A Blog for the Church

Have you ever stopped and asked yourself that question?  It’s one that most of us don’t ask enough.  The question itself isn’t particularly profound; it’s quite simple, really.  But if you take the time to explore the answer, it can really change things.

I started thinking about this because of a story I read about a house church in Gilbert, AZ which recently received a violation because codes in that city prohibit religious gatherings of any size (including Bible studies) from meeting in a home.  The funny thing is that just about any other group can meet in homes with no problem.  But that’s not why I am writing this post.

The interesting thing to me about this story is that the violation came as the result of a sign that a code compliance officer saw on the side of the road advertising the church’s meeting times.

A house church…with a sign advertising their service.

The house church is fighting back and their legal representation is challenging the city on the basis of the law being unconstitutional, which has actually put them on the map…a fact that I’m sure will prove beneficial to them in the long run since, in a house church, it’s typically hard for people to know you exist.

But why did they have a sign in the first place?

For some reading this, that may actually sound like a ridiculous question.  Why wouldn’t a church have a sign? Every good church has a sign and some of the best churches even have billboards, commercials, newspaper advertisements and Jonas Brothers concerts.

All of that, we tell ourselves, is just another way that we can engage culture and get people to come to our church so they can hear the Gospel message.

But let’s stop and ask: why are we doing this?

I could easily paint any church with a sign as lazy: instead of reaching out to their community, they’re just trying to attract people to come in. But I honestly don’t think that’s the case. I think most churches are sincere in their desire to see people repent of their sins and make Jesus Lord of their life.

But good intentions don’t make up for poor decision-making.

By the way, poor decisions are not always stupid decisions.  Stupid decisions are easy to spot because, well, they’re stupid.  Poor decisions can be more subtle.  Poor decisions make the cut and actually cause things to happen because, on some level, they seem like really good ideas.  They appeal to a certain niche or address a certain problem in a way that makes sense.

What makes a decision poor, though, is a lack of perspective.  It actually does make sense to have a church sign…until you realize that you’re playing the world’s games, competing in a market where your church sign message stands among millions of other messages, and so fails to stand out.

If it takes a church sign for your community to know there is a church in the area, something is wrong.

You’ve probably heard by now that churches really need to ask this question: “If our church were to disappear tomorrow, would our community notice?”

That is all to say – ditch the signs, folks.  If people in your community don’t realize there is a church wherever you are meeting, signs are the least of your worries.  And it’s not just signs, either. It’s all that stuff I mentioned earlier; it’s anything that falls under the marketing category.

As long as you have the sign, you have an excuse not to be a light to your community.  But when all that stuff is put away, the people in your church have to shine.

People are the only hope you have for your community to learn about your church.

Participate: Choose something that you do regularly and ask the question: why am I doing this?
Engage: What other questions could you ask that will help you determine whether you should continue doing something?
Own: Take this question to your church, small group, or even family and see what it is that God might be leading you to do.

Note from Ken Eastburn: Let me introduce the author of this blog post: his name is Bob Sears.  We serve together as leaders within The Well alongside two other gentlemen. We decided that for this blog to be more authentic to the communal nature of what we’re doing with Leave the Building, it’s important to bring others into the conversation.  Hopefully, it doesn’t stop with Bob…I’d love to have many others chime in as well (send us an email at blog@leavethebuilding.com if you’re interested in writing a guest post).  He is a good man, loves the church, and is pretty darn smart.  I hope you enjoy what he will be challenging you with today and in the weeks and months to come.  Now, on to the blog:

Here’s a surprising fact: we at The Well spend a lot of time thinking about the Church.  Not just our church, but the Church: where we’re at, where we’re not, and what it would take to get us to where we need to be.

That’s probably no surprise to you.

But we’re not the only ones…and that is truly a good thing.  Yet, even when others spend their time thinking about this kind of stuff, it’s probably likely that we will come to different conclusions about the direction that we should head.

That recently happened for me.

Ed Stetzer is a missiologist and the President of Lifeway Research.  He is a passionate follower of Christ and spends his life discerning trends and analyzing data related to Christianity in order to determine where we are and where we need to go.  I respect him and appreciate what he is doing to spur the church on.  But he recently spoke at Saddleback’s Radicalis Conference and said something that I would like for us to explore.

“If you love Christ, you’ll love his church. And if you’ll love his church, you’ll want to see more of them.”

He said this during a talk on church planting at this conference. And, according to this Christian Post article, Stetzer is convinced that church planting “is central to societal transformation and worldwide evangelization.”  He even shared a statistic that says the membership to baptism ratio of new church plants was found to be 14 to 100.

New churches, it seems, are doing a better job of reaching the world and making disciples than old churches.  Thus, says Stetzer, we should be planting churches.

But is church planting really the thing that is going to get us to where we need to be, where God is calling us?

For some, no doubt, that will definitely be true.  God may very well be calling some folks to plant churches and, if that is the case, they should do so.  But I have reservations about the idea that merely planting more churches will produce the kind of long-term change we’re hoping for.

I don’t think it can.

Not to disrespect Stetzer, but I’m concerned that we’ll just end up with more of the same-old, results-orientated, attractional type of churches that we’ve already experienced…only repackaged.

The logic boils down to this: do what works . . . and then multiply it as many times as possible until it stops working.

But isn’t that what got us into this predicament in the first place?  Didn’t the church move from houses into buildings because it “worked?”  Didn’t the church start adopting things like pulpit preaching, pews, and small groups because they worked?  Isn’t that why many of us went seeker-friendly, purpose-driven, or some other variation of a hyphenated strategy….because it worked?

And is a search for what works all we’re supposed to be devoted to?

I don’t think so.  I hope not.

So, question: if we’re not going to focus merely on doing what works, what should we focus on?

Answer: the same things the Church was focused on before they tried doing what works.

The same thing Jesus was focused on: discipleship.  And get this part: we should be focused on it whether it “works” or not.

Stetzer’s not all wrong, he’s just putting the cart before the horse.  What happens if we plant more churches but fail to disciple people?  Even if they manage to have a good run initially, they’re bound to crash and burn, if not physically then spiritually.

It’s not more churches that we need, it’s better churches…composed of better disciples.

So that brings up some questions I’d like to throw out to you readers.

Participate: What does it take for better disciples to be made? Identify examples in your life of quality discipleship and ask yourself what made it an experience where you or others grew in Christ.
Engage: What kinds of things do better disciples do?  What can churches do?  What has worked for you? Write out a list of things you will do in your ministry setting on an ongoing basis to increase the level of discipleship.
Own: Who is in your sphere of influence? As you create this list and begin to live it out, how will you share with others what you’re learning about discipleship within the church?

I’m adamantly convinced of it.  The Church can beat the government.  I’m convinced that the power of the Holy Spirit is more powerful than the democratic process.

Now before someone gets all Romans 13 on me, hear me out.  I’m not at all talking about whether Christians should submit to governing authorities.  I’m talking about Census 2010.

Don't let the mean look fool you. I'm here to help!

That’s right, folks.  This month Uncle Sam is sending out forms to all of us with just 10 questions on them that will help him to do all kinds of things, I’m sure.  One of the ways they’re billing this decade’s census, which is really brilliant, is how much the census is going to help us.  On the website, they use phrases like, “to advocate for causes,” “research markets,” “locate pools of skilled workers,” “better infrastructure,” “more services,” “a brighter tomorrow.”

Makes you want to do the census, doesn’t it?

The problem with the fact that the government collects this information and then allocates funds to help deal with some of the challenges is that it lets us off the hook…and everyone loses.

One of the problems with the Church is that we are often too willing to let the government do our job for us.  So in the case of the census, we might be willing to let the government get to know our neighbors and communities for us, dispense some funds to help deal with whatever problems we might currently have, and deal with other matters that come up or that we might care about.

But I confess that to do this would be to concede defeat altogether.

The Church can do better.  Here’s how:

Personal Relationships

The key question is: does the government care about us?  Sure, maybe.  They might care about whether I’m getting adequate food, or if I’m in trouble, someone will come help me, but is that really what we mean by “care?”  Is that all we need? I don’t think so.  I think every one of us wants more than to have our physical needs met, but to have somebody care about who we are: what we think, what we’re afraid of, what we’re passionate about, etc.  And we want to know that, in the midst of our thoughts, fears, and passions, we’re still loved and accepted.

The government can’t do that, and certainly not through a 10 question survey. But the Church can.

It happens as Christians get to know the people around them: their neighbors, their co-workers, the people they see at the gym, etc.  It starts with the willingness to begin a conversation and happens as the people of God spend themselves in the interest of others.

Spreading a Hope that Transcends the Temporal

This, of course, is the primary way the Church beats the government.  As Christians we believe this world is not all there is.  We’re able to say that the hope that trumps all others is that which is placed in Jesus Christ and that, because of our eternal hope, we’re able to weather whatever this world hands to us.

The government can’t offer that kind of hope.  It is an institution whose only interest is in this world.

But we can do it.

We can do it as we share with others about our hope.  We do it as we live with our hope firmly rooted in Jesus Christ – and that impacts everything: our relationships, finances, cares, worries…the whole thing.

I’m not saying anything new, here.  Heck, I’m sure several have already stopped reading precisely because nothing I’m saying hasn’t already been said before.  I’m just reminding us of the advantage we, as the people of God, have in this world.

Participate: Knock on the door of someone you don’t know in your community and get to know a new neighbor. Really. Try it just once and see how it goes.
Engage: If we’re going to beat the government, the people in our communities will need to expect interaction with us regularly.  What can you do in your neighborhood to make sure that happens?
Own: Identify a need in your community and organize a team to do something about it.

What other advantages does the Church have over the government?

What does it take to change someone’s heart?

I wrote back in November about the extravagant spending of a church in Dallas to renovate their buildings in an attempt to communicate the transformative power of God to their community.  My contention was not primarily the spending, but the fact that they think a building can communicate something as deeply personal and human as the transformative power of God.

I had a hard time finding people who disagreed with me.

But I suspect more people will disagree with what I’m about to say and I’d like to venture a guess as to why.  I think that for the most part we hold principles loosely, pulling them out when it benefits us or validates our actions and letting them go when they stand in opposition to our actions.  So that’s my guess, now on to the reason for this post.

I don’t think the Focus on the Family Tebow commercial worked.

Barna recently surveyed Americans about the commercial.  The numbers are interesting, but I don’t want to place my focus there in this blog post despite the fact that it seems some folks may have “reconsidered” their position.  Rather, I want to ask why we are continually being fooled into believing that there are shortcuts to transformation and why we’re willing to give Focus a free pass.

When was the last time you saw a commercial that changed your life?

If you can answer that question with a description of the commercial and how it changed your life (rather than just cause you to laugh, or even think about an issue) I would absolutely love for you to share that in the comments below.  Otherwise, my guess is that .001% of people will be able to answer with anything other than, “Never.”

So what made us think that this commercial would be the one?  Because it is something that we care about?  Because we want it be the one?

I’m not even talking about whether the commercial was made well, that’s not the issue.  Just like FBC Dallas won’t be able to communicate the transformative power of God to their community by having a sweet building, so Focus wouldn’t be able to change anyone’s life through a commercial…no matter how sweet, funny, or endearing it is.

A commercial cannot change hearts. Not even a commercial with Tim Tebow, aired during the Super Bowl and about abortion.

But that doesn’t mean there is not still hope for babies. There is.  But – and read this next part slowly – that hope won’t be found in commercials, pamphlets, billboards, videos, songs, buildings, or books…that hope will be found in you because Jesus Christ has redeemed you and you are now a witness for him.

Changing hearts doesn’t require a $3 million Super Bowl commercial spot.

Changing hearts, even about abortion, only requires the kind of love that is found in Christ Jesus being spread to others because you are willing to love them with the same love that has been shown to you.

It doesn’t cost $3 million to change someone’s heart.  It only costs your time, energy, and love.

What do you think?  Did the commercial cause you or someone you know to have a change of heart?  What could Focus have done differently with the $3 million?

Being a church leader can sometimes be like a ride on a roller coaster.  With everything to manage, people to care for, budgets to make, sermons to prepare, meetings to attend, prayers to say…well, it can take a toll.

And that is when things are going well!

Imagine how roller-coastery things can get in the midst of a bad economy.  People are losing their jobs, the offering goes down, you have to let staff go, you can no longer serve free coffee…if you’re not careful, the roller coaster can make you sick.

So I got to thinking: if Jesus were a year and a half into his ministry today, what would he do in the midst of a bad economy?  What would be the markers of his ministry?  How would he survive the economy?  Here are some ideas:

Radical Calls to Discipleship

Jesus would have the audacity to ask someone to leave everything behind for the sake of following him and if they didn’t he would move on.  Jesus wouldn’t be interested in persuading the lukewarm.  He would constantly say, “All or nothing.”  His vision was such that the half-hearted would impede it.  Thus, he turned several (potentially even many) would-be disciples away.

Extreme Focus on People

Jesus’ ministry would never be too busy for people.  If someone was in need, he would stop and care for them be it through healing or just conversation.  This is true even if Jesus had a hundred things on his agenda.

Quality Not Quantity

Jesus wouldn’t care about how many people were following him.  In fact, his teaching about dying to self, loving one’s enemies, and life in the Kingdom caused many to stop following him.  But Jesus would be okay with that because he would probably think that just a few well-formed, well-trained disciples could make much more of a difference than a thousand kind of formed, somewhat-trained disciples.

Resourcing Ministry Through People

Jesus would have a huge vision for ministry and it would take a massive amount of resources to accomplish it.  But Jesus wouldn’t beg for money or take a special offering.  Instead, he would enable and equip people to do the ministry trusting that when they seek first the Kingdom of God, everything else is given as well.

Focus on His Mission

Most of all, Jesus would have laser focus on his mission.  He wouldn’t get side-tracked with political issues or be co-opted by what someone else thinks he should do.  He would know exactly what his mission was and would give that mission his full attention, making sure that every activity, every conversation were pointing to his vision.

In other words, were Jesus to have come today in the midst of a bad economy, he wouldn’t have changed a thing.  Sure, things would look different, he might wear jeans or travel by car.  He might be known for hanging out at bars and getting in the faces of popular preachers, but his values would remain the same.

We church leaders have to ask whether we share the same values.  Sometimes we say we do, but we don’t actually live out those values.  And sometimes, our values are just plain different: quantity, big crowds, easy preaching, etc.

So what’s my point?

If, in the midst of a bad economy, we are forced to change either held or lived values, our values were askew to begin with. I cannot imagine Jesus’ church sharing in the same struggles that many of us do.  But I don’t think that’s because Jesus would have some sort of Joel Osteen celebrity status with lots of rich people to fill up the offering plate.  It would be because Jesus had different values than we do, values that were wholly independent of any sort of economical health – that wouldn’t just be an accident or the result of some divine gift, it would be an intentional, calculated effort to build a church that nothing could overcome – not even the economy.

And if our churches couldn’t do that, we may need to leave the building of a booming-economy-dependent-church.

Participate: Write down your held values.  Do they match your lived values?  Do they match Jesus’?

Engage: Write down the changes your church has had to make as a result of the economy.  What would it look like to keep those changes long-term?

Own: Identify one lived value of yours that doesn’t line up with Jesus and outline a strategy for changing it.

What do you think, were there other characteristics of Jesus’ ministry that would thrive in the midst of a bad economy?  How might Jesus structure his ministry budget different from ours?

If you haven’t heard, there is currently a federal trial underway in California between two parties on opposite sides of the same-sex marriage debate.  While one party says the democratic process (e.g. Prop 8) should decide whether same-sex marriage is permitted, the other says it is unconstitutional to discriminate against homosexuals by not affording them the right to marry.

As you may have expected, Christians are keeping a close eye on the trial and are concerned about what the outcome might be.  Actually, “concerned” is a bit of an understatement.  Many Christians are downright fearful of the possibility of same-sex marriage and, as a result, pour enormous amounts of time, energy, and resources into campaigns to prevent it from becoming a reality.

It is not hard to see why – homosexuality is sinful according to the Bible (most notably, Romans 1) and the people of God cannot, in good conscience, condone the sins of someone else…even if they are not a believer.  Of course, there are many more sides to the conversation and reasons why homosexual marriage may be bad for society as a whole, but my point is not to address that debate directly.

Rather, I want to ask the question: how should Christians respond to the same-sex marriage debate – or any moral/political debate for that matter?

To answer that question, I’ve come up with three questions (for now…there may be more) that will be helpful in determining which moral/political pursuits are worth our time, energy and resources and which are not.

Is It a Matter of Justice?

Over and over in the Bible, the people of God are called on to stand against injustice.  The message is clear: God hears the cries of the oppressed.  In fact, it was because the Jews were severely oppressed while in Egypt that they were not permitted to oppress others.  So God instituted laws with provision for the poor and needy in mind.  Later in the Old Testament, various prophets stood over and against the Jewish people leveling accusations of injustice against them.

And then Jesus comes on the scene talking about “the least of these” and how when we take care of others, we are taking care of God himself and when we oppress others, we are oppressing God himself.

All of that to say, God cares about injustice and so should his people.  So if the issue at hand is one that is related to justice, we absolutely should spend time, money, and resources on it.  Anything less would actually be unchristian.

Will it Change Hearts?

This is a question that goes ignored all too often.  The assumption is that if something is right, it shouldn’t matter if people really agree with it or if it will change their hearts, it still needs to happen.  But if hearts are not changed by whatever moral/political pursuit we have our eyes set on, any change is likely to be short-lived or ignored altogether.  The reason is simple: people cannot perform for very long.  Further, many sins can be played out in more than just one way.  Banning a strip club in your town may be good, but people can still access porn or have affairs.

This external holiness that was not motivated by heart change was one of the sins of the Pharisees.  They were intent on cleaning the outside of the cup, but they left the inside filthy.  Jesus called them whitewashed tombs – they looked beautiful on the outside, but their hearts didn’t match their actions and they were dead inside (Matthew 23:25-28).

Jesus wasn’t impressed with external holiness then and he wouldn’t be impressed with it today.

Does it Further Our Goal?

This is the most important question.  At the end of Matthew 28, Jesus gives the Church her purpose and goal in this world: to make disciples.  If we succeed in all other things and cease to do this, we will have failed completely.  And if we fail in all other things and succeed in making disciples, we will have done our job well.  Even if we were able to curb injustice and set up a moral world where people didn’t harm each other or engage in sinful activity, we know that all have sinned and thus fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).  What good is it to gain the whole world and lose our souls?

So no matter how moral America or the world becomes, if we are not making disciples, we have to ask: what’s the point?

If a piece of legislation or moral issue cannot be answered with a “Yes” by at least one of these questions, it is not worth it.  Just because we might have something to say to a particular issue doesn’t mean it is worth it for us to make it a priority.  This is a matter of focus – something the Church lacks.  We can either get caught up in every fad and issue that comes around and respond or we can say a simple, “no” when that temptation creeps up.

We cannot serve two masters.

Disclaimer:

I am not saying it is wrong for us to vote in accordance with our conscience or faith.  If we have the opportunity to cast our vote, we should – that is one of the many benefits to living in a democratic society.  Rather, I’m asking the Church to decide what her priority is going to be and stick to it, even when there are other issues that come up that we might care about.

What do you think?  Does the effort to preserve traditional marriage pass the test?  Should there be additional questions added?

Sometimes Christians ask the wrong question.

For example, Christianity Today recently put out a press release that I happened to stumble on that compared the results of two different research projects with conflicting data.  One was a survey that found that those who are unchurched prefer more traditional, cathedral-like design when it comes to a church that they would be interested in going to.  The second was a study that found that churches planning to build, renovate, or remodel within the next 18 months are planning to go with more modern architecture.  They noted that these churches may be deterring those whom they are trying to reach.

Christianity Today put out their press release asking why there was a disconnect and (I think) subtly suggesting that churches build instead to attract the unchurched.

It makes sense.  If most churches ask how they can grow and the research shows that one way is to go with more cathedral-like architectural design, it just doesn’t make much sense to build differently.  Unless, perhaps, the church isn’t interested in attracting new people but is more concerned with what their current congregation thinks.  But that seems far-fetched.  I don’t know of a church that isn’t interested in reaching the unchurched.

But asking why churches don’t try harder to attract the unchurched is the wrong question entirely.

For one, it elevates what might be attractive to the point that it is deserving of consideration.  But I question whether it really should deserve consideration.  When reading the accounts of the early church in the New Testament, it is hard to come away with the sense that they did what they did in an effort to attract outsiders.  We have no indication that they even thought about what outsiders would think – instead they just did what they knew they were supposed to do which is be faithful in the instructions given to them by the Lord to make disciples.

That’s not to say that outsiders were never attracted to the church, but it never was the church’s intention to attract.

For two, attraction is temporary.  I know because I am (kind of) old.  Unlike George Clooney, after a certain point, the older I get the less attractive I become.  But this isn’t just true for our bodies; it is true for the church as well.

What may be considered to be attractive to the unchurched today will be considered passé tomorrow.  At some point, every style, every fad, every building, every program becomes outdated.  Our culture simply changes too much.

That being the case, there are two options: a church can either try to keep up with every passing attraction, burning through time, money, and resources, or we can continue to do what it is that we are called to and let the attractions come and go.

For three, attraction is an excuse not to love like we should.  After all, if we can get people to come to the church, we won’t have to do the hard work of going to them, meeting them where they are, and teaching them to be disciples of Christ in their own context.

The right question for a church to ask is not “What will attract the unchurched” but “What will help us to be the Church to the unchurched?”

And there lies the crux of the matter.  To ask what we can do to attract the unchurched is a question born out of ignorance.  For even if we manage to attract the unchurched enough to get them in the door, it will not be our building, style or programs that keeps them there. They will stay because of who we are.

Perhaps we should consider whether it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility for the unchurched to be attracted to a church that refuses to try to attract them and seeks instead to remain faithful to Christ’s commands.

There’s only one way to find out.

So here is my challenge. Identify one thing you as a church are doing to attract the unchurched. Talk with those involved and ask these questions:

“What would it look like to stop relying on attraction in order to engage those who need this ministry?”

“What would we have to do differently in our church if we stopped relying on marketing and attraction to reach out?”

If you are a blog reader like I am, you have surely seen how various bloggers compile their Top 10 lists from the previous years.  Sometimes, it is in relation to their cause: highlighting the top movies of the year, their top posts, top news stories, etc.  Well, I wanted to jump on that bandwagon by highlighting the Top 10 comments received in 2009 and offer a few words of my own in response.  I chose these comments based on their significance, the insight which they represented, etc.  As a disclaimer, this post is organized chronologically…so number 1 doesn’t mean it is the top one, it means it was the most recent one selected.  Make sense?

Everyone whose comment was selected has been contacted and I’ve asked them to come back and share where they are at and how they are “leaving the building” today.

Hopefully they will come back and chime in!

On May 1^st, 2009 I posted my second blog post titled “On the Move” where I began a series of posts about sharing The Well’s story.  A man named Dave commented and something he said really stuck out to me:

What I realized was I didn’t even know what the burdens were of those around me until we began to make the effort to be in each other’s lives (and not just one hour a week, but continuously).

I know exactly what he means…do you?  As you read about in a recent post, leaving the building is about taking stock and getting rid of whatever is in the way.  This has to be intentional, though, otherwise we’ll be fooled into thinking that what is normal is what is best, especially when that is all you know.  As Dave indicates in his comment, getting into each other’s lives takes an effort beyond seeing each other at church or small group.

That’s a building that many of us need to leave.

At the beginning of June (the 5th to be specific) as I continued in the series of sharing The Well’s story, I wrote about how There Are Benefits to Coming in After a Beat-Down contending that change doesn’t seem so bad after you’ve been beat up with the way things are.  Garrett Stewart commented and along with some words of encouragement, said the following:

I have developed a plan to bring up to my pastor for a movement like you have done. I am a student and the assistant pastor is my mentor and he likes the idea of a street ministry, but I am not sure of what he will think about this radical idea. Over the past few weeks I have asked believers and nonbelievers about the idea of a nontraditional church/ community outreach church and it is an overwhelming majority believe that will serve God well.

What I love about what Garrett said is that his passion to see the church be what it was meant to be is evident.  So much so that he even developed a plan for bringing it up to his pastor…as if bringing it up wasn’t enough!  Additionally, he is getting out there and asking others what kind of church they would be responsive to.  Brilliant.  Why don’t other churches think of doing that?

That’s an example of leaving the building if I’ve ever seen one – ask someone who doesn’t go to your church, or who doesn’t go to church at all, and see what kind of community they would be interested in becoming part of.

House churches are not easy.  Many of you know that is an understatement.  In my post, “Wobbly Legs and Growing Pains,” posted on July 1st, I talked about some of the difficulty of starting a house church and how adjusting to the needs and communities was somewhat painful at first.  Mike commented offering his experience with going to a house church model:

This summer we hit on the idea of canning our Sunday morning service in favor of a house-based weekly fellowship. It has been spectacular. I have seen more people step up in leadership in the past two months than in the previous two years and the emphasis has shifted from “an excellent worship service” to a deepening intimacy with God and one another.

What he said echoes something I wrote a few weeks ago as part of our House Church 101 series: gifts emerge only under a structure that requires them to.  Church-as-usual doesn’t offer that, it can’t.  The structure forbids it.  Further, leaving the building causes a shift in our focus and we ask: why are we doing this?  Without his building Mike observes it is intimacy with God and each other that is the point.  I have a hard time disagreeing.

Have you seen this to be true?  Why or why not?  What gifts of yours might come out if there was a structure that allowed for it?  What is the focus of your church service (look beyond what is said about the focus and discern what is practiced)?

As I started exploring issues that many other Christians were talking about, I decided that it might be helpful to do a take on the subject from the viewpoint of the leave the building cause.  As I wrote on October 6th about the heart of social justice being in the everyday, ongoing love of personal people (rather than programs), Kathy Bradley commented and said something very important:

We too easily confuse giving to God with donating to some program or organization. Maybe we want to since that’s the easy task. I’m becoming ever more convinced that giving to God more likely involves the giving of ourselves to one another, and perhaps “stuff” if needed.

What she says here touches on something I hadn’t previously addressed.  Often times we give money to a program or organization because it is the easy way out.  Instead of willfully entangling our lives with the broken, we often keep them at arms length and throw resources at them to help them solve their problems.  But perhaps that’s a building we need to leave, too – the one of impersonal help.

What do you think?

I must have been in the same mindset as I was when writing about how social justice is not a program when I wrote about how when it comes to eradicating poverty, we don’t need a bigger giant on October 13th.  Though poverty may be a big problem, the solution is actually small.  Mark Isherwood chimed in with some words of wisdom:

When we reach out and serve others, our needs are met by the church, which is every single Christian around us.

Sometimes we forget that “the church” isn’t a building or organization, but US.

Short and sweet, Mark’s words are impacting.  If, when we see a need or have one ourselves, we look to “the church” to meet that need, we are looking in the wrong place.  Instead, it is the community, those who we rub shoulders with and talk to regularly that will meet our needs just as we help to meet theirs.  And, believe it or not, this is the church.  It just looks different than we thought.

Is this something you’ve grasped, yet?  What is stopping you?

In what was one of my most controversial posts, I talked about The Controversy of Community (ironic, isn’t it?) on October 15th.  The post was born out of interaction I had with some folks on the blog about whether it is good for the individual Christian to lean on the community…they contended that we should lean on Christ alone – something that, to me, doesn’t exclude the community.  Rick Garner was a part of that conversation and shared something that was a change in direction, but good nonetheless:

…the weekly small group is likely the closest to “community” because it’s likely the easiest time to be relaxed…to be real…to not be on a timetable and confined to a program.

It’s also likely that the best chance to show love to a neighbor and/or get to know them is via a small group at a host home.

Community is where love grows.

Interesting that the closest we get to community is in small groups – a supplemental program to “normal church.”  Actually, it’s not interesting at all, it is sad – a blight on the church that community is secondary to what we call “church.”

Here’s a question worth considering: can community-less church really be considered “church?”  What do you think?

I decided on October 27th to tackle that age-old question, the one the disciples themselves were asking, the one that Jesus had to ask…yeah, you know it, “Should Christians Celebrate Halloween?”  Okay, well, maybe Jesus and the disciples didn’t wrestle with that question, but we sure do.  I particularly liked what Nick Love had to say:

There will always be people who will turn good things away from what they should be (or what they can be). But if we hide from every situation that has been corrupted, then we will miss out on our call for life completely!

But when we participate, we can be a part of the redemptive process of the Kingdom of God.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Do you agree with Nick?  If not, what makes that difficult?  Is there a building you need to leave?

What would you do with $130,000,000?  Give it to the poor?  Take care of your family?  Start a non-profit?  Build a church building?  Well that is exactly what FBC Dallas is doing (the church building, that is) – the most expensive church building project to ever take place in the U.S.  Their justification for it is that doing so will communicate the transformation of God to the folks in Dallas and that the building will be a beacon of truth.  Of course, I had to write about why this was a problem on November 12th, but someone who goes by verticalworldsolutions commented and said something profound:

If Christians were first called Christians at Antioch, it begs the question. Why? Was it their architectural skills? Was it the wealth they had acquired? No, it was the radical difference in their lives after they accepted Jesus Christ!!

Not only is this a challenge for FBC Dallas, it is a challenge for all of us.  If it were today that Jesus came and the rest of the world looked at us, would they call us “like Christ” because of our crosses, bumper stickers, and conservative politics?

Smells like a building.

The AIDS Healthcare foundation had an interesting campaign to promote free HIV tests saying, “No Judgmental Bullsh*t” which I blogged about on December 1st.  I wish they had been talking about the church.  Everyone knows what Christians are against: abortion, homosexuality, democrats, etc., but not many what Christians are for – unfortunately, that is true both for outsiders looking in and us insiders as well.  It seems we are good at being against and bad at being for.  When I asked what Christians should be for, johnlunt said this:

One thing we must be for is Jesus. He is the focal point. It must not be obnoxious. But everything else you mentioned we should be for should always point back to Jesus. He is the life changer. Does that mean bible thumping? No. Does it mean dropping his name in every sentence? No. It means though that we have an answer for what we do when we help the hurting. When we love on people who may not be very easy to love.

Being for Jesus…what a novel concept!  I wonder what would happen if we were for Jesus with more energy than all the things we are against?

What do you think would happen?  How would the church be better?  Is “against” a building we need to consider leaving?

We just passed the Christmas season a month ago and just like every year some Christians decided to make a fuss about retailers “offending them” by saying “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.”  I outlined why this was not just ridiculous, but actually unbiblical on December 8th and got the following response from MDSF:

I tend to see the “War on Christmas” as generally alarmist: sure enough “Happy Holidays” is trite and bland, but the Incarnation has nothing to do with what sales people say in stores…I’m just jaded enough to suspect that the War on Christmas is less about honoring the Incarnation than about various conservative organizations reminding potential donors that they exist and need money.

Ouch!  Those are strong words for conservative organizations, but he may be right.  Regardless, he is definitely right about the Incarnation (what we celebrate at Christmas, in case you were unaware) having nothing to do with what retailers choose to say to shoppers.  I don’t know about you, but I am baffled as to why Christians would care about this at all.  If non-Christians choose to live and act like non-Christians should we really be trying to modify their behavior while leaving their hearts unredeemed?

So there you have it – our Top 10 Comments of 2009.  Is there one that you found particularly useful?

When it comes to giving, many house churches have a problem.  For the most part, house churches don’t have much in overhead costs.  There is no building to maintain, no utilities to pay, no or few staff to pay, no budgets to fund, etc.  House churches are cheap and that is a good thing.

As a result, many house church leaders don’t know whether they should be asking their communities to give or, if so, how to go about it.  After all, if there aren’t overhead costs, what could you possibly say to someone who attends a house church that will motivate them to give?

And that’s the question I want to address today.  Before I do, though, I want to make clear that this is not just an issue for house churches, this is an issue for every church because every church has members who need to be taught how to give.

There are one of two paradigms a church can choose from when it comes to how they talk about giving.

Normal Church Paradigm: Giving to Meet Needs

Most of us who have been a part of a normal, traditional, meets-in-a-building church know that giving is a matter of meeting felt needs.  Case-in-point being Saddleback church.  Rick Warren asked members of Saddleback in the last few days of 2009 to give to make up a $900,000 deficit that emerged as the result of a significant decrease in giving around Christmas-time.  Members responded…and gave $2.4 million instead.

I in no way think badly of Warren or Saddleback for their actions, in fact I think it is a great testament to the generosity of the church members.

But, there is a problem that this story illustrates: for most churches, giving is matter meeting needs.  Without giving being at a certain level, churches need to take drastic measures: reducing budgets, cutting staff, and in the worst cases (or perhaps the best…) closing their doors.

Understand that I’m not railing against budgets, staff, or buildings.  I am, however, pointing out that no matter how good the programs or needs are, the church is ridiculously dependant on congregations to give money just so they can survive.

It doesn’t stop there, though.  Often times the church resorts to this paradigm even when the church itself doesn’t need money.  Perhaps the church is encouraging members to give so that the needs of others can be met: the homeless, the broken, the poor, the widow and orphan, etc.

It is great that churches are being awakened to the fact that there are needs outside of themselves and more important than their own, but the question must be asked, “What happens when the needs are met?  Should church members keep giving?”

That is the wrong question born out of wrong teaching.  There is a better way.

Better Church Paradigm: Giving to Give

At first glance, you may not be able to see why giving so that needs can be met is a bad thing, but doing so creates two problems: it necessarily holds quantity in high regard and it ignores how giving affects our own discipleship.

Let’s talk about that first one: giving to meet needs necessarily holds quantity in the highest regard.  When you really stop to think about it, it makes perfect sense – if there are 100 hungry children, the best giver will be the one who does the most good in feeding those children.  Consequently, those who think it an important cause, but can only give a little bit are, without intention, devalued.  It is important to note here that this is inevitable – no amount of trying to not devalue those who give less will change the fact that it will happen, it is an inherent flaw with the model.

Giving to meet needs also ignores our own discipleship.  There are two stories that will help us here.  The first is found in Mark 14:1-9.  While hanging out at Simon Peter’s house, a woman comes in with a jar of extremely expensive perfume and pours it on Jesus.  His disciples start freaking out saying, “Why this waste?  It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor!”  Jesus, in typical fashion, says, “Leave her alone!  She has done a beautiful thing to me.  You’ll always have the poor, but you won’t always have me.”

The second story is found in Mark 12:41-44.  Jesus sat down at the place where the offering was put and watched people as they put their offering in the temple treasury.  A lot of rich people put in a lot of money, but it was the woman who dropped in two mites (less than a penny) that Jesus was impressed with.  Why?  Because it was all she had.

These two stories demonstrate for us that giving is not primarily a matter of meeting needs.  Rather, giving is a matter of our love for and obedience to Jesus Christ.  This is true whether what we give is a very little amount or a very large amount.  In fact, amount doesn’t matter at all.  What matters is not how much we give, but that we give and that we do so sacrificially.

Why?  Because we cannot serve two masters.  And the only way to ensure that we do not try is to willingly dethrone our money by giving it away.

This changes everything.  Whereas giving to meet needs will cause us to carry a burden  that is too heavy for us, giving out of love and obedience to Christ will cause us to trust him all the more – for our own, as well as others’, needs.

And we will find, just as the disciples did, that giving as a matter of discipleship is liberating.

Your Turn

I’d like to ask you to go through a process similar to the one we at The Well went through as we explored what generosity was supposed to look like for us.  On our Resources Page you’ll find a document called “A Study on Giving/Generosity.”  If you’d like to explore this issue more and get a deeper understanding of generosity and how you can begin to shift to a better giving paradigm, I would encourage you to take some time to go through this study.

The Well church and the Leave the Building cause are not just house church things.

We get that often.

It is understandable, though.  The Well is a house church, after all, and we’ve decided to label our cause “Leave the Building” – what else would we be about?

Good question.  Today, I want to answer that question and in doing so, I’m going to challenge you to utilize a brand new resource we’ve developed.  Nothing fancy, just something that we hope is useful for people.

So if “Leave the Building” isn’t just about house churches, what is it about?

Identifying Our Idols

First and foremost, leaving the building is about taking stock of our lives, values, and practices and discerning patterns.  Though this may be a seldom-employed practice, it is crucial for our individual and communal growth.

When our traditional Southern Baptist church went through this process we began to realize something: our building was killing us…and we loved it.

It’s a funny thing about churches and even Christians in general…we do what we don’t want to do and what we don’t want to do, those things we do.  We are not only addicted to sin, we are addicted to the comfortable, the way things have always been, the status quo.  This is so true that we have a tendency to make sacred the status quo just because it works.

That is where we were.  We had saddled ourselves with a ridiculous monthly payment that made no sense at all just because we thought we had to be in a building. Luckily, as we learned about the move of God outside of the status quo, we began to realize that our building had become an idol, something that “worked” at one point and that somehow took on sacred status over time.

So, what is it for you?  When you take stock, do you sense that you’ve accepted something just because “that’s the way it is?”  Is there a discrepancy between what the early church needed and what you think you need?

Write those things down and keep them handy (sticking that paper in your Bible as a supplemental bookmark to the satin ribbon should do the trick).

Reacting to the Movement of God

It may be a subtle difference, but our task as the church is not just to do good, God-glorifying things, but to do whatever it is that God is doing…which most certainly is something that glorifies himself.  The reason why it is important to distinguish between the two is because we can spend our whole lives doing good, God-glorifying things and still miss what it is that God was doing and what it is that he was inviting us in on.

John 5 begins by telling the story of when Jesus healed the paralytic at the supposedly miraculous healing pool called Bethesda.  Though there were “a great number” of disabled people there waiting to be healed, Jesus went to one, asked him if he wanted to get well and then healed him.  Just one.  Peculiar, isn’t it?  He could have healed them all, couldn’t he?  Why just heal one?

Just a few verses later, Jesus is being challenged for performing miracles on the Sabbath and he says something quite interesting, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” Jesus, being God himself, could have healed not just everyone at that pool that day, but everyone who ever needed healing…past, present and the future.

And in doing so, there would be no doubt that it were glorifying to God.

Yet, he didn’t.  He did only what he saw the Father doing.

So it should be with us.  We can get caught up in doing all kinds of things for God and even have flourishing ministries, but if we are not following God in whatever He is doing, we are not, in the truest sense, Christians (“like Christ”).

As our church spent time in prayer and attempting to discern how God was moving, we kept coming back to this idea of leaving our building.  Trust me when I say this was not what we had in mind.  Still, God was persistent with us and we were committed to following him wherever he was going.

What about you?  Is there something that you keep coming back to, something unconventional perhaps, that you think God may be doing?  Where is God moving?  In what way does He want you to follow him in your ministry?  What about your family?  Work?  Personal spiritual growth?

Write those things down and stick them in your Bible.  You’ll see where this is going soon.

Getting Rid of Baggage

Getting  rid of our baggage before God is about shedding all of the unnecessary “stuff” that we have picked up over the years.

Truth be told, the church today seems to be hidden under layers and layers of stuff that it has picked up over the years.  I’m not just talking about tradition,  though that may be the case, too.  I’m talking about the things the church cares about, how she carries herself in the political realm, what she does with her money, what type of books come out of her, where she eats, how she eats…the whole thing.  Somehow, we’ve let the church become characterized by all the various fads that it had to respond to throughout history.  And, if you’re like me and many others I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with, we’re tired of it.  We’re weary not just of our churches being co-opted, but ourselves.

It’s time let go, to take off all the shirts that we’ve willingly put on in response to crises in the past, and learn anew what it means for us to be the church today.  By that I don’t mean figure out what shirt we need to put on for our current situation, I mean figuring out who we are when we’re not wearing a shirt at all.

It is then, and only then, that we will be able to respond to what God is doing and leave whatever building has us trapped.  It is only when we discover who (and whose) we are that we will be able to know the ways in which we have been co-opted and fooled.

That’s what it means to Leave the Building: to identify idols, react to God, and get rid of baggage.  There are other things, to be sure, and even the few that we’ve covered today can (and will) be expanded, but those are the basics.  Those things shape our story.

Your Turn

Remember when I mentioned a resource we have developed?  Well here is where I humbly request that you take the next step.  We put together a short survey that may help you realize where you can Leave the Building in some key areas: church, family, work, outreach and personal spiritual growth.

If you would, please visit our Resource Page and find the one called “Leave the Building Inventory” to download and print the PDF.  And if you find it helpful, let us know.  If we can improve it, drop us a note.

It’s your turn.  Leave the Building.