Friday, October 20, 2006
Suffering and Success - Church
Jollyblogger started it when he posted "Leadership Unto Suffering." Following David's lead, I opined that from God's perspective, suffering may be the best metric of success. Since we've been looking at the remifications of that idea in different areas. Yesterday we looked at those ramifications in personal ministry, and today we turn our attention to the church.
So much has been written by so many about the misdirection of the church in things like the use of marketing techniques, the mega-church phenomena and other seeming misguided metrics of church success that it seems redundant to address those here A more important question is what would a suffering church look like?
One is tempted to to snidely answer that question with - The Mainline Denominations! Unfortunately, that is simply a statement that such churches are failing by the standards that we have here agreed are not suitable. They may suffer when compared to those standards, but do they suffer in the sense we mean it here?
No, I think a "suffering" church will be a confessing church. Note, I did not say "confessional" which implies adherence to those statements of doctrine called "confessions." No, I said confessing - that is to say a church knows its shortcomings and owns them, and admits them outloud and submits them to God Almighty - and urges its members to do the same.
I do dearly love corporate confession in worship, but it can be vacant and hollow, mere recitation without understanding or meaning. Certainly genuine confession will be marked by a bit of suffering. For what is the genuine realization of our own failures if not painful?
Imagine a church where you spend as much time examining where you are weak as you do proclaiming what you are going to build. That's a church that will endure self-inflicted suffering. That's a church that will place itself squarely in the hands of the Almighty relying not on the wisdom of the foolish. That's a church that will succeed in ways we cannot begin to imagine.
Part IV of the series is here.
Part V of the series is here.
Part VI of the series is here.
Related Tags: success, suffering, confession, church
So much has been written by so many about the misdirection of the church in things like the use of marketing techniques, the mega-church phenomena and other seeming misguided metrics of church success that it seems redundant to address those here A more important question is what would a suffering church look like?
One is tempted to to snidely answer that question with - The Mainline Denominations! Unfortunately, that is simply a statement that such churches are failing by the standards that we have here agreed are not suitable. They may suffer when compared to those standards, but do they suffer in the sense we mean it here?
No, I think a "suffering" church will be a confessing church. Note, I did not say "confessional" which implies adherence to those statements of doctrine called "confessions." No, I said confessing - that is to say a church knows its shortcomings and owns them, and admits them outloud and submits them to God Almighty - and urges its members to do the same.
I do dearly love corporate confession in worship, but it can be vacant and hollow, mere recitation without understanding or meaning. Certainly genuine confession will be marked by a bit of suffering. For what is the genuine realization of our own failures if not painful?
Col 2:12 - having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.Confession, like baptism, buries us with Christ just a little - that's gotta hurt. Hardest of all, it is a self-inflicted wound.
Imagine a church where you spend as much time examining where you are weak as you do proclaiming what you are going to build. That's a church that will endure self-inflicted suffering. That's a church that will place itself squarely in the hands of the Almighty relying not on the wisdom of the foolish. That's a church that will succeed in ways we cannot begin to imagine.
Part IV of the series is here.
Part V of the series is here.
Part VI of the series is here.
Related Tags: success, suffering, confession, church
