TILL HE COMES Blog

Ben posted a comment on one of my posts, and I went and read his blog (as I do with everyone who comments on my blog..so if you want to be read…make a comment!), and found an article he wrote called “I’m Tired” about his experiences in church. Here is some of what he wrote:

I’m tired….

I’m tired of people being entertained and not being discipled (not suggesting these HAVE to be mutually exclusive)

I’m tired of the poor not being fed. (I couldn’t tell another person asking for some money to feed their children that we cant give them anything (because its policy) when we have 6 plasma screens hanging on our stage - I know the story of the costly perfume etc but I don’t think this means thats it ok to have expensive toys and NOT look after the poor).

I’m tired of hearing/talking about how to “DO” church and want to start hearing/talking about how we “BE” the church.

I’m tired or having to wonder if these very senior Christian leaders are even saved.

I’m tired of evangelism and missions ‘not really being the thing that we do’.

I’m tired of controlling leadership.

I’m tired of legalism.

I’m tired of Christian Celebrity.

I’m tired of 90% of the congregation not being ‘engaged’

I’m tired being of being sung at in ‘worship’

I’m tired of paper work and just want to get my hands dirty!

I’m tired of being judged.

I’m tired of christianity only being accessible to the intelligent.

I’m tired of preaching where its all about me.

I’m tired of preaching that suggests that Jesus died so that I can have a Ferrari. (I mean what’s wrong with a porsche?

I’m tired of christianity being ‘Sunday-10am-centric’.

I’m tired of people thinking that I’m backsliding if I skip a service.

I’m tired of the mindset that I have to dress up to honour God when I go to meet him at the church at 10am on Sunday. Do they not realise that God was with me all week, when I woke up, when I had breakfast and even when I farted?!

I’m tired of being tired.

You can read the rest of Ben’s post here.  Ben, I’m Tired too! Great post. Keep ‘em coming.

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We previously asked the question, “Who is the church service for - believers or unbelievers?” (See Part 1 and Part 2). We saw that depending on how you answer that question determines whether you are going to focus on teaching believers or reaching out to unbelievers (aka seekers) in your “church service.” However, statistics and surveys reveal that in general, disciple-making churches don’t turn out very good disciples, and seeker-sensitive churches tend mostly to attract Christians from other churches. So both approaches are failing in both discipleship and evangelism.

I suggested that the solution to this dilemma is to ask different questions. First, What is church? and second, What is the church service? With basic answers to these questions, we can now see that the only time “church service” is happening is when a group of believers (the church) are actually meeting the needs of someone else (serving), whether these needs are spiritual or physical. To be balanced, a church should focus on both spiritual and physical needs. Who is the church service for? It is for anybody that that the church is serving.

Ideally, a group of believers could meet together for prayer, Bible study, and fellowship, then as a group, go and put into practice what they have learned in Scripture. They could do this all on one day, or split it up during the days of the week, or even alternate weeks. This will work best when the same group of believers that learns together goes out and serves together as well. Other than these few things, I cannot find any clear guidelines in Scripture on when the church is supposed to meet and/or what they are supposed to do.

This will radically free you from the constraints of what has come to be known as “church.” Tune in tomorrow to see what I mean.

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I am not sure how the hour from 11:00-12:00 on Sunday morning (or whenever you “go to church”) became known as “The Church Service.” Probably, the term is too ingrained in our church culture to change it, but it is one of the most tragic misnomers of Christianity.

First of all, little actual service takes place. If we define service as “using your spiritual gifts to edify and meet the needs of others, then on Sunday morning, only the Sunday school teachers, the ushers, the music team, the pastor, and a few others are “serving.” I suppose one could make an argument that putting money in the offering plate is “serving” and in some sense, simply showing up is an encouragement to the pastor, but is this really what is meant by ”Christian service”?

Second, it is tragic that we have segmented off an hour or two of our week and called it the “Service Time.” Check most church websites and bulletins, and they have their “Services Times” listed. The implication is that if you show up at one of these times, you are involved in Christian service. And if you ask most Christians what they do in their “Service time” they will talk about praying, singing, and listening t0 someone teach them from the Bible. Is this really service?

Somehow, we need a radical shift in how we schedule our church functions and programs. We need to have actual “Service times” where we get together and go help someone in our church or in our community. Mow lawns, feed the hungry, help single mothers with their kids. Then, we can come together as Christians for times of celebration, prayer, and teaching, but we probably shouldn’t call such times ”service.”

You probably aren’t going to get your church to change any of this, but how about you personally? How can you put the service back in “church service”?

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Yesterday we looked at the two most common formats for church services. Some focus on teaching and training Christians, while others focus on reaching out to unbelieving seekers. Both have weaknesses.

Teaching churches focus on training Christians, but do a relatively poor job of reaching the lost. They will often say that outreach and evangelism is the job of the individual Christian, and you will hear them say things like “Healthy sheep naturally reproduce.” But little evangelism actually takes place. And, as it turns out, though many of the believers in these churches know their Bibles well, few of them actually live out what they know in their day-to-day lives, nor are they reaching out with the gospel, which challenges the idea that these sorts of churches are actually doing a good job making disciples. So such churches fail at reaching out, and ultimately, fail at making disciples.

Seeker sensitive churches try to fix this by making their church programs and services more welcoming to unbelievers. They seem to do a great job at this. They will often offer Saturday or weeknight services for the Christians to help them mature, or will encourage believers to get involved in home groups for discipleship. But in reality, few disciples are brought to maturity. Furthermore, it has become increasintly evident that although these churches do grow numerically, most of their growth is transfer growth from other churches, rather than actual evangelism growth. So unbelievers are really not being reached. Such churches fail at reaching out, and ultimately, fail at making disiciples.

The problem with both models is the same: the church cannot focus primarily on training believers or primarily on reaching unbelievers. Both are needed. But even churches that try to do both are generally quite weak in one or the other. So who is the church service for - believers or unbelievers? The answer is: “Wrong question.”

The correct questions are “What is the church?” and “What is the church service?” We will begin looking at those questions in the days ahead.

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One question I have been mulling over recently is “Who is the church service for - believers or unbelievers?” Those who answer “believers” will often have church services that cater to the needs and desires of Christians. There will be an emphasis on programs and teaching that meet the needs of Christians. The sermons will often center on teaching Christians what they need to know to be better Christians. The songs will often use terms and ideas that Christians are familiar with. The programming will center around issues that Christians are dealing with. In the churches I have pastored, this is the approach I used. But we always did a poor job of reaching unbelievers, as do most churches who follow this model.

Unbelievers who visit a church that is focused on “making disciples of Christians” will often be confused and weirded out by what goes on: “What’s with all the teaching from Romans? What does ‘justification’ mean? You say Jesus is coming back? That sounds a bit like the legends that say King Arthur is returning. Why do I want to learn ‘Christian business principles’? I don’t really want to be ‘washed in the blood of the lamb’ or be the ‘bride of Jesus.’ ”

Some churches have understood that much of what the church does and says is a little strange to unbelievers, so they try to look at things from the perspective of an unbeliever, and make the church more “seeker sensitive.” They gear the church service not toward the Christian, but toward the non-Christian who knows next to nothing about the Bible or church traditions. This tends to attract lots of crowds, and even generates lots of new believers, which is great, but ends up allowing most of these new believers to remain in relative immaturity. Bill Hybels and Willow Creek have recently announced this fact for their own church. The “seeker sensitive” model, while it attracts large crowds, does a poor job of bringing those crowds to spiritual maturity.

Is there a balance or middle ground between the two? I think there is, which we will begin looking at tomorrow. We will see that the solution to the problem begins by reassessing who the church service is for.

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