Every Journey Has A Story - An Introduction (Part 2 of 5)

I mentioned in last week’s post that I was in love with ministry, admired the teachings of Jesus, and adored the love of learning. My knowledge had caused my heart to swell with “Biblical pride.” These things made me fall in love with the promise of Salvation, with the prospect of Heaven. The fact that I could be a pastor proclaiming the gospel, teaching others to love God’s Word, helping to build His church, was the ultimate goal.

If you’re like most believers today, you’re probably wondering, “What’s wrong with all that?”

So many other pastors were doing the same thing, and I was encouraged to emulate their walk. Strive for their success. A certain pastor would come up with a new way of growing his church. Subsequently, a book would come out, and we would buy it or be given it by our denominational leaders as we all tried to apply that method to our body of believers, hoping for equal, spiritual transference of God’s blessing and a subsequent, similar success, if not more. Let’s face it, if we are truly honest, nobody wants to have the thirtieth largest church in America when you can have the largest (which is another Americanized version of Christianity: Be the best, the biggest, and the most popular).

I eventually fell more and more in love with the idea of pastoral success because that was the ultimate validation. Success was measured in terms of how big a church was—the number of people in attendance, baptisms, people claiming to have been saved, new members, etc.

Questions like these became the driving focus: “Did the data show any trends upon which your leadership team could capitalize? Are there any negative trends that need to be addressed and fixed?”  

Sadly, the church leadership’s emphasis on the Bible and theology took second-place to the books on management and church leadership. Becoming the CEO of your church was touted as being more fruitful than being a pastor-teacher. How you ran your “company” became part of the spiritual litmus test, and to help track success or failure, we counted people and reported those numbers to the learned and wise “higher up the food chain,” as it were. The trail had been blazed for us. Famous preachers and church leaders were leaving the pulpit to start companies, aimed at raising up leaders for the twenty-first century church, and they quickly became the darlings of both the Church and secular organizations.

My preaching was true to God’s Word, so I thought. And even though my church was not “mega” in any way, shape, or form, I was in love with the “what if” of the mega-future.

Therefore, I endeavored to implement some of the ways of the “successful” pastors, hoping one of those methods would be fruitful and multiply beyond anything I could imagine.

And it was going to have to be extremely fruitful, because I could imagine quite a bit.

Of course, as you know, we Americans are big on setting goals and accomplishing them. For me, there was no bigger goal than “getting to heaven” and hearing the words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” and I thought, as a pastor, you heard those words by having a “megachurch,” being a best-selling author, having your own radio and/or TV show.

The American dream, Gospel-style.                                      

Or maybe, the Gospel dream, American style.

Either way, oh, the arrogance.

In my desire to be “that pastor,” I felt the continual, internal, eternal struggle. It had always been there but was suppressed by years of being the good little Christian soldier. I wrestled with influences that came across my path, particularly those from within the body of Christ, like the Church Growth Movement of the ’80s and ’90s, the Jesus Seminar, the Health and Wealth gospel, and the rise of the occult being accepted and mainstreamed into the Church at large.

By this time in my life, I had changed congregations after college and seminary, having moved from New York to Mississippi to Iowa in the process. The latest church I was pastoring wasn’t full, either, so after years of struggling to resolve this issue, I concluded that the lack of results were obviously my fault.

I was right, of course, but instead of going back to my child-like faith, seeking God and Him alone, dwelling in His Holy Temple, taking refuge in God, my stronghold, and gazing upon His beauty (cf. Psalm 27), I did what any good little American pastor would do. I thrust myself into more Bible study and more reading of books, even those about church growth (to my chagrin), looking for that key that would unlock my church’s doors and allow God’s harvest to pour into the “heavenly silos.”

I didn’t want to miss out on what God was “obviously” doing in other places. I mean, those churches were exploding. My little pocket of Christianity? Not so much. People weren’t flocking to hear my messages. Yet, they were flocking to those churches and those pastors, thus, I was encouraged to emulate their ways.

In my mind in those days, and many others, exploding churches equaled God’s anointing. The Book of Acts, chapters 2-4 specifically, were oft-quoted chapters as biblical evidence of the divine multiplication of heaven. The churches in Ephesus, Sardis, and Laodicea were referenced as examples of what happened when the current, popular, church growth methodology was overlooked or dismissed by those reluctant to “get with the program.” That’s what the church growth movement taught. And I can say now, and shamefully so, that I eventually believed it. More so than I believed the Bible’s words in red.

Teachings that shaped and challenged my thinking came from people I trusted instead of my Lord Jesus. I thought, “If they are successful at this ‘pastoring thing,’ then maybe I should listen to them, model them, follow their ways…to an extent, of course.” I also had to make it my own, you know? Allow God to use my “style” to show how He can work through anybody. And then, of course, I would boast about it, in a “humble manner,” so I could possibly get one of those book deals.

Oh, the folly.

My efforts to be a major player in helping “build the Church” were nothing more than vain pursuits, however. Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 that He would build His Church. I and countless others had lost sight of that monumental truth. If our efforts are not aligned with Jesus’s blueprints, all we build is a house on sand (Matthew 7:26-27). It won’t stand, regardless of testimony of the church growth experts.

* * *

Thought for This Week:

How does your church “do church”? Is it elevating God to His rightful place? Or is making Church comfortable for the “seekers” its primary goal?

I saw a t-shirt not too long ago that said “God is Dope.” In our current, hip-hop culture, “dope” means “cool.” Those who grew up in the ’70s would have a much different understanding of that phrase, however. 

Are we more concerned with conforming God to the culture, or having the culture conform to God? That’s really the question we must ask ourselves whenever we reach out to the lost, start a church program, slap a bumper sticker on our car, or whatever it is we do in the name of Christ. Culture must conform to God and His Word. This includes the culture inside the Church as well. We are not to conform any longer to the patterns of this world, according to Paul (Romans 12:1-2). When we try to “fit into the culture” while attempting to remain “Christian” at the same time, we turn Paul’s words on their head and make “culture” king. When we do this, culture then dictates to us how we should live and how we should preach. Instead, God’s Word should dictate that.

Culture cannot be our “king.” Popularity cannot be our “king.” We cannot attempt to marry an evil culture to Christianity, and thus serve two masters. Jesus said that never works out well for the slave.  (Matthew 6:24; cf. Luke 16:13).

NEXT WEEK:

We will continue with Part 3 of this “chapter,” and look at how we can get back on shore.

Pictures courtesy of  Pexels and the following photographers:

"People Worshiping" by Josh Sorenson

"Bible" by Johnmark Smith