Worship-tainment

Lights. Cameras. Action.

I could be talking about the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon;  I could be talking about U2 in concert;  Or, I could be talking about your local Sunday morning worship service.

And in many ways these days, there's an increasing lack of difference between the two.

A dozen or so people may appear on stage on any given Sunday.  But for those dozen people appearing on stage, there is a supporting cast consisting of dozens more that are making the entire performance possible week after week.

Increasingly, churches no longer just have worship leaders and choir directors.  They have executive musicians, creative directors, audio/video technicians, graphic artists, and just about everything else that you need to pull off a full blown live production of a TV quality show or musical concert.

Worship has become a form of entertainment.

You may not pick up on it, but you hear it in the voice of every pastor who stands up and says "We guarantee the exact same experience at all 5 of our worship experiences this weekend!"

Oh really?  I'm glad.  Jesus and the apostles never did such a thing.  And with my busy life, I wouldn't want to miss out on something, as if coming to church were no different than watching my favorite TV show.  I would hate to think another church service heard a different set of songs than I got to hear.

And churches know that in order to compete with the church down the street, they will have to pull out a more elaborate production.  These are the "worship wars" of the early 21st century.

Worship has become an event to be performed and a commodity to be packaged and sold instead of a faithful expression of the locally gathered communion of the saints, who corporately assemble together to worship the Lord, and to allow heaven and earth to be bridged together in Him as they stand in His presence and minister.

Worship has become a thing for young hipster artists to perform, instead of a service offered to God by consecrated priests who know what it is like to minister to the Lord and to one another.

Gone are the little old ladies with a special song in their heart.  Instead, American Idol rejects literally dot our church stages all across the country and have taken their place.  Many of them know how to perform, and they will gladly do so for a few bucks (because it's probably one of the few musical "gigs" that they can make regular money from), but few understand how to minister as a priest standing before God.  Few understand how to bring heaven and earth together.  Instead, they know how to create sensual and emotionally manipulative environments, in which they substitute fog machines for the Holy Spirit.  And they measure success by the size of the crowd, how many people put their arms up in the air and sing along, and how many people bought this year's CD...  just like you would at a U2 concert.

Real priests aren't fooled by such things.  They know there is an utter simplicity in worship, and that God shows up powerfully in the everyday normal-ness of life.  They aren't as concerned about the size of the crowd as they are about what happens whenever two or three gather together in the name of the Lord.

They know stories involving guys like the biblical patriarch Jacob, who was simply camping out one night while on a journey, and woke up the next morning after having an amazing dream in which he saw a stairway linking heaven and earth together, and concluding "the Lord is in this place."  As a result, he built a makeshift altar of sacrifice from the rock he was sleeping on from the night before.  He used what was simply on hand and what was what was just laying around.  And he called that place Bethel, or "The House of God." It became a notable place of worship for centuries to come, yet it was very unassuming and unimpressive in every sense of the word.  But God was there!

Simplicity, not extravagance, should be the hallmark of our churches and our worship experiences.  

Worship services should consist, not of elaborate productions with professional musicians and top talent imported from afar, but of amateur saints who have grown up together in the local community, and simply want to share Christ together in mutual celebration.

Anything else might just be worship-tainment.

Pastors Aren't Accountable to God Alone

In some Christian circles it is taught that while you are accountable to your pastor, your pastor is ultimately accountable to God, and to God alone.

The ministry of Moses is generally upheld up as the Biblical basis for this model of ministry.  It's a pyramid shaped, top-down approach to doing church.  Under this structure, the pastor hears from God, and then directs the entire life of the church.  After all, like Moses he climbed to the top of a mountain, obtained a vision from God, and has come down to speak to the people.  His word is law, and questionable practices are to remain unquestioned.  Dissenters are looked down upon, chastised as rebellious, or counseled to find another church.

In a nutshell, the pastor is viewed as the boss of the church.

For many, this seems like a perfectly Biblical way to do church.  After all, it is based on the ministry of Moses.  And Moses is in the Bible.

The major problem I find with this idea though, is that as "Biblical" as this model of ministry might be, I can't help but feel that such a model of ministry today is actually "demonic" in its nature.  And it is demonic, not because it's not Biblical, but because it's not Biblical enough.

As I've previously pointed out, Moses is dead.

Therefore, being dead, we should look to move on from our dear brother Moses.  Moses had a specific calling for a specific time and place, and that calling died with him.  God called Moses to establish the Old Covenant, and therefore his ministry took on a structure that was in keeping with Old Covenant religion.

But, the problem with this idea is that we are now under the New Covenant, and instead of having a dead Moses to model ourselves after, we have a living Christ that we are to follow and serve.

Jesus's model of ministry is very different from that of Moses, and trying to emulate the model of Moses under the New Covenant should be as sternly rebuked as the Galatians were by the apostle Paul, for attempting to impose Old Covenant legislation on gentile converts to Christianity.

There are some things that just don't mix.  We need new wine-skins.

We need a wine-skin that is compatible with the fact that Jesus Christ is alive and is the head of the church.  And while there is not disagreement among any that Jesus Christ is the head of the church, they teach such only in some abstract theoretical and esoteric way.  But when it comes to practical application of this doctrine in church life, we inevitably appoint a  "senior" pastor or pope-type/Moses-like figure to be the head of our churches, locally and universally.  And in doing such, we subvert the ministry of Christ by appointing somebody else to be in charge besides Him.

Biblically speaking though, Jesus Christ alone is the head of the church, both locally and universally, and is such without appointing some folks to fill in on His behalf here on earth.  That is, Jesus Christ hasn't given the church another Moses.  Jesus Christ has given us Himself, and Himself alone.  No church needs a senior pastor or pope.  It just needs Jesus.

And under the rule and reign of Christ over the church both locally and universally, we as Christians are called to submit ourselves to one another.  Under this model of ministry, pastors aren't calling all the shots.  In the church, we are to have no pope but Christ.  Jesus Christ alone is boss.

Instead of being called to call all the shots, God has called pastors to merely be those who come along side other believers, and teach them how to follow Jesus in their daily lives.  And seeing the authentic Christ-like life of their pastors, those in the church should gladly submit themselves to the teaching and way of life that these pastors both practice and teach.

But those pastors who are getting too big for their britches, such men need to be reminded who is really in charge of the church.  And it's not them.  God did not call them to be the boss. God called them to simply serve alongside others, and to teach them the ways of Jesus.  And such isn't really complicated.  It doesn't require a degree from seminary to do.  It doesn't require the leadership skills of a famous CEO.  It simply requires two brothers who are committed to serving God together, with the stronger being able to help along the weaker.

Church Stages that Look like a TV Game Show

A couple months ago, I was a contestant on the stage version of "The Price is Right."  It was something of a childhood dream come true. I won the opening bid on contestants row after successfully outbidding three other women on a pair of designer high heels (don't question my manliness), but was unable to sink a putt on the famous game, "Hole in One."  Even so, it was a pretty cool experience.

Recently, I was watching an online video of certain preacher that I've followed a little bit over the years.  I noticed that he was speaking at a church I wasn't directly familiar with.  But as he was speaking, I became somewhat bothered about the platform he was standing on.  In my mind, I couldn't help but feel that the super trendy church that he was speaking at had a stage that looked like something you might see on a TV game show.

As I sat there and wondered about the stage of this particular church, something in my heart just felt a bit unsettled.  I couldn't help but wonder, "To what degree does the architecture and aesthetic design of a church building and sanctuary have on a local congregation?"   Of course, questions like this are things that get fleshed out primarily in places like seminary. It is something you've probably never considered, and have little concern about.

Most people just shrug at such questions as these.  "Architecture and building designs are completely neutral!" you probably say.  "All that matters is that God is there when we show up!"

And part of me would be inclined to agree with you.

Except for the fact that no architect or designer worth their salt would ever say that the design of a structure is a completely benign and neutral thing.  Such would be like an author saying books in themselves have no meaning and are completely neutral things.  Both notions are equally absurd on face value.

Whether we like it or not, the design of a church building and the stage of a church is one that is full of great meaning and purpose.  They are not theologically neutral buildings or rooms, and I believe that the design that goes into a sanctuary says a lot about what that church thinks about its relationship to God, and to each other.

And if you think that the design of a church is still a completely neutral thing, then ask yourself a simple question: Why is it that churches often go out of their way to design a sanctuary in a certain manner?  Why is so much money spent on jumbo screen monitors, giant crosses, stained-glass windows, pulpits, multi-colored stage lights, fog machines, scented air (and yes... you read that right, some churches pump in their own scented air), back-drops, and a host of other bells and whistles?  If it's all the same, why not just make churches giant concrete cement blocks with four walls and no windows?  It would save churches a ton of money.

No matter what mental gymnastics you might use to shrug off stage designs, at the end of the day remains the fact that how you build a church building conveys a subtle message about what is happening on and off stage.

And if the stage looks like a TV game show or American Idol, what's that say about the people on the platform?  And equally important, what's that say about the people who are not on the platform?

I fear that our increasingly flashy platforms at church are changing the dynamic of what the church has been.

Increasingly, "the congregation" is becoming nothing more than a mere "audience," compossed of nothing but mere "attendees."  And if you have ever had the opportunity to stand up on such stages (I have), then you'll understand that those on stage are practically overwhelmed by the brightness of the stage lights, and in most cases, can seldom see anybody in the congregation beyond the first couple of rows.

Imagine the impact that such a thing has on a preacher and his relationship to his congregation.

Increasingly, the preacher on such a stage becomes further and further removed from his congregation.  As a result, he may be tempted to look at his congregation as mere pawns to be used to further his own agenda, and exploited for his own personal gain.  And to the congregation, the preacher will become something of a celebrity.  After all, he is on an awfully big stage surrounded by a lot of lights. And due to the multi-site church phenomenon today, many don't even get to see their pastor in person.  He's just a guy on a jumbo sized monitor.  He becomes something of a TV game show host.

We should find that troubling.

Especially in light of the fact that when we open up the Scriptures, we see that ministry was a very intimate and personal thing.  Even when Jesus was surrounded by the crowds, he was still able to single out one person to minister to.  And when the apostles established the churches that they planted, the primary meeting place that the church would gather would be in the living room of other members of the church.

We've come a long way from those days. And instead of continuing down the road of new trends, I believe we need to seek out the ancient paths of those who came before us, and walk the roads they walked. And we need to increasingly think about the way we do church, and what impact that has on the life and ministry of our churches, as we seek to be faithful to calling placed on us.

Leaderless Churches

"Do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your father, for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted." ~ (Matthew 23:8-11; NASB)

If you were to do a survey of the New Testament, you would find that the word "leader" is a pretty hard word to find.

The word "leader" is only found twice in all of the gospels as a topic that Jesus specifically addressed. Likewise, the subsequent letters that the apostles wrote contain very few and scant references to this word as well.

Yet for such sparse usage, a recent search I conducted on Amazon.com shows that there are currently an astonishing 2,510 books that falls under the heading of "Christian leadership" that are currently for sale.

It makes me wonder, how is it that something that received so little attention in the pages of the New Testament has somehow managed to become something of an industry in our generation?

Yet, if you were to do a similar word search for words like "servant" or "slave," you would find that these words appear hundreds of times throughout the New Testament in reference to Christian ministry.

Good luck finding very many books on Amazon.com that emphasize the theme of Christian slavery. If any such books exist, most of them are probably dedicated to the studying the theological views of Christians who debated about the abolition of the slave trade in America and Europe. Which of course, is not what we are talking about here.

Instead, we are talking about a slave mindset and identity that the Lord has called us all to embrace, from the least of us to the greatest of us. The proliferation of Christian leadership material abundantly available to us today goes to show one thing: Christianity has not embraced the mindset of Jesus would have in the church.

It's not that Jesus is against there being leaders in the church.

The early church was clearly full of many leaders. That is, it was full of men and women who showed others what it was to live the Christian life, and they demonstrated and modeled to others what that life looked like, and taught others how to live it. They were leaders primarily in the sense that they were role-models, and the embodiment of what it means to live a mature Christian life.

This is stands in stark contrast to what a Christian leader is generally perceived as today. To be a leader in the church today is to be a charismatic CEO type, who strategically leads the body of Christ in implementing the unique "vision" that he has dreamed up for the church. The sheep exists primarily to help the pastor build (and fund) his dream. Sometimes the congregation may indeed be part of that dream, but at the end of the day, they ultimately exist to help the pastor fulfill his vision. Anybody who voices dissent or questions the pastors' vision is generally asked to leave the church, or otherwise encouraged to find another church that they are more agreeable with.

Jesus' teaching on leadership was specifically targeted against this sort of mindset. The Lord didn't want us to think of ourselves or allow ourselves to be identified as "leaders," because in the process of doing such, we undermine the call to serve, create divisions in the church, and become takers instead of givers.

In the church, we are to only think of one person as our leader, and that is Jesus Christ alone. No man may take His spot. And as a result of being rightly oriented with the leadership provided to us from heaven, we are to relate to one another as "brothers."

There are to be no "leaders" or "followers" in the church in the traditional sense of those words, only brothers helping other brothers out in their mutual quest to become more and more like Jesus, and to share the gospel with a lost and dying world.

There is to be no division of the church into pastor, staff, and laity. Our relationship with one another is to be horizontal, not vertical. If there is to be any hierarchy in the local church, it's a very small one, with Jesus Christ sitting clearly on top of it all. He alone is our leader and visionary.

The danger when we get this wrong is that you begin to see the church acting in a dysfunctional manner. When somebody's head gets too big, and they become "the leader" of the church, they eventually start looking at the people in their midst as "followers" instead of "brothers." Everybody in the church eventually becomes somebody from whom the leader "draws from" instead of "giving to." In the end, the leader will treat everybody as mere pawns, of whom the pastor frequently allows himself to enjoy the "benefits" and "perks" related to being their "leader."

This is a very real and dangerous problem in much of the church. You see it all over the place.

You see this attitude prevailing in churches where the pastor and his wife are treated as King and Queen of the church. You see it when pastors recruit people to be their "armor bearers," who do things like carry the pastors' Bible to the pulpit for him, or take his car to get cleaned once a week.  You see it in churches that have "pastor appreciation week," where the pastor allows a special offering to be taken up for him on an annual basis, as a sort of "bonus" for all his hard work and personal sacrifice.

You see this attitude prevailing in churches where pastors rule in an authoritarian fashion.  You see it when pastors  live isolated lives from the rest of their congregation.  You see it when pastors are treated as the chief "visionary" to whom the rest of the church must unquestionably "submit" to. You see it when there is a heavy emphasis in the church on tithing and giving. You see in in churches that always seem to be in some sort of building program.  You see it when pastors make handsome salaries, live it up large, and buy mansions.  You see it when people start quoting Bible verses about "touching not the Lord's anointed, and doing His prophets no harm" whenever somebody calls into question the pastors' morality, and the example he is setting for others in his lifestyle.

These attitudes exist because we have failed to realize that God isn't looking for men with a leaders' heart, but rather, a servants' heart.

He's looking for people who aren't interested in building large ministries centered around themselves.  He's not looking for people who dream big, but for people who dream small, and whose only care is how they might help you as a person grow to be more like Jesus.

Slaves don't dream big, or to try and make something of themselves.

Their only concern is the task at hand, and figuring out how they might please those to whom they are enlisted in service too. That was the attitude of the leaders of the early church. So much so that they didn't think of themselves as leaders but as slaves who were called to work for the Lord in serving other people.

Indeed, when they sat down to write letters to the churches they founded or were partnering with, whose letters eventually became our New Testament, they always introduced themselves. And when they introduced themselves, they did not speak of themselves as the leaders of these churches, with a right to demand an audience with the congregation, but they simply desired to speak as slaves who merely wanted to help others out, and felt they had something they could share that would benefit others.

In light of Jesus' teaching on leadership, I hope that we we realize that the church is not the place for leaders, but for servants.

Saying Goodbye to Our Pastors

According to 9marks.org, every month over 1,300 pastors are terminated from their jobs;  Over 1,700 leave the ministry altogether;  Only 1 in 10 professional ministers will actually make a life-long vocation out of pastoral ministry, and one day retire from this profession.

Personally speaking, as somebody who went to Bible college and has been engaged in various forms of ministry for over a decade, I have a lot of connections with pastors, who, for one reason or another, are no longer engaged in vocational ministry.  Sometimes the reasons are good, and sometimes the reasons are bad.

But, one thing that I have noticed that is common to most situations, whether the reason for separation was on good terms or bad, is that when a pastor or "staff" member at a church is no longer employed at their church, they almost always end up leaving their present church, and going somewhere else to fellowship.  

Even for those pastors who continue to live in the same town or city, and don't gain employment in another church, without fail many of these individuals will never darken the door of their former church, and whatever fellowship they had with anybody in that church will be largely (if not entirely) severed.  At best, any contact that remains exists largely through social media.  There are exceptions to this of course, but this tends to be the general practice.

There are a lot of "professional" reasons for doing this.  Some of it is to avoid the personal awkwardness of the entire situation, and some of it is to avoid possible leadership conflicts, especially one's that would "undermine the authority" of the new pastor.

Whatever the reason, it is altogether heartbreaking stuff, and I don't think things should be this way.  I think things are this way, however, because our approach towards pastoral ministry is way off theologically, and does not reflect the heart of our heavenly Father.

In our churches, pastors are seldom seen as "one of us."

Many pastors aren't truly "part of" the local church.  They may preside "over" our communities and lead them, but they often do such as "outsiders."  They are "the man of God" who goes up the proverbial mountain to hear from God, and return to speak the message he has.  Many often minister out of a sense of being a "professional" or "trained specialists," who function more like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company than they do as spiritual fathers taking care of the family of God.

CEO's can resign from their jobs or be voted out.  If a father attempts to leave his family, he is still the father of his family, whether he shows up or not.

The Biblical model of pastoral ministry is one of fatherhood, not corporate America.  Sadly, as a church we have largely embraced the model of ministry and church government that makes the church function more like a corporation instead of a household and family.

Think about it:  How many pastors at your present church grew up to pastor at the same church they went to as children?  Pastors are seldom home grown and nurtured.  They go away to Bible college and seminary, and then get sent somewhere remote and foreign to them and their families.  They seldom return to pastor in the city they grew up in, let alone the church they were raised in.

Pastors move around and are treated like professional sports athletes.  Some don't live up to their potential and eventually get cut from the team.  Others are traded away for a replacement to be named at a later time.

The vast majority of our pastors are imported from another region of the country, and often get hired by people they hardly know, to labor among people they will seldom develop meaningful long-term personal friendships with.

Statistics report that over 70% of pastors report not having a close personal friend at their church.

And why should they make friends?  They are hired professionals there to do a job, and within a couple years they will likely be traded away to simply work somewhere else.  According to a research poll conducted by Lifeway Research, the average pastor stays at any given local church a mere 3.6 years.  Other research shows the average tenure to be 5 to 7 years.  Either way... not a very long time.

No wonder so many pastors are so lonely.  They are alone and don't have many friends because we have created a church system in which pastors are largely treated as temporary hired hands, imported from distant lands, brought in to do a job for a short season, only before moving on somewhere else.  Apart from their spouses, they have few people they can lean on for spiritual counsel and support.  If they are struggling in an area of their life, very few people they pastor would ever know it.

When I read the New Testament and the writings of the early church, I see a very different way of "doing ministry."  Pastors were home grown members of the local church family.  They cut their teeth on the teachings of Jesus Christ among their brothers and sisters, only to one day grow into the very men who could provide spiritual oversight to that same family.  People knew them very closely.  They were loved as fathers of the faith, and had real and deep relationships with the people they pastored.  So much so, when persecution struck, many often sacrificed their very lives out of love for their Christian family.  And when they died, their churches took it to heart.

Sure, there were itinerant ministers like Paul, Timothy, and others that frequently traveled.  But, such men were the exception, not the rule.  And, even when they did travel to work in other churches, when we read the letters they left behind, we see that they treated the churches they ventured to merely as distant family members with whom they were visiting.  And, they were received as such.  They made close friendships and connections with the people they ministered to, and they longed to return to the church they grew up in.

Sadly, this experience in the modern church is very rare.

There is often a great gulf that exists between the pulpit and the pew, and this is not how God designed the church to function.  Pastors have become increasingly distant professionals, and less like a part of the family.  God's desire and will for the church is not only that we would have a close and personal relationship for Him, but that our churches would be known for the great love that exists between us, and that we would function not as a corporation, but as a family.

How we handle the hiring, firing, and resignation of pastors/church staff says a lot about our theology of the church as the family of God.  And it not only says a lot about our theology, but it says a lot about where we actually are spiritually in our walk with God.  If we are truly close with God, we must be close with one another.

What do you think?  Did I miss the mark, or am I spot on in my analysis?  Besides talking about these things on the internet, how can we as individuals in the church help bring meaningful change to the church, and return to a family oriented model of church life and ministry?  

Leave your comments below....