Lately I've been trying to take the "American" out of my ministry. This has not been an easy task. Everything in my brain tells me that ministry success is the same as ministry popularity. If God has chosen me to be a dynamic minister that truly makes a difference, then my events should be well-attended and my messages well-received and my name well-known. Yes, I am a pastor who struggles with pride and selfish ambition. How could I not? I have been raised in America.
Every pastor I have ever spoken with on the matter has said "numbers are not important," but I have only known a few that really mean it. Most pastors will quickly justify their true opinion by saying, "But healthy things do grow."
I totally agree that healthy things grow. What I have felt increasingly uneasy about lately is the rate at which we expect that "healthy" growth to occur. It seems that we all want a rapid explosion of conversions and filled pews. We equip the gospel with all the latest PR and advertising tricks of the secular business world and pray that our budget money spent on glossy invitations and giveaways is justified with a sufficient amount of people who show up and respond. We rejoice in the amount of people who come forward for altar calls or, if you are a seeker-sensitive church, the amount of people who privately check the hoped for box on the response card (lest somebody feels embarrassed).
If we don't see such immediate fruit from our ministry efforts we become discouraged. Why? Because we want to see the results of our efforts with our own eyes, so we can receive the pats on the back and glory in our successful ministries. I know I sound cynical, but I am just being honest about the things I have noticed in my own heart. Our concern is not God's overall plan for the human race and His church over time, rather our concern is feeling good about what we have spent our 70 hours a week away from our families to accomplish. And what makes us feel good is high attendance to our events and even higher attendance to the next events.
What if the next great revival on God's heart is a slow moving force with the power to literally impact the entire globe, but which will move slowly through generations instead of quickly through months? A generational movement of the gospel is much less rewarding to the individual pastor- especially to those pastors who are involved in its beginnings. We may never see the altars crowded with people or the news stations reporting on our popular ministry, but what if three or four generations later our nation is totally and completely transformed because of what started with us?
I want to dedicate this blog to a discussion of just that sort of revival. Maybe it should be called a reformation. I'm not sure what to call it, but to me something has to change with the way Americans do church. I plan on exploring the radical in this blog. I don't plan on exploring radical ways to move the church in the same way it has been moving. I want to explore radical ways to do church completely differently than the traditional or emergent norm. I want to draw conclusions based on scriptural principles taken in context and not on cultural trends, anecdotal evidence or proven business-like methods. I don't want my ministry to be influenced by American thinking, I want American thinking to be influenced by my ministry. Mainly, I want my ministry to be successful in God's eyes, not man's. And yes, I really mean that.
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2 comments:
I agree with most of what you said. I do have a couple of observations, though:
1 - You paint "glossy invitations and giveaways" to be inherently bad. And while I'm not even sure that they work, they aren't necessarily a "wrong" way to do ministry. Not that we use them, because we can't afford it! :)
2 - I'm struggling a bit with your thoughts on growth. I know you well enough to understand where you are coming from, but it almost sounds like you are being negative about expecting growth in your ministry. We have experienced growth in our ministry over a period where we weren't intentionally seeking growth...in fact, we've just been trying to survive. So, is there something unbiblical about fast growth versus slow growth? Or is there a place for both?
Schreck,
nice thoughts. You got me thinking.
1. I guess I don't think that "glossy invitations and giveaways" are inherently bad... well, maybe the giveaways. Anyway, my problem is the motive behind using such methods. It is usually to draw as many people to an event as possible, which sounds good except that if you succeed, and tons of people do show up, your chances of actually discipling them in the biblical way is slim. My experience is that, at best, those types of things create converts, but not disciples. Converts pray a prayer, sign a card and then carry on with life as usual under a new title. Disciples undergo serious transformation while a person, not a program, teaches them to observe everything Jesus commanded (Matt 28). That can be nothing but a long term process- there is nothing rapid about it. The latest thing I have realized also is that it can't be accomplished just by teaching. There has to be modeling and that only occurs through a heart-level relationship. Even with a good small group ministry like yours, I wonder if we are accomplishing this sort of modeling. In fact, I wonder if it can be accomplished anywhere except in the home- but that's another blog entry to come. So, the point of my comment was not to say that those methods to draw a crowd are inherently bad, rather to say that the crowd philosophy of ministry itself may need to be retired.
2. Again, I'm not saying rapid growth is bad. I'm saying that defining ministry success as rapid growth is bad. I would never say that a ministry growing numerically is bad. I would say that a ministry growing for the wrong reasons is bad. Here are some of the wrong reasons I am concerned with: its cool, its fun, all my friends go, that's where the popular kids hang out, I heard someone won an X-box there, etc. Schreck, I know you well enough to know that your heart is to deepen your students' relationship with God, not create hype and huge crowds. As your group grows on its own, I pray that it is growing because of a heightened excitement/love/affection/devotion for God and nothing else.
I also have a problem with the way we can feel better about a lack of depth as long as numbers are up. Nobody would ever say this is what they want, but let's be honest- we are willing to sacrifice depth for numbers sake, but would we ever sacrifice numbers for the sake of more depth and more effective discipleship? I'm not sure.
And to answer whether or not its Biblical... well, I'm not a Bible scholar. I do see fast growth and slow growth in the new testament, but let me say it this way: there is nothing in the Bible I've found that suggests a pastor's job description includes increasing the number of people who attend his events. There are two skills required of a pastor in 1 Timothy 3. He must be able to teach (vs. 2) and he must manage his own household well (vs. 4). This is stuff you already know. I just think its funny that we now add a skill to the list required for pastors to be successful- they must be able to increase a ministry numerically. (By the way, when I say "we" I mean the American church, not any one individual or church- and my intention is to describe the average tendencies of the church- I know there are exceptions.)
I'm so glad you commented on my post! I really want to discuss these things because I feel a strong need to know what God wants from the church. My gut tells me that He may be wanting something totally different than what we currently do. So, I'm investigating, searching scripture and talking to other ministers like you.
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