#churchculture — Public Fediverse posts

Why I Asked a Man to Leave My Church

He entered the room with his Bible in hand, looking good in his black blazer and “Jesus is King” t-shirt. I had never met him before, but I knew who he was. I had been informed that he might show up at some point, despite my congregant’s explicit request that her abusive and manipulative ex not come.

“Can I talk to you in the back for a minute?” I asked as I pulled him away from his friend. We walked into the nursery to find some privacy.

“Actually, I’m glad you asked to talk to me because my friend and I are church-hoppers. We like to visit different churches and ask for spare Bibles, water, and anything else we can give to the homeless. Do you have any spare Bibles?” he asked.

“We don’t. We have a food bank at the end of today’s service to help with the homeless if they need it,” I responded as I looked for the nerve to get to the point. “Look, there are a lot of churches in Jackson, but this one doesn’t make sense for you. One of our longtime congregants asked you not to come, and you’re here anyway, which implies that you’re not here for the right reasons.”

“Are you asking me to leave?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “Again, there are lots of other places for you to go. This one does not make sense.”

“I can’t believe this. I’ve never been asked to leave a church before,” he said as though deeply hurt, before suddenly becoming obstinate. “This is God’s house, and I can worship wherever I want. I drove 25 minutes to be here, and I will not be leaving until service is over.”

“This is private property, and I do not need to let you stay,” I added.

“That would look really bad for your church,” he said.

“Yes, and for you. I don’t want to do that, so I’m asking that you leave,” I asked again.

This back-and-forth went on for 20 minutes as he refused to leave. In the midst of the conversation, the conversation shifted.

“As I said, I’ll be staying until service is over. There’s a Bible study after service, right?” he asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Your webpage said there was,” he responded.

“We don’t have enough volunteers for it right now,” I said.

“Do you need volunteers?” he said with a raised eyebrow.

“No. Only members lead our Bible studies anyway,” I responded.

“And how do you become a member?” he asked with a smirk.

“Stop it,” I said.

“How do you become a member?” he pushed back.

“Through me,” I answered.

“Oh, I see,” he said, seeming to taking pleasure in the rise he was getting out of me.

Service was now about to start, and I was about to call the cops when I realized the commotion it would make. I’d have to start the service, then walk offstage when the police arrived to ask them to remove a guest before going back onstage.

The deal I made was that he could stay until the end of service, but then he was not to come back, or the police would be called immediately. He agreed to the terms.

Your church is your flock, and it is your job to care for them. In this particular case, I tried to play hardball on a topic that we pastors have been known to fail at. Instead of ignoring women about the men who manipulate and abuse them, I came in full force, hoping to make sure my church was a safe place for one of my sheep. A new situation was rising, and I was trying to squash it before it grew into something more difficult to control. 

This man was a charmer, and if I let him stay, I worried he would win people over with his manipulations as he had done before at my congregant’s last church. Indeed, he walked right out of our meeting and introduced himself to congregants in the lobby, firmly shaking their hands. “Hi, this is my first time here, but it will also be my last because your pastor has asked me to leave.” 

As the service began, I apologized to the woman affected by this situation for not being brave enough to call the police this time. I then ditched my original message and preached on the biblical concept of empowering and respecting women.

Pastors are shepherds. We must use wisdom to protect our flocks.

The Church’s Political Captivity

The COVID-19 pandemic was ruthless on pastors. Every single decision felt like a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. You got in trouble if you kept your church open, and you got in trouble if you closed it. You got in trouble if you required people to wear masks, and you got in trouble if you didn’t. Every word of our communications had to be carefully crafted to avoid offending others. We worked our butts off creating online services that nobody really cared about or watched.

But even more difficult than this was the social and political tensions we had to address during that chaotic season. Christians became anti-science and conspiratorial. Instead of advocating for justice and caring for minorities, many in the church fought against such efforts. Instead of calling out political nonsense, the church seemed to defend it or support it.

At the start of the pandemic, many pastors were taking a stand on these issues, but in the end, there seemed to be only a few. Too many of them had been crucified by their congregants early on for speaking out. They were walking on eggshells.

I started hearing a very similar testimony among pastors during that time. They each shared that they once made an online post, and their social networks blew up. At first, they were stunned by the comments, but after enough arguments, they decided that talking was pointless. “People never change their minds online,” they’d say. Or “ I don’t want to sow disunity in the church.” Or “Frank and Mary came after me, and they’re the greatest Christians I know! So maybe I shouldn’t speak.” Pastors used these kinds of logic to shut themselves up.

Many Christians have sacred idols they have not yet deconstructed, and it’s because pastors aren’t addressing the golden calf in the room. We all know the unspoken rule: American political issues are so deeply spiritual and important that pastors are not allowed to address them—unless the pastor shares the opinion of the majority of congregants. That is to say, pastors can generally say whatever they want politically, so long as it leans Republican or Conservative. 

The room is rigged, and it’s because pastors have spent the last several decades only making certain kinds of political statements, using certain kinds of political buzzwords, and addressing certain kinds of political issues. No one has to ask how the church leans, because these “certain kinds” of things have already made it clear. Pastors and congregants who stray from these views often stay quiet for their own protection, lest they be told that they’re not a Christian.

The church needs help. It is not meant to be defined by what a political party thinks, but by what Jesus thinks. And there is no way that any political party anywhere in the world has captured that.

The Problem with Copy and Paste Churches

There are countless books on the “right way to do church,” each with its own proven strategies and programs. While there’s nothing wrong with experimenting with other people’s ideas, there is likely nothing out there that will work perfectly to copy into your ministry. And if it does work perfectly for you, you may find yourself dreadfully unhappy because your ministry is no longer shaped like the image of God put on you and your community, but more like the image of God put on someone else and theirs.

Part of the reason you can’t fully copy and paste other people’s ministerial ideas onto your own church is that your context is different. You know your city and your people, and your favorite book does not. Some of these books also have little to teach us because of their unusual variables. For example, I remember reading a book on church planting in which the author mentioned he had one of the world’s most famous worship leaders on his staff at launch. I rolled my eyes and put the book down after reading that.

The best statement I ever heard about church growth at a church-planting conference came from a pastor whose name I can’t remember. I don’t think he’s well known, but he had been seeing enough traction in his church that he was asked to speak in a breakout at a huge event. What was his secret to success?

“We prayed,” he said. He explained that he always had to remind himself of how drastically his church entered into prayer, because now that he was getting attention, people might assume the growth was due to skill or a program. But his expansion was built around his church’s heart. In humility, he did not feel he had much more advice to offer us than the simple call to prayer and welcoming the people whom God sends in response.

Just because something worked for one church and not for yours doesn’t mean that you or your congregation screwed up. Remember that Jesus recognized that God’s wisdom would work differently among different people.

“For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” (Luke 7:33-35).

Jesus recognized that God’s wisdom had manifested in John and himself in contrary ways. Yet when you look at the fruit of both John and Jesus’s ministry, it’s clear that God’s wisdom was at work in the differences. And so it may be that someone out there is running a church that is entirely different from yours but is making strides forward nonetheless. If the fruit and the deeds are there, then the Spirit is at work in some way, regardless of the differences.

That’s part of the problem with copying and pasting everyone else’s programs and methods onto your own church, ministry, pastoring, and unique image. It may very well be that the wisdom of God has a different plan for you and that you’re missing it by trying to be someone else. If Jesus tried to be like John the Baptist, we’d be left with a different gospel, for John’s personality and understanding of ministry were quite different from Jesus’s.

Don’t betray the wisdom of God in you to become the wisdom of God in someone else. Renew yourself to Jesus and then allow Jesus to move in the shape of you.

Pastoring as the Person You Are | Why Authentic Ministry Matters

Have you ever seen friends who seem to be the same person? I knew two guys like that once. The younger friend became the older one. Then, when the younger one got to college, they became their roommate. They disappeared when they graduated, and when they resurfaced online, they had new interests and a new best friend who looked so much like them that I almost couldn’t tell which one they were in the picture.

Pastors sometimes do this, too. For example, I once met a support pastor who spoke exactly like their lead pastor—their vocabulary, tone, intonation, and pauses were identical. They had become an echo of the lead pastor, and I couldn’t help but wonder who they actually were underneath it all.

I doubt this happens often in local church leadership, but pastors often try to emulate their favorite celebrity pastor. We might change the way we talk or write to mimic the celebrity. We might even change how we dress to adopt their style. For example, I once scrolled across a video of a pastor online that I could have sworn was Steven Furtick in every way, but it wasn’t him. In other cases, I have been to a couple of ministries where I couldn’t recognize my quiet pastoral friends because they were screaming their messages in the style of their favorite fiery preachers.

We worship leaders do this too, when we mimic famous worship leaders we’ve seen. We might breathe deep into the mic, hold our hearts, smile like we’re in on a joke everyone missed out on, or fling our arms around nonstop. My favorite is when we fan the air on the stage out into the crowd, a movement I assume most of us have copied without knowing why.

There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by the people we think do our jobs best. Indeed, it is natural to want to become like them in some way, shape, or form. My thick black rectangular glasses are grounded in my love for Rob Bell, who first brought the Scriptures to light for me. My block paragraph form of writing is also inspired by him. But sometimes, our interests get the best of us, and we think that if we become our favorite church celebrities, we’ll either make a bigger difference or grow our church. When we do this, we decide that our churches need anyone other than ourselves to lead them.

Some go so far as to grow their churches and gain acceptance by legally purchasing the transcripts of famous preachers and reading them to their congregations. My heart breaks for such pastors because pastors today are expected to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, all wrapped into one. Those who don’t have a strong teaching gift may feel they have to take sermons from others to fit in, even though they may be very gifted at other pastoral roles.

Our congregants are not always helpful with this dynamic, as they often ask us to become someone else. This request comes in many different ways. Sometimes there’s a wink via comparison, such as, “Our previous pastor would have done that differently.” Or they might make us feel small and insignificant by comparing us to their favorite preacher, with whom we don’t seem to compare.

Sometimes we’re told to be someone else through direct confrontation. “Let’s get coffee sometime,” is often a way of saying, “You did or said something recently that I don’t like, and I think you should change.” Other times, we’re told to stay in a lane. “You’re too this,” or “too that,” and “If you didn’t do that, then maybe our church would grow.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywvRgGAd2XI&list=RDywvRgGAd2XI&start_radio=1

Pastors often feel that they’re given the same advice Weird Al’s mom gives him at the start of the movie, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story: “Honey, I know it’s hard to hear this, but your dad and I had a long talk, and we agreed it would be best for all of us if you just stopped being who you are and doing the things you love.”

You are enough. Ministry is better because you are in it, and you don’t need to completely copy someone else to grow your church or be a good pastor. I’ve been moved by the Holy Spirit during some of the worst messages I’ve ever heard. There are other ways to make up for a lack of skill or to grow than to pretend you’re someone you’re not.

A church that grows by sacrificing the unique image of God in your personhood is not a church that will breathe life into you. Therefore, it’s also not one you can keep up with running. If you can’t be you, you are eventually going to experience an identity crisis and burn out.

#Atheism is More Honest Than #Christianity - #ChurchCulture Forces You to #Lie and Hide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wkqd9Kz-kc&list=WL

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