“…for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till us all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head - Christ - 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” (Ephesians 4:12-16)
The writer of Hebrews said, “..exhort one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” (3:13)
Again the obvious question arises. How can we do this in the present situation and under the present system? The answer is that we can’t without radical change in both church structure and our lifestyle.
The way traditional church is structured insulates the weak believer from the stronger one thus preventing real spiritual growth. The structure also tends to facilitate the power of spiritual gravity which, rather than encouraging the weak to be empowered, encouraged by and accountable to a stronger believer the system seems to pull the strong down to the general level of mediocrity and cause the weak to fake it and put on their spiritual garments at the door instead of seeking help to advance in the way of Christ.
This tendency is especially prevalent in the “mega-churches” where it is so easy to get lost in the crowd and remain isolated. there is virtually no mega-church that I can find which is not established as a personality cult. Bonhoeffer says, “Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual natural, is worldly and has no place in the Christian community; indeed, it poisons the Christian community.” [1]
Another factor that is present in today’s church structure is in order for the machine to run smoothly and in order to fulfill the “wish dream” of the pastor it is almost always necessary for the Senior pastor to spend a considerable amount of time and energy in recruiting workers for every project that is included in his vision. There is nothing particularly wrong with doing work for a church, even mundane thankless tasks like toilet cleaning, (in fact, if Jesus is right, that might be one of the best jobs) but when someone is being recruited for different positions they are seldom asked to pray and seek the Lord as to whether it might be his will for them to fulfill that particular task. It only seems important that the Church has a need and someone needs to fill it. What happens is that in many churches people end up doing particular tasks that they may not be called or equipped to do and they slowly become board, irritated and finally quit, or their sense of duty will not permit them to tell the pastor to find someone else to do the job and they continue to do it angry. Since relatively few want to do the work the few that do end up over committed, stressed out and finally quit also. The pastor may not literally throw out the non-working member he just doesn't have time in his busy schedule to mend the broken lives of wounded warriors, after all it’s just easier to recruit and train new ones. The final result of much of this is after a few years of business as usual you can see a trail of dead bodies along the trail that the Senior Pastor is blazing.
With everyone so busy what we call fellowship takes place for the most part on the “chit-chat” level and occasionally moves up to the, “I have a need” level but there is no thought given to the concept that all real fellowship takes place IN CHRIST.
Even if just two of us meet at Starbucks for coffee do I consider the fact that both of us are in Christ and that when we meet together Christ himself is in our midst? Do we include him in our conversation.
Do I consult the Lord beforehand as to whether my brother might need encouragement, prayer, or maybe even a gift?
The mediation of the cross in our relationships needs to be paramount.
What does that look like in real life? Our tendency is to want to hang out with people like us, people with common interests, those who don’t irritate me or say things that make me uncomfortable. Some only form relationships with people of the same race, ethnic group or socio-economic status. I may be moved by the Holy Spirit to spend time with a person who makes me uncomfortable or I just don’t like but there is a reason why the Holy Spirit has placed us together. Maybe God wants me to lift him up or encourage him or maybe the rubbing is going to help smooth off some of my rough edges. When the cross mediates in my relationships I don’t choose who I will spend time with by personal preference, I allow the Holy Spirit to dictate those relationships.
We need to consider what it means to avoid the overarching influence in our relationships of eros and the absence of the influence of agape’.
Jesus in his relationships with others was always moved by compassion. He didn’t choose to go to dinner at Zachaus' house because he knew Zachaus was rich and would have good food and plenty of it. He went because he was moved by the Holy Spirit.
A good friend of mine who was being recruited by a “Senior Pastor” for a position in the local church (a church of about 700 members) Over coffee, at their first meeting the pastor said to my friend, “I need to ask you for permission to speak into your life.” To which my friend replied, “The only people who get to speak into my life are my friends, if you want to speak into my life you will have to become my friend.” The pastor seemed puzzled, expecting the politically correct answer and replied with something to the effect that he had a team of 150 people in leadership and didn't know if he would have time to develop a real friendship.
If we are brutally honest with ourselves most of us would have to admit that we have very few or no real friends. Some of us don't even dare to speak into our own lives much less that of another. We are not good enough friends with ourselves to spend serious time in quiet and think about what we want out of life.
This in a nut shell expresses one the major malfunction of churches today and why we are having so much trouble taking people past the mundane levels of Christianity into real discipleship. It is what another friend of mine said, “We all lead such busy lives.”
It seems that we have bought into the “American Dream” without seriously considering whether it is delivering on its promises. For many of us, when we came to Christ, the Christian life was presented to us so entwined with the American dream that we accepted both without question. I believe it is time to reconsider both in the light of the teachings of Jesus.
What do you really want out of life and is what you are doing presently propelling you forward toward that end? Most of us feel enslaved by the way we are living, we want out but we don't know how to make the changes necessary to accomplish that, some are not willing to take the risk, some have shared with me that they hate their job and their lives as they are but they fear that any substantial change, especially one that required any economic adjustments would land them speedily in divorce court. That's called the blame game, “Well if it wasn’t for this or that I would change things. If I didn't have this family situation, this debt, this job”, etc.
Others are hoping that something will happen even without their concerted effort or really thinking through the situation that God will miraculously change things. I call this “magical thinking.” I believe in miracles but let’s face it, how many cases do you know about where anyone has seen substantial change in their lives without any applied effort? Dallas Willard said, “People go around saying we can’t do anything without Christ, that’s true but if you do nothing it will be without Christ.”
So we need to do some serious thinking and ask some probing questions.
How many years do you have left on the planet?
Where do you want to end up at the end of your pilgrimage here?
What do you want to instill in your kids before it’s too late?
Will they have nothing to look forward to but the same mundane life of working so you can consume, consuming so you feel like you have some sense of self worth, copulate, make some babies so they can take up where you left off and die.
It’s like one writer said something like, “We work overtime to get money to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like.” Corporate minds have convinced us to drink the cool aid of corporate commitment by dangling the carrot of making big bucks and retiring early. Is it worth it?
When I have traveled in the rural areas of Latin America and stayed for a few days with the people I have always noticed the rhythm of life that is prevalent in the villages. It’s true they work really hard during planting and harvest times but in between they don't have a lot of responsibility. Even when they are hard at work with planting or harvest there is a rhythm and simplicity in what they do. The work is simple enough so they can work and pray at the same time. They take moments to stretch, look up at the sky. They live close to the earth, they know their plants and talk to Jesus about them.
Maybe Jesus will speak to some of us to adjust our lifestyle and quit perusing dreams that fail to produce results. I believe Jesus can reveal new and imaginative was of living and working that will allow people to work a lot less at “earning a living” and have more time to spend with Him and with our families. First we have to be willing to follow Him wherever he goes!
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