By: Dr. Monte
Shanks.
Dr. Shanks is
a professor with Liberty Seminary online.
“. . . let us press on to maturity. . .” Heb.
6.1
I recently
ate a peach purchased from a nearby store.
Peaches just don’t taste like they used to, and it’s not just me. The fact is that today’s peaches come from
commercial farms who grow peaches that have more to do with their aesthetics and
durability rather than taste. Believe it
or not, it’s more about how they look then flavor. The biggest problem, however, is that they regularly
harvest peaches before they are fully ripe.
The idea is that they will transport better and then they will reach
maturity at market; consequently, there is less waste in transport. Less waste means a better bottom line. There is just one major problem with this
approach; generally speaking once a peach is harvested it stops ripening. Consequently, if a peach is harvested before
it is fully ripened it suffers “arrested development,” and the end result is
that they just don’t taste as good as they should. You may be wondering whether peach growers
know this. Of course they do, but it’s
more about the business of staying in business.
People will always eat peaches, so who cares if they don’t taste as good
as they used to.
Unfortunately,
the same can be said of many Evangelical churches. They are in the business of “Evangelicalism”
and its aesthetics, which today has very little to do with actually producing
mature believers. This is also a fact and
not an opinion. Those of us teaching at
seminaries are increasingly confronted with students who lack a genuinely mature
faith, knowledge of the scriptures, and a functional understanding of
theology. This is true whether they are 22
or 42, 52, or 62. For many churches
Christian maturity doesn’t seem to be highly valued, much less an important
goal or concern of the average church’s leadership.
Many
ministries are more worried about what their buildings look like, the number of
people showing up, who is participating, the images they project, and what is
going on rather than evaluating the “products” of their efforts. I had a
telling conversation with a friend in seminary some years ago, and he was
bemoaning that his church was dying, but he had hope that things would soon
change. I asked him what was the reason
for his optimism, and he said that the church had decided to paint its
sanctuary a different color. I didn’t
have the heart to say anything, but I remember thinking of how the early church
grew while enduring severe persecution.
The persecution was so bad that at times believers meet in the catacombs
under Rome in order to avoid detection. They
met in underground graveyards with corpses surrounding them; nevertheless they
continued to reach more and more people with the gospel. I couldn’t believe my friend was convinced
that repainting a sanctuary was going help solve the problems facing his
ministry.
Unfortunately,
more and more churches are obsessed with similar approaches to ministry. We are into the aesthetics of activities, and
the unspoken attitude is that if we have the “right” aesthetics or do enough of
the “right” activities then God will inevitably bless our efforts and we will
see growth and have an impact. Such an approach to ministry usually requires
“all hands on deck” (which generally never happens as anyone involved in church
activities knows). Such urgency
regularly involves recruiting individuals for these activities who usually have
no idea about why the event was planned, what the “goal” of the event is, or
even of how to properly carry out the event.
In essence, we regularly “pick” people to participate in our activities
and “transport” them into “leadership” roles and responsibilities before they
are really fully equipped or trained for ministry—which in and of itself can
have a detrimental effect upon the success of any event. That being said, there is a more sinister outcome
with this approach to “ministry,” which is that we inadvertently create within those
we recruit the false impression that what they are engaged in is “ministry,”
and that this is how “real” ministry occurs.
We unfortunately create within them a false paradigm of what truly constitutes
actual ministry.
When we carry
out church activities with this approach we are not discipling people in their
relationship with the Lord or equipping them to become effective ministers of
the gospel. Ironically, we are doing the
exact opposite; in reality we are arresting their development not only in their
relationship to the Lord, but also how to reach others for Christ. We are training them to be busy, to be
active, and to be seen. We are not
training them on how to minister with Jesus and in his name. And what usually happens with this approach
to church growth is that sooner or later many—who might have otherwise continued
to grown in their relationship to the Lord and might have become mature leaders
of ministries—inevitably burn up and drop out of the entire “church thing.” Often they become victims of our desperate
need for manpower rather than people who become excited about reaching others
for Christ. And when the next person
comes along and asks them to get involved at church often the reply is “I’ll
think about it,” or “been there and done that.”
Church leaders need to wake up and realize that ACTIVITY does not equal
MINISTRY. Ministry can happen at any
activity, but simply scheduling an activity does not mean that ministry will
actually occur. So, if your wondering
what kind of role or impact you are having at your church then here is a quick
test. Take out a sheet of paper and write
down what you are responsible for at your church. If what you write down resembles more of a
“to do list” then a list of names of people you are investing in, then you are
on your way to becoming an “event coordinator” rather than a “fisher of men.”
