It Takes A Church...

Ligament Lesson #5: A Memo to the Laity

This series began as musings on the circumstances in five churches where there were no apparent moral, theological, or social divisions, but all were going through a time of painful split in the body.  In every case, at the center of the pain was a pastor embroiled in controversy over leadership style, vision and decisions.  In my last post I wrote a Memo to Pastors, today I am going to bring this series to a close today with a memo to the Laity. 

To Faithful Members of the Body of Christ everywhere,

Greetings.

I began this series by asking the question, “whose church is it anyway?” And if you read along with me you know my response:

“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.

My friends, I am writing today remind you who you are together.  In an earlier post I told you that the most important thing that I learned in seminary is that in the NT the “yous” are plural. They are “y’alls”. 

Y’all are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  You together are the place where God’s presence dwells on earth today.
Y’all are the body of Christ on earth.  You together are God’s activity working in the world to bring the Kingdom of God to earth today. 

I believe that once we Christians recover that important biblical truth, we’ll be on the way to healthier, happier congregations.  Once we remember that everything in the New Testament is about teaching us how to be together the body of Christ, the Temple of the Spirit, then we’ll never approach the church the same way. 

The church is not the place where each of us finds resources for our individual Christian journeys.  The church is not the place where each of us gets our needs met, finds our purpose, or gets “fed”, the church is not “a place” or about “each of us” at all.  The church is all of us.  The church is “all of us” in a local place being the tangible, physical, actual representation of the church that is “all of us” in all the world.  That church both local and universal is the body of Christ on earth today.   The Temple of the Holy Spirit on earth today. 

So here is my charge to y’all:  Be who you are.  Be who y’all are. 

It’s the job of us pastors to remind us who we are and to equip us to live out this shared identity together.   Indeed, this is primarily what our teaching, preaching and leading are all about. 

In his discussion of New Testament ethics, Richard Hays demonstrates that the community, not the individual, is the “primary addressee of God’s imperatives,” in order to form a Christian Community as “alternative order” witnessing to the life-changing presence of God. (See Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, 196.) 

This is good news to us, because recent studies have revealed that while Christian belief alone doesn’t lead to demonstrably different lifestyle choices than non-Christians, regular churchgoers do show a marked increase in charitable giving, environmental causes, civic duties, volunteerism and other socially desirable activities and a significantly lower levels of drug and alcohol abuse, promiscuity, and other social ills. (See Rodney Clapp, “On the Making of Kings and Christians: Worship and Christian Formation” in Todd E. Johnson, ed. The Conviction of Things Not Seen: Worship and Ministry in the 21st Century  113-114.)

In other words, if y’all will be who y’all are, the difference God makes in life will be revealed to the world. 

I guess in closing I want to remind all of us of this all too obvious truth.  Because part of being who y’all are is also acknowledging what we are not.  So here it is: We are not perfect, we are not even particularly good or spiritual all in all.  Mostly we are just messy, broken humans who are like porcupines in a winter storm. We keep huddling together to keep warm until we start poking each other. So, this church thing is hard work.  It takes both thick skin and deep commitment. 

But it was messy, broken humans like Peter, James and John that Jesus first called to be his disciples and become his body.  And today, it will be messy, broken humans that God will use to be his body in the world and reveal his presence in the world.

If y’all will be who y’all are.  (And that includes me, too.)

Ligament Lesson #4: A Memo To Pastors

To my fellow pastors:

If you have been following these series of posts then you probably care as much about the church as I do.  I know that many of the people we pastor don’t get this, but I do:  We are not only committed to Christ, but we truly love Christ’s body.  We are pastors because we love the church.  I am writing this as one of two final installments of this series inspired by the pain I have come to know first hand in five churches, because I believe that we are all pained when one part of the body is suffering.

Let me offer these thoughts to you, my colleagues.

First, we must believe, know and teach the truth.  Our congregations are filled with people who are awash in relativism and the backsplash of overly rigid dogmatism. If our congregations are going to be places where people “speak the truth in love” then we must be custodians of the truth that is found only in Jesus.  We must learn differentiate between “big T” and “little t” truths; between that which is categorically and objectively True that we must hold to with firm conviction even at the cost of unity and those “truths” of our life experiences and perspective that are personally cherished and important for us to share with each other to build trust and intimacy, but not necessarily worthy of division.  Some of the truth is that we polarize around non-essential issues, personalities and preferences.  Let us follow Paul’s example in 1 Cor 7 where even when giving instruction in the sticky matter of sexual ethics Paul could differentiate for his people the difference between “I” and “the Lord”.   

Second, whether we like it or not, our ministry is about both the Word and the People.  Always.  We are not Bible scholars or professors who have the luxury of just studying and teaching the Word, nor are we social workers, politicians or non-profit leaders who only worry about our constituency.  We always serve both.  To paraphrase Eugene Peterson, we must always be in the middle of the mystery of God and the mess of people.  Always.

While the authority and relevance of the Word is certainly under scrutiny, it not attack by the world these days, I believe that the notion of The People is being attacked from within. We Christians have taken in the values of a “divorce culture” and have perpetuated it in the church.  People are unconvinced about, inexperienced in and incompetent at building lasting covenant relationships.  We pastors must teach them another way.  We must work on being good with people and not just “caring” for them, but also creating the environment for people to grow and flourish in faith.  We must learn to humbly lead them in both life-transformation and ministry. And teaching them that to be in Christ is to be in Christ’s body in a local congregation.  That is the Christian way.

By the way, the People part is far more difficult than the Word part, I believe.  Most of us nailed down the World part in seminary, but seminary probably didn’t help us one bit at the people part.  Working with people will also push your own emotional buttons and trigger your own psychological hooks.  Personally I believe pastors should invest at least as much time and money in psycho-therapy, mentoring and supervision as we did in seminary.  (I think I spent more money in therapy than in seminary believe it or not, and I got a Ph.D!)

Third, while you were probably at one time one of the “star players” in your church or a para-church ministry (which is why someone told you to consider going “pro”) as a pastors you are now on the bench.  We are not the “star players” of the church, but the coaches.  We are supposed to be on the sidelines, as it were, instructing, equipping, encouraging and leading a church of “teammates”.  Beware the temptation to take the ball and run with it.

When people come to you to lead a new church, a breakaway or some other split, beware the ‘we need a shepherd’ line.”  More than they need a shepherd they need to be part of the flock.  They need to be part of the body.  In choosing you, they are rejecting each other.  Make them stay and work it out.  Teach them to know the Word, obey Jesus, and forgive and love each other.

And finally, the toughest news for us pastors to remember: If it’s about you, then it’s not about Jesus. This is true in every sermon, every meeting we lead, every decision we make.  My family and I know that all that we enjoy in life is for us to fulfill the calling of leading San Clemente Presbyterian Church.  We often say to each other that we know that the only reason we get to live in San Clemente is because I am the pastor.  If I stop being the pastor, I’d have to leave. 

This is a tough thing to acknowledge for most of us.  We want to have a life, build some job security, sink deep roots and provide for our families.  This is all good.  But remember, you accepted a call to be a pastor.  There are many other ways you could be serving Christ (especially as a lay person).  When you accepted the call to pastor, you became betrothed to the Church.

Minister means servant.  And in the end that is all we do.  We serve Christ, we serve the Word, we serve the People.  Period.

Friends, I believe this is a high calling and great privilege.  As pastors we are part of more holy moments than most.  But our goal is not ourselves but Jesus, seen through His body faithfully living out the gospel in a particular time and place.  That is why we are here. 

Your brother and fellow pastor,

Tod

Ligament Lesson #3: “What’s IN it for me?”

So far, we have been addressing some leadership crises in the church by attempting to recover the biblical understanding of both the pastor and laity roles in a congregation.  In the last post I wrote that Ephesians 4 points out that pastors are to be “ligaments” that connect the different parts of the body of Christ together so that the body can grow itself up in the head who is Christ. 

Primarily, pastors do this by equipping the church to “speak the truth in love” to each other and that we need to insure that the body of Christ is clear on “the truth” as the biblically rooted truth of Jesus given to us in the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit.  I believe that contrary to popular wisdom, conflict is more likely in places where there is not an agreed-upon conviction of what is true.  The more relative we think truth is, the more we must rely upon power and politics to get our way. 

But it is also important to note that in the churches that I am referring to, I have picked up no crisis with “the” truth.  These pastors were not heretics.  As I said before, there was no theological crisis, no biblical division nor any social issue driving the people into factions (which, by the way, is the opposite of much what Derek is chagrined about in denominational splits in an earlier comment).  The people were not being led astray.  They were just ignorant and immature about their awareness and practice of what it means to be the body of Christ and they were not equipped in the crucial art of “speaking the truth in love.” 

So, what does it mean to “speak the truth in love”? 

The key word here is actually not “truth” or “love.”  It is in.  For Paul, in is a big word.  To be in Christ is to have salvation.  To be in Christ is to be “in relationship with Christ.”  So, the best understanding of “speaking the truth in love” is “speaking the truth in relationships of love”.  That is speaking the truth that is anchored in Christ, in relationships that reflect the love of Christ.

And this is where so often the church begins to fall apart.  If we are going to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (v. 15) then we must be better at knowing and speaking the truth in relationships of love. 

And this is not optional.  It is not a suggestion.  The more deeply we are related to each other, the more necessary it is that we speak the truth to each other.  The more difficult it is to speak the truth, the more we must build the relationships.  As I tell my staff, “If you have a relationship, speak the truth.  If you can’t speak the truth, build the relationship.”

In my opinion, in some of the cases, the pastors exacerbated the conflict in the church by the way they handled the criticism and concerns of some disaffected people in the church.  In other cases, it seems that some of the pastors did not have strong enough relationships with leaders and members of their churches to both speak and heart the truth being spoken to them. 

But let me be clear here.  I don’t believe that in the five congregations that I have observed that the pastors were solely to blame. It does take two to tango. But I do believe that the pastors were to some significant degree responsible for what happened. 

It is the pastor’s responsibility to equip the saints, to strengthen the body and to lead the church in learning how to speak the truth in love to each other.  From my limited vantage point, both a number (not all) of the pastors and most (if not all) of the churches failed to understand—at least—the second half of Paul’s admonition to “speak the truth in love.”

So, what, then should we do?  That'll be the next post.

Ligament Lesson #2: "Speaking the Truth"

We have been in the middle of a series stemming from church split and division in five congregations where I have friends involved.  The last couple of posts I have been trying to outline a biblical understanding of church and especially pastoral leadership by looking at Ephesians chapter. 4.

So far from this chapter we have learned that God we have learned that pastors and other church leaders are “gifts” from God to the body to equip the body to live a life worthy of its calling, by living in unity and growing in maturity.  Church leaders are the “ligaments” of the body that provide stability and flexibility while holding the members together so that the body can build itself up in love.  And that church leaders function as “ligaments” by “speaking the truth in love”.   

As I wrote in the last post, “speaking the truth in love” is the primary call of the pastor.  We pastors are to teach the body how to “speak the truth in love” so we can “grow up in every way” into Christ who is the head of the body.  As we speak the truth in love the body grows stronger, more unified, works properly, promotes growth within itself and builds “itself” up.  So, what does “speaking the truth in love” mean? 

Last post I told you what I think it doesn’t mean, and most specifically it doesn’t pit love and truth against each other.  Nor does it mean what most people think, which is “to speak the truth I have found nicely” (Emphasis here both on “my” truth and on being “nice”). 

In his book The Closing of the American Mind, Harold Bloom wrote that for a generation now Americans have become so mired in the value of “openness” that we now can’t express any conviction of truth.  We see the mistakes of the past based on dogmatic and wrong-headed expressions of xenophobia, racism, chauvinism and the like and we declare that the only way to live is not to think that we are right or can grasp the truth, but that there really is no truth.  And since there really is no truth all that matters is getting along with myriads of people who can’t agree on anything important.

What Bloom reveals is that in the absence of genuine differences and distinctions we don’t have the opportunity to demonstrate respect, humility and conviction, but instead the prevailing ethic of the day is to be “nice.”

In many ways, I believe that both the relativism of our culture and “ethic of niceness” have become so prevalent in the church that we have lost the ability to “speak the truth in love” to each other. 

We become mired in insecurity and passivity. We feel the effects of a vacuum of shared convictions and deep relationships.

Often that vacuum is then filled by strong leaders whose personality becomes the mediator of “truth” to a congregation that is unable to evaluate, correct or confront with biblical truth in required love. Before long the pastor becomes the “head” of the church and not the “ligament” and the unity and strength of the church is measured by adherence and loyalty to the pastor and not to the truth of the head, Christ. 

This is especially dangerous in churches where the pastor is more dynamic, charismatic and perceived as being clearly trustworthy in his or her proclamation of the truth. Even pastors who are personally faithful to the truth of the gospel, if they do not equip the body to know the truth, can lead the body becomes overly dependent on the pastor and the church can divide over the pastor.

While this problem was evident even in the first century, it is exactly the opposite of the New Testament commendation of church leadership.  In Ephesians 4 “speaking the truth in love” is not a vague admonition but a very specific exhortation to speak the truth of the gospel (v. 4-5) so that the body will “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (v. 15) and “no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming (v. 14).  (Notice also that the truth here is not “my” truth, but instead an adherence to what is agreed upon as “the” truth.) 

In the New Testament, Paul is not lauded for his dynamism or charisma (in fact he must defend himself from charges that he is not a strong enough leader—see 2 Cor 11:5-6).  Instead he insists that his ministry should be measured by its adherence to the truth of God (Galatians 1:6-9, Acts 17:11). 

In short, the first job of pastors is to insure that the body knows the truth of the head, Christ and will therefore be able to confront any other teacher or leader who brings different doctrine or manipulation through personal charisma. 

But, notice also that “the truth” does not lead to a stagnant, rigid body that is so mired in “holding fast” and “holding on” that it is unable to flex or move.  Instead like a healthy body that is functioning properly, the muscles and bones have “strength” “alignment” and full “range of motion” to be able perform almost without thinking.  When pastors have equipped the body with the truth of the head, then the body is more free to move, adapt, correct, respond and extend itself.  When the body is aligned in the truth of the gospel it is freer to function well, almost effortlessly with every nerve and muscle receiving instantaneous messages from the head and moving with ease and grace. 

But for the body to function effectively and grow healthy it takes more than just a commitment to the truth, the truth needs to be communicated “in love” and that so often misunderstood phrase (and the wisdom, discernment and maturity that it requires, and the need for pastors to equip the body in it) will be our focus tomorrow. 

Indeed, understanding the “in love” part may be even more important than the “the truth” part in many of our churches.

Ligament Lessons

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
7 But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift….11 The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. 15 But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (NRSV)

I am in the middle of a series inspired by five congregations that I know are in the middle of varying degrees of division and painful split.  So far we have discussed that the most prevalent language about churches is the language of the Body of Christ that reminds us that the church belongs to Jesus (It’s HIS body) and to all of us (It’s OUR body).  While the most important thing for a body is to stay connected to the head, it must also stay connected to each other and “build itself up”. 

Using Ephesians 4, (which is in my opinion, along with 1 Thessalonians 2 and 2 Corinthians 3-4 the very best passages for understanding ministry in the New Testament and should be required reading for all pastors and pastor search committees), we find that pastors and other church leaders are “gifts” of God, given to the church for a very specific task: “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”

Notice that pastors are not the “doers’ of ministry but the “equippers”.  Pastors are primarily for the purpose of building up the body of Christ; equipping and encouraging unity and maturity. 

Period. 

In Ephesians 4:15-16, we read a word-picture of a healthy body of Christ: But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,  from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

Notice that Paul refers to these church leaders, these “gifts”, as ligaments that hold the body together, that join and knit the body together.  Ligaments are connective tissue.  They connect two or more bones, cartilages or muscles together.  Their primary purpose is to provide stability and flexibility.  They hold the body together and help it to move together without either hyper-extending or being too rigid. 

This is, to me, a helpful description of the work of church leaders, especially pastors. 

So, how do pastors act as ligaments? 
How do we encourage and insure stability and flexibility in the body? 
How do we keep the body together AND moving together, growing together, being built up and strengthening together?

“Speaking the truth in love.” 

This is the primary call of the pastor.  We are to teach the body how to “speak the truth in love” so we can “grow up in every way” into Christ who is the head of the body. 

But, what does “speaking the truth in love” mean?  Well, let me tell you what it doesn’t mean and then see if any of you want to give your input before we break this phrase apart and examine it tomorrow.

Speaking the truth in love,
doesn’t mean “speaking the mean truth nicely.”
doesn’t mean telling someone she is fat with a smile on your face. 
doesn’t mean speaking your opinion of truth about someone behind his back so that you won’t hurt his feelings either. 
doesn’t mean publicly calling someone a heretic after first saying, “You know I love this guy, but…”
doesn’t mean using the guise of prayer requests to gossip. 
doesn’t mean emphasizing love by neglecting truth or truth by neglecting love. 

So what does it mean and how is “speaking the truth in love” the key ligament lesson that pastors have to learn?   

You chime in and I’ll give you my take tomorrow.

Church Conflict: Weekend Reading

A couple of years ago, Mark Roberts and I taught a class for Fuller Theological Seminary on The Theology of Pastoring.  Since Mark's Ph.D. is in Biblical Studies and mine is in Theology we make a pretty complimentary team.  I often found that his insightful and careful work with biblical texts served as a constant measuring rod for my historical and theological work (As it should be!)

So, with great appreciation for what Mark offers in biblical exegesis, I'd like to recommend that anyone following my current series on churches in conflict consider reading two of Mark's series of posts.  His current one is called When Someone Sins Against: Guidance from the Master.  This is a continuation of another series called God's Guidance for Christians in Conflict.

These are both excellent, in-depth biblical studies that will provide a solid foundation for continuing our discussion on Monday.

So, class is over, this is our homework. See you Tomorrow.

What Part is the Pastor?

“Tod, I wasn’t looking to start another church.  I was just going to resign my current position and go off and teach somewhere.  But so many people who were so disillusioned with the direction of the church came to me and said, ‘We need a shepherd.  We need a pastor.  Please be our pastor.’ I am shepherd, and I just can’t abandon sheep.  So, that’s when I felt God calling me to do this.”

This was 400 people from one church following this well-meaning, godly, caring pastor to another, thereby splitting the original church.  And that scenario seems to repeat itself every few months lately.

Here’s my question:  What’s wrong with this picture? 

Or in a world where we can’t seem to discern communal goals and shared values; where pastors seem to divide between those shepherds who “care” for the flock, and those who “lead” (or "drive") the flock; where Christians change churches as fast as they change coffee shops that adjust the menu, is this going to be the future of “church planting”?

We have been in the middle of a discussion stemming from my awareness of five churches in four different denominational structures that are all in the midst of painful division.  Unlike many of these kinds of cases in the past, to my knowledge there are no accusations of immorality flying around, no controversial social issues pitting one camp against another.  Instead, in every case the division in the church is related to the leadership abilities, style, vision and personality of the pastor.

In a couple of posts already I have said that I believe that the pastor has a God-ordained but limited role in every congregation.  For the next few posts I’d like to draw some attention to that role.

While eventually I want to address the shepherd/flock metaphor, first I want to put the pastor’s role in the context of the greater biblical metaphor of the church as Christ’s body in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. 

What part of the Body of Christ is the pastor?

To be sure, MANY pastors think they are the brain of the church, the mind of the church, dare I say, the head of the church.  Some of the greatest conflict in churches stem from pastors who would never claim the papist ability to speak “ex cathedra” but by their actions communicate that they and they alone have received divine revelation for the direction of the church and anyone who disagrees with them is disagreeing with God.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are those pastors who think they are the “feet” of the church.  They just hold everyone up, let every one “walk” on them and really only respond when told by someone else to get moving.  They don’t so much lead the body as carry it.  And over time, the lack of direction and vision from the pastor leads to either a stagnant church that is alway "putting their feet up" or frustrated church that can't seem to go anywhere. 

A better option is to think of the pastor as the “mouth” of the church.  Pastors speak to and for the church, they communicate the messages and direction of the head and they express what is happening in the body. 

When I was in seminary, my preaching professor, the late, great Ian Pitt-Watson used to say that the pastor’s job was not so much to preach TO the congregation as FOR them.  That is, that the job of the pastor when preaching is to put into words what the Spirit of God is doing in their midst.  I have always felt challenged and focused by this idea.

But biblically, there is another body metaphor that needs to be recovered.  This one comes right out of Paul’s own expression of “body life” in Ephesians 4.  In v. 16, Paul teaches that pastors (and other church leaders) are “ligaments” in the body of Christ, helping the body to work together properly and “build itself up”. 

In many ways, I think this is the problem in a number of our churches.  Most of us pastors think we are the “head”, are trained to be the “mouth” and have no idea how to be a “ligament”. 

So, some ligament lessons seem to be in order next.  But let me let you chime in here. What should ligaments do to help the body of Christ “build itself up in love?”  What, according to this passage, is the pastoral role and call?

I'll let you muse on this and chime in over the weekend and I'll pick this up on Monday. 

Tomorrow some links to other worthwhile things in the blog world.

Cutting and Christ

Our Junior High Director at SCPC offers a class every other year called “Pura Vida”.   It started out as your basic “Christian sex talk” that is pretty important and standard fare amongst youth ministers. 

What began as teaching about saving sex for marriage was expanded over time to become a multi-week, multi-faceted class on making good choices about God and your body. 

Once when I was asking the Junior High Director about the content he mentioned that along with the usual topics of sex, drugs and alcohol abuse, one of the weeks they discuss “cutting” or growing and concerning problem of “self-injury” or “SI” that is becoming more prevalent amongst teenagers and others these days who use razors or other sharp instruments to make themselves bleed or in some cases cigarettes or matches to burn themselves.  Most experts say that what begins as a unhealthy coping mechanism for dealing with conflicted emotions can turn into a compulsive behavior that brings harm to their bodies. 

The weird thing is that kids who “cut” say that it makes them feel better.  The physical pain brings some temporary relief to the emotional pain.  (Those who want more information on cutting can go here or here.)

For many adults this whole conversation leaves us both troubled and bewildered.  Why would someone deliberately hurt her own body?  What could possibly be gained by self-injury?  And certainly most of us would never do such things. 

But in a powerful and painful way self-injury happens with all-too frequent regularity in Christ’s body. 

I am in the middle of a series inspired by five congregations that I know are in the middle of varying degrees of division and painful split.  So far we have discussed that the most prevalent language about churches is the language of the Body of Christ that reminds us that the church belongs to Jesus (It’s HIS body) and to all of us (It’s OUR body).  While pastors have a prescribed and limited role to play, the most important thing for a body is to stay connected to the head.  But as important is for the body to practice “self-care” or body care.  Next to loyalty to Christ is love for each other.

In my book, It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian, I quote extensively from Emil Brunner’s book, The Misunderstanding of the Church.  This book written over half-century ago remains the most profound theological work on what the church is and how we have relegated to nothing more than a “means of grace”.   What is in fact, the very presence of God on earth has become for many of us a “helpful” yet optional part of the Christian life. 

Brunner writes, The “togetherness of Christians is...not secondary or contingent: it is integral to their life just as is their abiding in Christ.” Did you get that? “JUST AS IS their abiding in Christ.”  “The fellowship of Christians is just as much an end in itself as is their fellowship with Christ. “  Did you get that? “JUST AS MUCH an end in itself…”

Brunner is pointing to the biblical notion that if we are IN FACT, the body of Christ with Jesus as our head, then BEING the church and loving, caring and forgiving each other is just as important as the way that a healthy person takes care of his body. 

My own church knows something of this pain and so today we are more tender to each other than a lot of congregations.  Over a decade ago, the pastor left amidst a divorce (in fact, both the associate pastor and the senior pastor resigned in less than a year as their marriages crumbled.)  As painful as it was to have the pastors leave, far worse was what the congregation did to each other.  People took sides.  Some wanted the pastor to stay, others cited biblical reasons why a divorced pastor needed to pull back from leadership.

Rumors flew, stakes were hammered in the ground.  100 families left the church.  Half the membership, half the revenue walked out the door—more because of the rancor and pain in the church than anything the pastors had done or not done.

When the body of Christ turns on each other, pulls away from each other and separates from each other it is like a body rejecting an organ or burning oneself with a cigarette.  The pain can be intense, the scars deep.  But the amazing thing is what the body can do to find healing once it sets out to do so.

In an article about adolescents and cutting, experts say that what a teenager needs who is practicing self-injury is three things: 1) To be taught to accept and value their bodies.  2) To accept reality and find ways to make current problems more tolerable, 3) their parents to model healthy ways of dealing with conflict and problems besides self-mutilation.

Maybe there is something in here about what we pastors must do much better for the body of Christ.  Bodies don’t just stay connected to the head, they care for the body itself. 

Every body Needs...

There used to be a commercial where the tag line was "Every body needs milk."  Which is of course good advice.  But today we know that not only some people lactose intolerant but that our bodies also need, proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, good fats, etc.  In short, milk, while good is not as essential as we thought.  So what does every body really need?

A head.  (Okay, lame opening, I admit, but hopefully it got you thinking in the right direction...)

After hearing of some recent church conflicts, we have been pondering the question “Whose church is it anyway?”

And the simple, direct and right answer is that it is Christ’s church.  In Matthew 16:18, Jesus even referred to it as “MY church.”  But what does that mean for us today?   What or who or where is Christ’s church today? (Mt 16:18 is the verse that our Catholic brothers and sisters use to claim that they are in fact the one true church, the rest of us have left the fold to one extent or another.)

The two most common descriptions for the church in the New Testament are that the church is the “body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:12) and the “temple of God” (1 Cor 3:16).  In both cases, the implication is that since Pentecost when the Spirit of God was poured out on the disciples, God is present, active and available to the world through the gathered, committed people who have been baptized in the name of Jesus.  (See Acts 2:37-47, Acts 4:32-34). 

The church’s entire reason for being is to BE God’s presence to the world. To represent (or re-present) God to the world.  As NT Wright has famously said, “As Christ was to Israel, so the church to the world.”

So, then, whose church is it today?  It’s God’s church.  It’s Jesus’ church.  It’s Jesus’ body active in the world, it’s God’s temple making God accessible to the world.  But we’ll need to consider each of those descriptions a bit more closely, starting today with the notion of the church as Christ's body.

To do so, we must remember that for the first century church, there were a few people who could actually remember Christ's original body.  They had seen a smile on his face, they knew what is hair looked like after a few days without a bath, they knew how long he kept his beard, they had felt the touch of his hand.

They had heard his voice, smelled his breath, seen his tears. 

And they had seen that body, broken, bloodied, and pierced; lifeless and limp, resurrected and radiant.  Of all the bodies that they had ever seen, Jesus' would have been most memorable because now they would realize that that particular body was the one that the One God of universe inhabited to come into the world, to move through the world, to speak to the world, to touch the world.

So, when the first century Christians talk about the church of believers being the body of Christ, they weren't so much using an interesting metaphor or "relevant illustration" as they were proclaiming an mystery no less wonder-ful than the first "incarnation."  THEY were God's new body coming into the world, moving through the world, speaking to the world, touching the world.

Pretty cool, huh?  Ok, so, what?

Let’s just remember for starters that if we believers are the body of Christ, and Jesus is the head, (Col 1:18), then the single most important thing is the body being attached to the head. 

Every body needs a head.

No matter how good, noble and important it’s intentions, a disembodied head is powerless to move through the world and “touch” anyone or anything.  At the same time a body without a head is a corpse. A body without life, without spirit.  The direction and vision of the “head” Jesus is carried out through the body, the people of the Spirit. The church remains alive and healthy as it stays connected to the head (Col 2:19).  When the church is disconnected from the head, it is dead and Jesus is rendered powerless. 

A body absolutely needs a head, but there is more to a body than just a head.  Which is where we will pick up tomorrow. 

Whose Church is it anyway: Part 2

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.