Thursday, August 21, 2008
Spirituality In A Bottle
Justin Taylor links to a "Spiritual Health Survey" and describes it as "very helpful."
Hmmmm....The "spiritual health" of a church, and the members thereof, reduced to 41 multiple choice questions with sub-questions. No thank you.
The survey is from "Tenth Presbyterian Church," apparently in Philly. The survey ends with the words "The Session of Tenth Presbyterian Church thanks you for your participation!" I wish they would do that in person.
To me, this sort of thing represents a failure in leadership, or at the very least a willingness to do it with full commitment.
We worship a God who incarnated - a God for whom it was insufficient to simply pass down words from above - who felt it necessary to "press the flesh" as it were. Does that not constitute an example for those of us that minister in His name?
It would be my hope that a Session would be broadly enough constituted that simply by reporting from each elders pool of contacts, the same picture would emerge as such a survey can produce. But that, of course, presumes that the elders mix and mingle among the masses. Which my personal experience tells me often does not happen. Many Presbyterian churches have a "ruling class" which is the pool of people from which the serving elders are chosen each year - they tend to hang around with each other and elevate an occasionally new member into their midst. Hardly a system that gives them a broad view of what is going on in the congregation, at least if it is of any size.
Then there is the message a survey like this sends to the congregation. It says, essentially, "you are material that is processed through this factory we call a church - we need to characterize you so we can know how to properly process you." I for one have no desire to be processed, thank you very much. I wish to be, oh I don't know, loved, appreciated, cared for, related to, listen to, and just flat out allowed my individuality. Surveying is something one does to the land.
You have probably figured out I am no fan of this stuff. The church is intended for people, not statistics.
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Hmmmm....The "spiritual health" of a church, and the members thereof, reduced to 41 multiple choice questions with sub-questions. No thank you.
The survey is from "Tenth Presbyterian Church," apparently in Philly. The survey ends with the words "The Session of Tenth Presbyterian Church thanks you for your participation!" I wish they would do that in person.
To me, this sort of thing represents a failure in leadership, or at the very least a willingness to do it with full commitment.
We worship a God who incarnated - a God for whom it was insufficient to simply pass down words from above - who felt it necessary to "press the flesh" as it were. Does that not constitute an example for those of us that minister in His name?
It would be my hope that a Session would be broadly enough constituted that simply by reporting from each elders pool of contacts, the same picture would emerge as such a survey can produce. But that, of course, presumes that the elders mix and mingle among the masses. Which my personal experience tells me often does not happen. Many Presbyterian churches have a "ruling class" which is the pool of people from which the serving elders are chosen each year - they tend to hang around with each other and elevate an occasionally new member into their midst. Hardly a system that gives them a broad view of what is going on in the congregation, at least if it is of any size.
Then there is the message a survey like this sends to the congregation. It says, essentially, "you are material that is processed through this factory we call a church - we need to characterize you so we can know how to properly process you." I for one have no desire to be processed, thank you very much. I wish to be, oh I don't know, loved, appreciated, cared for, related to, listen to, and just flat out allowed my individuality. Surveying is something one does to the land.
You have probably figured out I am no fan of this stuff. The church is intended for people, not statistics.
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