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The pains of leadership
Started by Marshall Heppner on 19 November 2008 - 8:17pm
| 19 November 2008 - 8:17pm | |
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Hey everyone, I am a relatively new Pastor and never fully understood when a Pastor friend told me that all great leaders lead with a limp. The lead wounded. In many ways I see these scars/limps signs of character, perseverance and adhering to God's will. The church that I have the privileged to lead is right now going through the process of adding a second service. We are a very missional church and believe that it is the mission of the church to be as it says in Matthew 5 the "light of the world." The move is very much needed as we are in all honesty being over run by Christians in our building who have bought into the consumerism church idea. We feel that we need the refreshing aroma (for lack of better word) of the non Christian in our midst. In many cases this would not be such a big deal, however it tends to have a few very outspoken people against. We know that in any move forward backlash happens. But these negative voices seem to cut deep. Some of these voices have been hurt by previous churches before who have made this move and have now taken their unresolved pains into our context. My question is am I alone or have any of you encountered this and have any advice for me as I try to hold conversations around these deeper issues. I am suspect that the duel service is the main issue. Any advice or stories would be helpful. I feel that often as churches (well in Canada/North America) we cater to the Christian through our progamatic ministries and only a portion of our efforts are for the outsider, the outreach mission that Christ has called us to. Blessings |
I’ve had a somewhat related experience.
The background story (I’ll try to be brief, but it is quite involved…)
Several years ago my current church went through somewhat of a split due to how the Sunday service’s worship would look. They were trying to move towards a more contemporary guitar driven service… needless to say, emotions got involved and it escalated into a bit of a mess. A good portion of the church’s core started church hopping. This all coincided with me coming back from a missions trip, getting married, and thinking it would be good for me and my wife to find “our-own-legs” and gain some distance from our parents(who both attended the splitting church) by finding our own church. Just to say, we ended up “shopping” local churches. We settled into a new church plant, ironically my folks ended up leaving our previous church on poor terms and also settled into our new church… as did many of the people who were “shopping” after the church split. After 1 year or so in our new church I came to understand the importance of committing to spiritual authority, didn’t feel our move from the 1st church was justifiable and after discussing with my wife we decided to return to our first church; the one that split a few years prior. The story actually goes on, the newer-church-plant also split after the pastor was caught in an affair. So these people who left the initial church are now mostly wandering churchless, unable to find satisfaction anywhere.
All that to say; I’ve found the current trend of church hopping to be quite negative. On so many levels, it presents a shallow view of God’s authority in our lives, it promotes the church as a service solely for our benefit, i.e. the consumer driven church, like you mentioned it generally just leaves wounds open and makes healing difficult… it goes on. But, the if you try have a church address the issue of church to church growth you could step on toes. Perhaps people get upset because missional church sometimes conjures the term “seeker-sensitive”, which is a loaded term. Or maybe it is because you’re up against a consumer driven mindset? My father has become a situation similar to the “deeper issues” conversations you mentioned, I’ve found that it is good to be supportive and sympathetic; but at some point a position must be taken. If people are getting really fired up over your church wanting to be more missional I’d say that is not healthy for them as Christians. At some point I guess only God can soften the hearts of churchgoers to see if their pride is the only thing supporting their opinions.
I hope and pray for the best in your situation, it sounds super tough and I really do sympathize.
Hey Thanks Marc.
To be honest I am in no way denying our longing to be a seeker obsessed church. In many ways I believe that the local church in our context here in North America has become a third person entity that has disengaged with culture, and general everyday life. In many ways we just do church rather than being the church minute by minute/day by day. One ministry I really admire is Craig Grosses xxxchurch.com ministry. He was quoted saying "We cannot blame the darkness for being dark when we haven't even bothered to shed light on the darkness." His high risk ministry is something I believe modern day churches need to engage in more and more and reclaim the ground the enemy has taken over the past even 100 years in our churches.
Our church was an initial church plant here in our city (not a church split, but a actual plant) 11 years ago and the depths of our core values stem from Acts 2:42-27. Being very invitational, intentional and involved in our community. Over the past few years however we have lost our edge, we have gotten comfortable. Now I don't want to imply that the move to two services will fix this, however when we are packing the place with Christians there is no room for the outsider that we desperately want to care for.
Anyways, once again I appreciate your story Marc and am willing to hear any feed back at all/advice that could be given in how to lead through this. I would also would appreciate any prayer we can get over this situation. We have a pretty important meeting Thursday evening around this. Pray for wisdom, grace and truth.
M
I believe that before John Wimber was involved with the Vineyard, he had the same experience in his church - he went out and brough a load of homeless guys etc into the church. Some very angry people confronted him saying "What are you doing? You have ruined our church!" and such like. His response was a compassionate one saying "I know and I'm sorry, but I couldn't leave them out there, could I?".
Even the established church-folk who fight against this situation do know deep down that this is what the church should be for...
There was also a bloke called Jesus ... you may have heard of him! ;) ;) ...who went and hung out with nasty tax collectors and undesirable as supposed to spending time petting the egos of the (somewhat) self-righteous.
You are most definitely not alone in this, rather you are in very good company.