The man sitting in my office with me that morning was one of the people I most respected in the church. He was a long-time member, a deeply committed Christian who had been one of the anchors of the church during the interim years before I took the pastorate. He was one of the most biblically astute and theologically knowledgeable people in the whole congregation. And frankly he wasn’t all that excited about what was taking place in the church.
I had been the pastor for less than a year. I was busy rebuilding my staff through two associate pastor searches. We had already added a contemporary service and pretty significantly changed the more “traditional” ones. We were spending a lot of time talking about our new “vision statement” and things were going well, I thought.
When I asked him what he thought of our new vision statement about being a “Community for the community,” and all the changes taking place, he just shrugged.
“Tod, pastors come and go. They come in with their ideas and plans and programs but really it doesn’t matter that much. You can say all you want about the vision of the church and we’ll all get excited about it for awhile, but in the long run it’s really about the people’s vision for the church. Because someday you’ll leave and we’ll all still be here. The church isn’t about the pastors, it’s about the people.”
In retrospect, I think he was trying to take me down a peg or two without totally discouraging me. I think he believed that I was bringing too much change to the church too soon and needed to lighten up a bit. And frankly, I think he was just getting in touch with how the changes in our church were going to personally affect him. I think he came that day to put me in my place.
But what he didn’t realize was that I agreed him.
Well, I agreed with almost everything he had said, but what we absolutely shared was this conviction: “The church isn’t about the pastors, but the people.”
I am in the middle of a series that was inspired by 5 congregations that I have become aware of that are in the middle of painful church division—all around issues arising from the pastors’ leadership. Over the next few days I want to explore some of the biblical basis for church life.
Yesterday I asked, “Just whose church is it, anyway?” And this is what I want to say, right along with my friend who thought he was challenging me: It’s your church. The church is about the people, not the pastors.
Pastors are part of the church with very specific, but limited, God-ordained roles to play. But neither THE church universal, or any church particular belongs to the pastor. And no church member belongs to any pastor either. It’s your church, because it’s Christ’s church.
Next post we’ll look into the biblical basis for this idea and what that means for both laity and us pastor types. But I’ll leave you to ponder this passage, just so that we both know that these issue have been around for a while. Paul writes to the Corinthians:
You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your own desires? You are acting like people who don’t belong to the Lord. When one of you says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another says, “I prefer Apollos,” aren’t you acting like those who are not Christians… So don’t take pride in following a particular leader. Everything belongs to you: Paul and Apollos and Peter; the whole world and life and death; the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. (1 Cor 3:3-4, NLT)
Oh yeah, I said that I agreed with almost everything my friend said about pastors and the church, I’ll tell you what I don’t agree with also.
