I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Today I met with a pastor who is leaving his church after a five year ministry. I wanted to talk to him about what he believed his church needs to do to move forward, and his answer sounded similar to what other pastors have told me. He said the people in that church needs to grow spiritually as disciples. Like many, including the one Rees was describing, they want a God who will care for them and serve their needs, but they are not interested in a God who wants to transform them into fully-functioning disciples. This may be the critical piece that is keeping our churches from truly being the church in our society.
In my book, The Healthy Small Church, I talk about the importance of spiritual leadership, and I am including both pastoral and lay leadership. A church will reflect its leadership. If the leadership is growing spiritually the congregation will often be growing spiritually, but if the leadership isn't growing it's unlikely the congregation will grow. If the leadership is satisfied with $3 worth of God so will the congregation.
How would you describe your own spiritual growth for 2009? Do your actions and words reflect growth this year? What about your lay leadership? Are they growing spiritually and leading others in spiritual growth? If you are relatively pleased with your answers to these questions, what can you do in 2010 to improve in this area? If you are not at all satisfied with your answers, what changes do you need to make in your own life and in the church's programming to intentionally help people become disciples of Christ?
Christ did not come just to make us comfortable. He came to transform us completely so that we would reflect Him to all who observed our lives. Our Christianity should impact the way we live, talk, and think. If we are truly growing as disciples it should be seen in the way we treat our spouse, our children, those we work with, those we worship with, and those we do business with. Every aspect of our lives should be impacted by our growing as disciples, and if there are some areas that are not impacted it is an indication that something is lacking in our spiritual development.
Don't settle for $3 worth of God.
2 comments:
I often wonder about when the laity start to act more like disciples and less like blind followers, and what that means. You say, "If the leadership is growing spiritually the congregation will often be growing spiritually, but if the leadership isn't growing it's unlikely the congregation will grow." Although I do not know whether this is your intention, it seems to me that you are precluding the laity from growing with the God the Father and the Spirit as their sole helpers. I don't think it's a matter of who is in a leadership position, but rather that it is a matter of who is BEING the church: who is ministering; who is teaching; who is exhorting; who is prophesying; who is visiting; etc., regardless of whether they are in an official leadership position.
Sometimes the laity outgrows the pastoral leadership. Unfortunately, I see a trend where the laity's response to this change is to leave a church, either to start their own church or to join another. I would venture to blame our human love for permanence of pastoral leadership positions. It often takes an adulterous affair to catalyze much-needed changes in church leadership.
You say, "If we are truly growing as disciples it should be seen in the way we treat our spouse, our children, those we work with, those we worship with, and those we do business with." Very much so! Jesus reminds his disciples that they should know men by their fruits — the Fruits of the Spirit: Love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, long-suffering, and self-control. If we're truly growing as disciples — if we're being affected by the Holy Spirit — these same fruits should be evident in our lives.
Good thoughts!
I did not mean to preclude the role of God in one's spiritual growth. In fact, without God's involvement there will not be spiritual growth in anyone's life. My thoughts are that the laity often follow the example of their pastoral leadership. If spiritual growth isn't important to him or her then it is often not important to others in the congregation either. I sometimes refer to the example of Israel and its kings. When the kingdom divided, the northern kingdom never had a king who was a godly person, and the nation followed his example and practiced idolatry. Some of the kings of the southern kingdom were godly and some were ungodly. When they had a godly king the people worshiped God, and when they had an ungodly king they worshiped Baal. Working with the many churches as I do I too often see the laity following the spiritual examples of their pastoral leaders, and I think this explains one of the problems that exist in the church.
I also agree that sometimes the laity will spiritually outgrow the pastoral leadership. I am thinking of one church that called a person as pastor who proved to be a very spiritually immature person. A number of wonderful, spiritually mature people left that church for others with more mature leadership. That pastor finally left the church after allegations of misconduct.
To be effective leaders in our churches we must be continuing to grow deeper in our walk with God. The Fruit of the Spirit must be evident in our lives if we want people to follow our example.
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