Thursday, November 15, 2007
The Infantilization of the Church
Gordon MacDonald posted at Out of Ur and Rev Bill linked to it at Leadership.. Says MacDonald:
MacDonald offers no solutions in his column. Why if so many of us see it, does something not happen? I can think of any number of reasons, some I have discussed here.
Here is a challenge. It comes in three steps. Make up your mind, as a Christian leader, to make one mature Christian. Once you have done that, make sure you yourself are on the path to maturity. When you find out you cannot adequately answer that self-inquiry, ask someone to take the journey with you. Forget all your concerns about remaining sufficiently aloof of "your flock," we are just talking one person here. Many will say "no." Keep asking. Then, journey together.
It will change your church forever.
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I have been musing on the words of Martin Thornton: “A walloping great congregation,” he wrote, “is fine and fun, but what most communities really need is a couple of saints.I think he has been reading this blog,or iMonk or a whole host of other sites. This is, I think, becoming a common lament.
The tragedy is that they may well be there in embryo, waiting to be discovered, waiting for sound training, waiting to be emancipated from the cult of the mediocre.”
“Saints,” he says. Mature Christians: people who are “grown-up” in their faith, to whom one assigns descriptors such as holy, Christ-like, Godly, or men or women of God.
Now mature, in my book does not mean the “churchly,” those who have mastered the vocabulary and the litany of church life, who come alive only when the church doors open. Rather, I have in mind those who walk through all the corridors of the larger life—the market-place, the home and community, the playing fields—and do it in such a way that, sooner or later, it is concluded that Jesus’ fingerprints are all over them.
I have concluded that our branch of the Christian movement (sometimes called Evangelical) is pretty good at wooing people across the line into faith in Jesus. And we’re also not bad at helping new-believers become acquainted with the rudiments of a life of faith: devotional exercise, church involvement, and basic Bible information—something you could call Christian infancy.
MacDonald offers no solutions in his column. Why if so many of us see it, does something not happen? I can think of any number of reasons, some I have discussed here.
- No mature leaders
- leaders unwilling to take a risk
- institutional impediments
- "Because people won't come if..."
You know, it dawns on me that Jesus had a few things to say about this:
Matt 7:13-14 - "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. "For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.So too, the apostles:
Matt 22:14 - For many are called, but few are chosen.
James 1:2-4 - Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.)Christ's claim of an easy yoke and a light burden notwithstanding, this is a troublesome path. The pilgrim's progress is through sloughs and brambles, seemingly forever uphill.
1 Pet 1:7 - That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
Here is a challenge. It comes in three steps. Make up your mind, as a Christian leader, to make one mature Christian. Once you have done that, make sure you yourself are on the path to maturity. When you find out you cannot adequately answer that self-inquiry, ask someone to take the journey with you. Forget all your concerns about remaining sufficiently aloof of "your flock," we are just talking one person here. Many will say "no." Keep asking. Then, journey together.
It will change your church forever.
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