came not to bring peace, but a sword. The Savior is not interested in senseless violence, but rather He knows that to live as He is calling us to live, we would naturally be set apart—and set at odds—from the kingdoms of this world.
For example, white churches in the south repeated implored Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement to simple wait for equality and not cause domestic disturbance. This—as the absence of conflict—is peace. Yet, their position was not right. If someone had gone into a southern white church in the 1950’s and said, “Hey, we should everything we can to bring about equality for all races,” then he or she would probably have been run out of town. Yet it is the process of disrupting the peace that advanced the kingdom of God and made both the society and the church a truer reflection of the heart of God.
Peacekeeping is often opposition to God.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Peace Keeping --2
Peace is a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I like peace and think that the church above all people groups should work for peace. What I’m aiming at is spiritual cowardice and poor leadership being masqueraded as “peace keeping.”
Here’s a typical example: A church I know was considering making some changes in terms of the use of women in worship. Many church members had been patiently asking for an open study of the issue. Church leadership decided to pursue it, but then—before the first Bible had been opened—the leaders responded to the backlash and opted not to broach the subject at all. The reason they gave was that it would cause division in the church. Clearly this was not a decision made out of conviction; either conviction to honor honest seekers with genuine questions nor conviction to make decisions based on an earnest examination of Scripture. My point here is not that this particular community needed to make some kind of change, but rather that the illusion of maintaining peace trumped what Christians should be doing—searching the Scriptures.
Yet this is frequently the way the church approaches things. This, I think, is what the pastor from the previous post was speaking to. Churches, to be healthy and a reflection of the heart of God must maneuver from a place of conviction and earnest belief. Anything less is other than what the ministry of Jesus indicated. Was Jesus concerned about peace keeping? I’m sure he was, but that took a back seat when he rebuked the religious leaders, chased the moneychangers out of the temple, and consistently provoked the Pharisees. Jesus comes to earth as a revolutionary and his ministry reflects it. He is a truth-teller and whatever comes from that telling is what comes. In fact, Jesus is so bad at keeping the peace that he upsets enough people that they eventually kill him.
What Jesus did do was call God-seekers to a higher ideal. He called them to Kingdom living that surpassed what they were already doing and he called them to a vision of the world that was different than what they had been taught. He called them to re-orient their lives, which is naturally tumultuous! Transformation, by nature, contains upheaval and disorientation, which people, by nature, do not like. Transformation is not a peaceful experience! Therefore, if church leaders focus on peace, when we know that upheaval and disorientation are part of the transformational process, then we are curtailing opportunities of growth for those under our care. While we think we are being Godly, in truth we are keeping people from experiencing the nature processes of spiritual formation and development. It’s what Erwin McManus refers to as “excessive nurture.” What McManus means is that churches are often so concerned with nurture—and peace is part and parcel with nurture—that they fail to mature and develop people. Where insufficient nurture leaves the back door of the church open, excessive nurture creates a logjam at the front door—to use McManus’ words. In short, sometimes the peace we wish to keep is the thing keeping us from becoming the people God wants us to become.
Here’s a typical example: A church I know was considering making some changes in terms of the use of women in worship. Many church members had been patiently asking for an open study of the issue. Church leadership decided to pursue it, but then—before the first Bible had been opened—the leaders responded to the backlash and opted not to broach the subject at all. The reason they gave was that it would cause division in the church. Clearly this was not a decision made out of conviction; either conviction to honor honest seekers with genuine questions nor conviction to make decisions based on an earnest examination of Scripture. My point here is not that this particular community needed to make some kind of change, but rather that the illusion of maintaining peace trumped what Christians should be doing—searching the Scriptures.
Yet this is frequently the way the church approaches things. This, I think, is what the pastor from the previous post was speaking to. Churches, to be healthy and a reflection of the heart of God must maneuver from a place of conviction and earnest belief. Anything less is other than what the ministry of Jesus indicated. Was Jesus concerned about peace keeping? I’m sure he was, but that took a back seat when he rebuked the religious leaders, chased the moneychangers out of the temple, and consistently provoked the Pharisees. Jesus comes to earth as a revolutionary and his ministry reflects it. He is a truth-teller and whatever comes from that telling is what comes. In fact, Jesus is so bad at keeping the peace that he upsets enough people that they eventually kill him.
What Jesus did do was call God-seekers to a higher ideal. He called them to Kingdom living that surpassed what they were already doing and he called them to a vision of the world that was different than what they had been taught. He called them to re-orient their lives, which is naturally tumultuous! Transformation, by nature, contains upheaval and disorientation, which people, by nature, do not like. Transformation is not a peaceful experience! Therefore, if church leaders focus on peace, when we know that upheaval and disorientation are part of the transformational process, then we are curtailing opportunities of growth for those under our care. While we think we are being Godly, in truth we are keeping people from experiencing the nature processes of spiritual formation and development. It’s what Erwin McManus refers to as “excessive nurture.” What McManus means is that churches are often so concerned with nurture—and peace is part and parcel with nurture—that they fail to mature and develop people. Where insufficient nurture leaves the back door of the church open, excessive nurture creates a logjam at the front door—to use McManus’ words. In short, sometimes the peace we wish to keep is the thing keeping us from becoming the people God wants us to become.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
