Army of Priests

I wrote this email to a friend of mine:

Subject: Been thinking about faith versus action

I have some more thoughts if you are interested. When you’ve looked through all this stuff in the bible you’ll have to let me know what you’ve found as it is one of the bigger mysteries of the gospel.

Faith is like belief except it goes beyond in that as it is an initiator for action. Basically you have an action, and there is a risk involved in taking that action. Faith is a strong belief that enables you to take that risk and do the action. It is closer to trust really. The action itself does not save us, which is good because we might not do the action right, but the trust required to do the action is what saves us. Think of giving your life to God. The action here is surrendering all your counterfeit efforts to make a purpose out of your life, to make yourself “like God” (from Genesis). This is a risk as you’ll be trusting someone else to give you purpose other than yourself. The trust required to do that action (surrender) is faith.

It is also possible to have faith without belief, and belief without faith. There are plenty of bits in the bible that my academic nature can’t quite bring myself to believe. But I have faith in it regardless because I trust it even thought part of me doubts it. In fact any faith in the bible must be like this because we cannot prove that the bible is inerrant and there are some wacky things in there. As such there will always be some room for doubt, but we trust it anyway. That is a risk (trusting a book over our mind) and faith is required to take that risk.

Alternatively, today one woman went up [at Church] and prayed about her family situation with young twins and an autistic child causing trouble. The church prayed for her an believed that God would intervene. However, I doubt anyone will get their hands dirty and actually help her. Helping her would be a risk (the effort might not help but could be wasted when it could have been used on something else (a sacrifice is always risky)) and as such that risk would require faith. Faith that God would not let that effort be in vain. Now when the church prayer for her they had belief, but none of us were taking a risk, and thus none of us were really required to have faith.

What really makes me wonder though is what is required for salvation. As I said to you a lot of people “place God first” to the extent that they are saved. This is really placing themselves and their eternity first. Placing God first is about taking risks, and making sacrifices for his glory and not our own. My question is can you get into heaven if you fall into the first category of placing yourself first. Surrender suggests placing God first. Placing God first suggests works. It suggests ruthlessly eliminating sin, spreading the word, giving up your money and time. Now those actions will never be responsible for salvation, but perhaps those actions are the side-effects of a saved life. If that is the case then a lot of people with belief, but without risk (putting themselves first), are going to find themselves in trouble. On the other end of the spectrum I must remember the proverb where people were casting out demons and healing the sick and Jesus said he never knew them. This is the single greatest remaining question I have: Is calling yourself a Christian enough to be one? Can belief without action save you? I wish James had answered that rhetorical question of his in Chapter 2.

These are really just musings, I imagine the theology of it can get quite meaty. It lends itself naturally into a discussion on the new creation. Can someone get into heaven without being a “new creation” and what is a “new creation” anyway (the second part of that is one I have thought over in depth during the last few weeks)? Most Christians I know are indistinguishable from non-Christians. Are they saved? Do I even have the right to ask that question?

All I know is that for me, God comes first and I will take the risks he wants me to take. I can’t possibly give an answer to these questions by which I can measure other people. But I can glorify him with my own life. As far as I am concerned he is worth it, even if it is not necessary for me to be saved. It’s not about me anyway. I imagine God desires my salvation even more than I do. So I’ll just get to work on fulfilling his will.

Let me know what God shows you.

Yet more errors with the Clergy Driven church

Once a week event

When I listen to a sermon it may inspire me, it may challenge me, it may get me excited and hyped up for god, but I’ll forget it fifteen minutes after I walk out the door. It doesn’t matter how good the preacher is, I’ll fail to apply their teachings to my life. There are plenty of people in church (I was one) who have minds filled with great teaching, but whose lives fail to represent this fact.

Sermons can be great, but what I really need is for that preacher to be following me around all week – to be the angel on my shoulder, to provide ideas, reminders and support, and to hold me accountable. I need someone to not only give me a pep talk before sending me on the field; I need someone to play with me.

Christianity is a team sport! It’s also a hard one. The idea that one man could win a game of football is preposterous, no matter how good the pep talk is. This is why I, and all of us, need people to be there all the time. We need help, real help, and the type of help that lends a hand rather then gives a word. I think we often leave this to God. We think that it is God’s place to change a person’s life. I think that we have forgotten what God wants us to be. I think other people may be the tools God uses to change a person’s life.

I trust you can begin to see how important relationships are. A pastor cannot possibly provide this level of support to his entire congregation.

No flexibility

There are certain teachings and help that I need that are different to other people, there are also some teachings that are not going to help me at all. Church does not reflect this. We all get the same cookies cutter teaching when we turn up to church. Sure, the pastor’s in depth review of the book of Obadiah may be great, but it might not be what I need.

Depending on how bible studies are run, they may not help much in this regard either. Often bible studies will follow in a series, and will require you to look up verses in a set way, and make you answer a question the “right” way. They’re essentially a sermon in which the members can feel like they’re contributing. They don’t help. The next step up may be that we choose what to talk about the week before. This is better, but my needs could change, and if they’re not run right they can still be a sermon played out in a small group. What may be better I believe, is that we come with something we would like to discuss, or share, and have that stimulus provide further stimulus for a discussion in the meeting.

Do we really need to plan these things out in advance? On the “field” we will need to work on the fly, as it were. If someone asks you a question you need to be able to respond then and there, not after you’ve looked up all the verses pertaining to the topic. Maybe our bible studies could be training for this?

Costs

Imagine how many homeless you could feed if your church did not have a mortgage to pay. Imagine how many poor you could cloth if you did not have a pastor to support. A very, very small fraction of tithes is every used for these purposes.
The New Testament church did not have mortgages to pay, or pastors to support. Everything that was given could be invested into the community. They didn’t give a measly 10% either. In fact the verses that are commonly used to support tithing describe the ancient Jewish tax system if you inspect them closely!

Our giving should not feel like a tax, or payment for services provided. If you wish to sow into God’s kingdom, really sow, spend some time volunteering, or feeding the homeless, or clothing the poor. Also, don’t expect anything back. I am sick of hearing stories of how I will be blessed when I give. I do not give to be blessed – I give to bless others! That should be all the motivation we need. Giving is an expression of love, not of greed.

Difficult to expand

If your church grows beyond capacity, what must it do? It may have to move or build a new, bigger building, or it may have to take on new staff and pastors. Besides being painful, this increases costs and further increases the expenditures that prevent your tithes helping people in the community. In this way, people can actually be a burden on the church. Further members require more services, but do not provide any.

Continuing our list of problems with the Clergy Driven Church:

Doesn’t exercise spiritual muscle

Another problem with this is that the congregation never has a chance to exercise and learn to use their gifts! Imagine this, a new Christian in the church has a bad image, he drinks and smokes and generally has problems living the faith. However, God has given this new Christian and incredible gift of healing. Now this church has alter-calls, week in and week out, but that Christian is never asked to pray for anyone. No one ever believes God would use him like that, he’s just not suitable. As a result that Christian never learns he has this gift. He never gets the chance to exercise it, or grow in it.

This scenario is repeated constantly. The more a Christian is gagged, the less he learns about speaking out. Only the clergy is required to exercise their muscle regularly, and as such only they will grow in their gifts. This is disaster!A core goal of the church should be to grow its members potential in Christ. Church should be a gym for spiritual muscle.

What’s more, a Christian cannot be corrected unless people know he needs correction. Unless they are given the chance to explain their views, other Christians may never know there is a problem.

There are two big lakes in Israel. The Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee has a number of rivers flowing into it and the Jordan river flowing out of it to the south. The Sea of Galilee is a beautiful, healthy lake with much life in it. The Dead Sea on the other hand, only has rivers flowing into it. Nothing flows out of it. Consequently the mineral content has built up and nothing can live in its waters. They don’t call it the Dead Sea for no reason.
Many Christians sit in churches all their lives hearing the Word taught. They learn Bible doctrine. They experience life and learn from their experiences, but they never pass on their knowledge and experience to others. They benefit from their knowledge and experience, but never allow others to benefit.
When we sit in the pew for our whole lives and don’t pass on our knowledge and experience to others, we become like the Dead Sea.(Discipleship Overview)

Single point of failure

Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout or contention in their churches. Fifty percent of pastors’ marriages will end in divorce. Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors. Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living. Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years. Seventy percent of pastors feel grossly underpaid. Seventy percent felt God called them to pastoral ministry before their ministry began, but after three years of ministry, only fifty percent still felt called. Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression. Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry. Seventy percent of pastors do not have a close friend, confidant, or mentor. Every year, nearly six thousand Southern Baptist ministers fall by the wayside, victims of burnout, depression, marital problems and even suicide. Another twelve hundred are fired. Eighty percent think their jobs have a negative effect on their families. (1, 2, 3)

Clergy driven churches exert an unreasonable toll on their leaders. This in turn has a negative effect on the entire church. Churches have crisis when leadership problems are present, and the clergy driven church structure is not helping. If all Christians are equal, then none of them should be put under this pressure, nor should any of them cause major damage to the church if they burn out.

Doesn’t build community

Listening to a sermon does not build my relationship with the person sitting next to me. There is a sad lack of true relationships in our churches. I have become aware of churches where everyone was lonely, where everyone wanted to reach out, but where no one did. And no matter how many programs or add-ins we attempt, no matter how much we urge people to invite people to each other’s homes, we cannot seem to get past this. This is a well known problem.

When you consider the place of fellowship in the typical meeting (a ten minute time slot or after the service is finished), you begin to gain an idea of the importance clergy driven churches place on relationships. The clergy driven church simply doesn’t need its members to have strong relationships in order to function. That doesn’t mean that there has been a lack of effort, that pastors and leaders don’t want these relationships to form, it merely means that their hands are tied by the system in which they operate.

The oft repeated idea that the church is our Christian family meant nothing to me until I realised that it did not exist. How can there be a family if we only ever see someone in events that other people have organised? If the only contact we have with people is the pitiful fellowship time on a Sunday morning? Ask yourself; is there a fellow Christian, besides your closest kin, to whom you could be completely honest and open? If there is not, then you have a problem. Unfortunately in many churches we don’t even seem to recognise that Christians do sin, little less is there a safe environment in which to get help.

First off, on a personal note, with the start of university I have become very busy and may struggle to produce these postings on a regular basis. I am also heavily involved in missionary work on campus which is facing both persecution and success. I would appreciate prayer for our work.

The modern church, which we shall call the “clergy driven” church looks alot like this:

In a clergy driven church the clergy are responsible for all the “services” that church supplies. That is, the clergy run the worship, give the sermons, do the praying, the counselling, the evangelising, and generally make all the decisions. The laypeople receive all the churches services via interaction with the clergy and have little need for each other provided that they support the clergy (that is the church will continue to run even if its members fail to relate with each other – as demonstrated by many churches today). The church service is the result of years of testing how to best project the clergy’s services over a large number of people. This makes sense, as a large number of people are required to support the clergy.

If you want evidence of this consider your typical Sunday Service. The large congregation sit all facing the front of the church whilst a considerably smaller group of people administer the service from the front. During worship the greater congregation follows the lead of the smaller worship group. The congregation have no say in what is sung, or how it is sung. During announcements or communion the greater congregation again listens to a smaller group, usually one. And during the centrepiece of the Sunday service, the sermon, a single person is disseminating the teaching “service” to the rest of the congregation. It is quite possible to attend church without talking to a single person. Interaction between members of the congregation is usually limited to a pitiful ten minute timeslot or before or after the service when officially the meeting is yet to start or has ended.

In order to counteract this many churches have bible talks or small groups. Whilst this is a step in the right direction, they are usually an add-on and are not truly central to the church’s operations.

Whilst the clergy driven church has been seeing lives saved for thousands of years, it falls short of the churches potential and detracts from some of the central tenets of our beliefs. Over the next few posts we shall examine 12 problems with clergy driven churches (I wrote these a while ago which make my work load easier as well).

The priesthood of all believers

In the Old Testament, the Jews could not directly relate with God. Instead they worshiped via a middle man who was the priesthood. The New Testament not only restored the ability for all men to have a personal relationship with God, it also restored the ability for all men to act on his behalf. Unfortunately the Catholic Church saw the loss of this significant change. The reformation would latter restore our direct relationship with God, but it failed to restore our place as workers of him. As such we have direct communication with God, but the clergy still does all the work!

The New Testament church is not about a large group of people supporting some small group of gifted men of God. This is Old Testament thinking. In the New Testament we are all gifted men of God! The New Testament is about empowering every believer in the body of Christ. It is about every believer playing and equal part, every believer having equal importance. Unfortunately this is not the case today. When the pastor of a church is given the bulk of the meeting’s time and a lowly member none, this is inequality – unfair to both the pastor and the congregation.

It is true that there are leaders, there are preachers, there are teachers, there are apostles, and there are pastors. But these positions should be of no more importance as helpers, or givers, or encouragers, or of prayers. (Why is it that a preacher can receive a standing ovation yet an elderly woman who has provided meals to the single mother next door receives none?) What’s more, these gifts are distributed among all God’s people. Not just the clergy! Why is it then that in the Sunday Service, the centre of the modern church, that the clergy are the only ones exercising their gifts for the benefit of the others?

This issue will become clearer as it reveals itself as the root of many other problems.

Waste of potential

The inability of the congregation to use their gifts results in a huge loss of potential for the church! Not only this, but each person has experiences and knowledge that can help people or provide a different perspective on any topic. However, it is very rare, and always rude, for any member of the congregation to offer their comments during a sermon. They cannot share their experiences, or their knowledge. This is God’s knowledge that he has given them! But they are required to remain silent unless they are given permission (ordained) by the church to express what God has given them.

Why do we do this? Why are we gagging God? What if God wanted to use the lowliest member of the church, the one with poor clothes that always stank? Could he stand up and speak, and how would he be received? What if God intended to change people’s lives with his words?

It is not enough to expect people to give “words of knowledge” during an allocated time in the church meeting. Imagine if I were to stand up and give this as a speech! Not only that, but many of God’s people are introverted, they can’t stand up before a hundred, but they do have things which are important to say. We must accommodate these people!

I cannot imagine how many people could have been saved, or how many lives could have been changed, if only God had been allowed to use any believer he saw fit for the task at hand.