I sat in a green and red plaid overstuffed armchair in the middle of a bank parking lot. I couldn’t move. My chest was heaving, and my head was spinning. Something somewhere had told my body to shut down. So I sat there, in the middle of the parking lot, dazedly gazing at a clear blue sky above the teller windows.
It happened six years ago. My business partner and I had made the decision to rent our first office site. We had started AdVantage Advertising out of our dorm rooms during our junior year at Ouachita Baptist University and had encountered some success early on. We had rented a suite of offices on the second floor of an old building in downtown Arkadelphia, Arkansas. A narrow flight of stairs led to the upper floor.
Mitch was supposed to have met me to help carry the desks and furniture up the stairs to the offices, but he had not shown. Stubbornly, I began to wrestle the heavy pieces up the stairs by myself. After several trips, I was halfway up with a coffee table when everything began to spin. I struggled the rest of the way up with it and came back down to get the chair. As I stooped to lift it, I collapsed into its welcoming arms, nearly paralyzed with exhaustion. As I sat there, frustrated with my body for its uncooperativeness, Mitch drove up, and upon seeing my location in the middle of the parking lot and my pale face, asked, "Is something wrong?"
The same question could be posed to many of our church congregations today. Characterized by increasing activity and ministry carried on at a frenetic pace, they do not notice that many members and families, and especially young adults (or baby busters), are disgusted with the meaningless activity and are dropping exhausted and unfulfilled into armchairs of frustrated inactivity and recuperation.
Though increasing technology and time management devices were supposed to provide us with more free time to do volunteer work and invest in our families, it may have done just the opposite. "In 1911, the typical American averaged 2640 miles per year in travel. Today, the average car owner averages 10,000miles per year with some traveling 30,000 or more miles per year! Many people will travel over 3,000,000 miles in their lifetimes. Implication: People are tired, have less free time, and are more difficult to recruit."{1}
Unfortunately, the pastors and leaders of these churches look at those "sitting in the armchairs" and blame them for a lack of commitment rather than examining their programs and activities for overkill. They rely on the "80/20" explanation to rationalize their position. "It is common in all churches—20% of the people do 80% of the work. Our church is no different." That explains everything for them, as if that is how the body of Christ was created to operate.
These churches and this mindset are misdirected. It is rather condescending for the 20% in a church to justify church programming and activities in terms of commitment or lack thereof. If 80% of the people in an organization are not contributing to it, shouldn’t that alert those in leadership that it maybe doing the wrong things under the guise of ministry?
It is not good for a select few in the body of Christ to plan, schedule, and organize activities that wear out the rest. Many of our churches have unthinkingly adopted Hebrews 10.25 as their mission statement and gone to an extreme with it. "Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing." The writer of Hebrews never meant to create a ministry of busyness from this teaching. He simply meant to encourage Christians to meet together for mutual edification. He did not prescribe how often.
"One of the greatest Christian fallacies is that we are not doing enough for the Lord. You’ve heard men say it, "I just wish I was doing more for the Lord." It’s not that we are not doing enough, but that we are doing too much of the wrong things."{2}
People, particularly young adults, are tired of meeting on Sunday nights. They’re also voting by their absence on Wednesday night church. Though not vocalized except by a few who have finally put their finger on their deep sense of dissatisfaction with busy churches, there is a deep, growing unrest in the minds and hearts of late 20th century American Christians that is closely akin to plain old exhaustion.
American churches created a model for church, including times, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It looks something like this:
Sunday:
9:45 a.m. Sunday School
11:00 a.m. Worship Service
7:00 p.m. Worship Service
Wednesday:
7:00 p.m. Bible Study
Larger churches have deemed themselves "creative" by shifting their basic schedule 30-45 minutes either way and adding more to the same hours. Also tacked on to the above prescription for Christian maturity are numerous committee meetings; age-graded programs for kids, youth, and adults; choir practices; and Christian growth programs.
The only thing that seems to be growing in most churches, however, is the encroachment of incessant "religious" activity into the precious spare time of 1990s families. This is not church growth or success. "Success is not determined by how many hours you spend, but how you spend your hours."{3}
Another thing that is growing is resentment. Good Christian church attenders are discerning that this unquestioned, relentless activity, in the name of planting God’s kingdom, is robbing them of their joy; killing their faith; perverting grace; and shackling freedom. They are also discovering there is little time for community ministry and actually being a Christian through works of loving service when they spend all their time inside the four walls of the church.
In a study of traditional, declining churches which have "turned around," George Barna discovered that "many renewed churches found that people were relieved, rather than disappointed, to have the program roster trimmed severely."{4} Barna also noted that a "return to basic theology and simple ministry was refreshing for most people, even to those who had been Christians for decades."{5}
For many, "church" on Sundays is no longer a Sabbath. The Sabbath was instituted by God for man so that we "may rest" and "be refreshed." (Exodus 23.12) On that day, we are not to do "any work" but "rest." (Deuteronomy 5.14) We have sacrificed God’s divine provision of a Sabbath-rest on the altar of American cultural busyness. As a result, our zeal has dried up. Rank and file church members of the 20th century have lost the enthusiasm that characterized their counterparts in the first century. Is a loss of the Sabbath one reason?
Saturdays used to be America’s day of rest. It was a day to get up late, read the paper, watch cartoons, and do relaxed work around the house. However, today’s Saturdays are a far cry from yesterday’s. Families scurry about town, rushing their children to soccer games here, piano lessons there, and running errands. There is no longer time to do anything "after you get off work" during the week. Most families try to squeeze in a week’s worth of responsibilities and work into one day. By the time Sunday comes, they are already exhausted. Church schedules planned for the "good Christian" will easily require about eight hours of your Sunday when you factor in "getting ready," transportation time, Sunday School, morning worship, evening worship, and miscellaneous children’s activities, and other meetings.
When you think about the hectic 40 hour plus American work week in addition to Saturday stress, the abundant life that Jesus promised us seems more of an elusive ideal than a daily reality. We’re willing to suffer for the Lord, if necessary, but should we have to do so because of the church? People attempting to live up to these implied expectations become "churchaholics."
"We know we have a problem when we require workaholism and consequently reward workaholic behavior. Called the ‘designer drug’ for the church by Anne Wilson-Schaef, workaholism finds welcoming arms because of the ongoing images of the ‘good Christian’ who works hard and the ‘selfless’ person who ministers to others by never attending to his own needs. Without realizing it, we are attached to a system that drives us and which we fuel with more and better— and busier— programming."{6}
Jesus’ loving invitation in Matthew11.28 has an unfortunate but relieving application for exhausted church members: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
It is important to distinguish at this point that not all churches who have a large variety of ministries and activities are "busy" churches. Busy churches are those who plan and schedule activities without thought of purpose, coordination, or implication. A busy church tacks on new ministries to an already full calendar without thought of replacing older ministries. Busy churches do not ask why. Busy churches plan and schedule without critically evaluating their philosophy and approach to ministry. They think activity is akin to ministry. And they are wrong. "The enemy doesn't mind if you are spiritually active. He just doesn’t want you to be spiritually effective."{7}
What are some symptoms, then, that may indicate a busy church?
There’s no place or reasonable amount of time for the laity to process, think about, dream, or propose alternatives. The Staff is afraid of things getting "messy" if church affairs are not well-regulated in the prescribed time slots. They are addicted to perpetuating the status quo.
"The discussion of the loss of control frightens any addictive system. To fight any loss of control, the system becomes rigid, ingrown, black and white, right or wrong. Addiction equates with a sense of drivenness - whether it is an individual with his alcohol, an organization with its sacred cow, a leader with his need for success, or a group with its insistent workaholic patterns."{8}
They have never dreamed of other activities existing concurrently with the worship services and Bible Studies. Believe it or not, churches need to reexamine their scheduling philosophy. Ministry can happen at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning in places other than the church building. Church members should been encouraged and freed to develop creative ministries outside the walls of the church, regardless of whether it conflicts with the "official" schedule.
I recently heard a pastor use a well-worn cliche in his sermon: "We must be willing to be tied down for the one who was nailed down." He was preaching on commitment and the need in his particular church was for more active involvement by the lay people. In principle, I agree that as a disciple of Christ, we must go the distance. We have counted the cost and have surrendered our lives, including our schedules to him.
However, a local church may go too far when it applies this principle to filling up the needed spaces in its organizational and ministry chart. To guilt people to join the choir, enlist as a Sunday School worker, go on visitation, or any other such church program through an appeal to commitment is unconscionable. There is already too much activity going on inside the walls of the church. Why demand more? Why not challenge people to be radically creative agents of Christ in their neighborhoods and places of employment? We have enough choirs already. We have knocked on thousands of doors. We have hundreds of church programs. What we do not have, however, is the body of Christ actively involved in penetrating its world in the world’s setting.
It seems that the unwritten rule is that God’s work must go on inside the walls of the church. When that philosophy is predominant, busyness, frustration, and burnout are inevitable. Living for Christ in the world, apart from church programs, is a liberating and freeing experience of abundant life.
I am not advocating all of us becoming Lone Ranger Christians - riding our white mares to rescue the perishing. A maverick has no place in the body of Christ. I believe every Christian should operate within the accountability of a loving local fellowship. The local fellowship, however, must develop, equip, and encourage its members to be the church in the world instead of in the church building. Let’s put people ahead of our programs and free our people from our ordained schedules to be the church.
I have often wondered what our attitude would be toward a guest speaker who didn’t show up for a Sunday morning engagement in a local church. The congregation would fidget nervously and the pastor would sweat bullets as the time drew closer for them to address the sanctified. As the time came and passed with no appearance of the prominent guest, the pastor would inevitably stand, apologize, explain that there must have been some miscommunication, and pull a devotional or sermonette from the recesses of his brain files. Inwardly, many would be wondering about the reputation of the speaker and how inconsiderate it was for him not to show up.
What would be their response if the speaker appeared five minutes before the service ended, approached the microphone, and explained, "I must apologize for the inconvenience I have caused you all; however, I would like for you to rejoice with me. The Lord has allowed me to lead a gas station attendant to Christ this morning!" You see, ministry was happening outside of the walls of the church and concurrently with our divinely inspired schedule. Our God is that big. How many opportunities like that may we have missed because we have been in a hurry to "get to church?"
Are these days sacred? And where in the world in Scripture is church something you go to? Church is a people; church is something you are! In his book, Church Without Walls, Eugene Petersen urges God’s people as the church to regain their sense of mobility.
In the first century, Paul and his missionary teams traveled the known world, planting churches for Christ. They were not limited by facilities, program budgets, or parking. They were flexible! They were able to move as the Spirit moved them. Read aloud Luke’s narrative in Acts 16.7 and notice Paul’s and his team’s spiritual sensitivity: "When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Bithynia and went down to Troas." Paul had great intentions, but he was sensitive to the Spirit’s leadership rather than his own common sense.
Did Paul just "do church" on prescribed holy days? Notice Acts 17.2: "As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead." Paul’s strategy was to start in the synagogues and share the Gospel with the Jews there. However, his ministry did not stop there, thank goodness. You find Paul all over the towns he visited, sharing Christ, debating philosophers, ministering to the needy. He was in the malls, the government buildings, the grocery stores, and the corporate offices with one intention: to proclaim Christ to the lost.
Paul’s strategy reminds Christians that the church is not a building; it exists wherever God’s people are. Unfortunately, "our paradigm is still ‘come to, and listen to.’ We are still sermon- and sanctuary-centered in our forms. The believer is strategically positioned inside the marketplace, the neighborhood, and the institutions of our society. The primary function of leadership should be to serve those believers by equipping them for ministry."{9}
God gave the spiritual gifts of leadership so that those in leadership would see that their philosophy and strategy of ministry is "to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up." (Ephesians4.12) Though this equipping may occur naturally on Sundays and Wednesdays in most churches, it is important to communicate that the building and programs are not church. The church is God’s people mobilized for ministry in every facet of their community’s life.
Some of our witnessing encounters seem to be genuine, heartfelt salvation experiences, but after the new converts quit coming to church a month or two later it seems more like we’ve sprayed Christianity onto a waxed car. It’s beading up and rolling off.
Have these genuine commitments, like the seed scattered on the road, been snatched away by Satan? Or do they just get disillusioned with the institutional nature of the church? Whatever is happening, a church cannot get cocky about the number of professions of faith when the converted are not sticking around. "The biblical measure of success is whether [you’re] making disciples."{10}
It is exciting to see someone make a profession of faith and then become an active part of a local church body. These new Christians are so enthusiastic that they often jump into a number of different programs just because they’re there. They equate activity with productivity, for that is the model they’ve had in the world. However, sooner or later, they will burn out if no one explains to them that it is not what you do that pleases God but who you are!
This relates well with the last symptom of a busy church. If your church has no organized new Christian class, Encourager program, or discipleship courses for new and growing Christians, it is better not to witness. I realize that is an inflammatory statement, but if we are not willing to obey the Great Commission’s imperative to "make disciples baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything" that Jesus commanded us, then we had better keep our mouths shut.
In a sense, that is trying to carry out the Great Commission without the love of the Great Commandment. It is tragic to lead someone to the Lord for your own selfish motivations and then not follow up on him to ensure his continued spiritual growth. Good mothers don’t leave their newly born babies alone to fend for themselves after birth! There is a nourishing and tender-care stage of life that a newborn must go through before he is ready to take care of himself. The same is true of new Christians.
Upon close examination, every single happening - from the scheduled "spontaneous" testimony to high attendance Sundays - can be accounted for by perspiration rather than inspiration. Without a sense of mystery, a holy expectation of divine interruption, the church becomes little more than a highly motivated Rotary Club.
God reminds us through the prophet Isaiah of His otherness and mystery. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55.8-9)
If we rely on our church growth strategies and programs to build God’s kingdom, we will be desperately disappointed. While we may succeed in creating a crowd, we will not create Christian community. "The church, of course, was never intended by Christ to be a technique-driven institution. His call was for believers to band together in ways that built a unified family of saints dedicated to becoming more like him. In the end, we found that turnaround churches were more committed to Jesus and his people than to procedures or to other systematic responses to a challenging situation."{11}
The church is spiritual in origin and purpose. If everything is dependent on human effort, there will be a growing despondency. The church should be "the place where the Holy Spirit dances."{12}
People don’t affiliate themselves with a local church in order to add more responsibility to an already filled-up calendar, nor should they. However, the depth of a person’s experience with Christ may be measured by his "inability to keep still about it."{13} In other words, growing Christians will find that ministry displaces previous priorities as their devotion to Christ prompts them to activity.
On the flip side, activity in the church can become burdensome when it is done just to keep the machinery running. Activity devoid of purpose and spiritual benefit is meaningless. Many churches are "generally too immersed in busywork and tradition to concentrate resources or energy upon detailed means of changing the current reality."{14}
Tradition in itself is not bad. However, unthinking obedience to any methodology reduces its effectiveness. "It is very easy for our man-made expression of the truth to be passed on from generation to generation. Then it is often not long until the truth is forgotten and tradition is substituted for the truth."{15} Many times, these traditions or methods will be defended ruthlessly against new ideas. This is exclusivism, and it is not an attractive quality in methodology.
When people unite with a local congregation, they are looking for community, not a crowd. When they participate and give themselves to a church’s activities, they are looking for fulfillment, not frustration. John Maxwell may have illustrated this best: "People don’t buy newspapers. They buy news. It isn’t glasses that are purchased; it’s better vision. Women who spend big bucks for cosmetics are really trying to buy good looks. Millions of drills have been sold, yet not a single person wanted one. They were buying holes."{16}
Jesus came to give his people abundant life. Let us not take it away by robbing them of their joy through well-intentioned but outdated or useless activity.
It is one thing for an actor to play the role of C.S. Lewis, and it is quite another to be C.S. Lewis. Are our churches impacting the lives of believers and the surrounding community? Bob Briner challenges our smug self-perpetuation in his book Roaring Lambs. "Do you honestly believe that our big churches and highly visible Christian leaders have brought about a movement taken seriously in this country? We feel we are making a difference because we are so important to ourselves."{17}
Many churches are lighthouses only to those who attend them. It would be unthinkable for them to venture forth from their facilities into the surrounding neighborhoods. "It might be dangerous," some would say. So they busy themselves inside the walls and set their course for eventual burnout. You see, God has designed us to serve and minister, not play church. "Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave — just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Matthew 20.26-28)
Let us not become guilty of inbreeding. "The church is hardly ever involved in the life going on around it. We talk to and write for each other, sometimes brilliantly, but with little impact on the world around us."{18}
In one sense, we are in a constant process of being transformed into the image of Christ and will never graduate into perfection until he comes back for us. In another, we have produced an assembly of spectators rather than servants whose remarks upon leaving church resemble those of exiting moviegoers: "What did you think of the show?"
It should be communicated to every church member that they are expected to get involved in joyful ministry. We have all soaked up more sermons and Bible studies than the early church could ever have dreamed of. "The church is getting overweight in knowledge and failing to provide a vehicle through which we Christians can demonstrate our love by meeting the needs of others and ‘working out our salvation.’"{19} It’s time to invest our lives in purposeful, impacting, spiritual activity that glorifies Christ and transforms lives.
A church was conducting a one-day revival service. The evangelist, in his appeal for decisions that evening, described the necessity of repentance from negative sins. He listed the common shockers: pornography, adultery, stealing, etc. Then he described the need to repent from "positive" sins. These, he explained, were those that we committed by "those who know the right thing to do and do not do it." While I know of no "positive" sins, his application disturbed me even more. He elaborated that there were those who had a good singing voice and were not singing in the choir; those who should be teaching in Sunday School, and on he went.
His recruiting intentions were thinly masked, and while the church staff may have appreciated his appeal for more workers, the concept was unbiblical. It is not a sin to not sing in the choir! It is not a sin to not participate in your church’s visitation program! It is not a sin to not teach Sunday School!
These are mere practical expressions of important Christian functions. Yes, you should be praising God as a believer, but you should not be guilted into thinking your local church choir is the only expression of praise that God hears and blesses. You are commanded to be a witness for Christ, but you may be so without being a part of your church’s visitation program. It is a difference between form and function.
American churches are busy beavers. American church members are tired. Yet, before we cast all the blame on the church and throw up our hands in disgust, an important note of hope and promise must be sounded. It does not have to be this way. There is nothing wrong with the body of Christ if it functions as God intended it.
The essential question then is how does God intend for the church to function? One of the best recent treatments of this issue is in Gene Getz’ book The Walk. He says,
"God’s ideal plan is for churches to understand the difference between form and function. Normative functions that yield supra–cultural principles from the Bible are absolute and should never change. On the other hand, we must understand that forms and structures and methods are cultural patterns that are nonabsolutes. This is what enables a church to function in every culture of the world at any moment in history. This is the uniqueness of Christianity. This is definitely what Paul had in mind when he said — ‘I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some’ (1 Corinthians 9.22). The apostle Paul never compromised on the absolutes of scripture. However, he was always free and open to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in the area of the nonabsolutes."{20}
Getz identifies three essential functions of the church which are found in the early church in Acts 2.42-47. Getz cites them as 1) vital learning experiences with the Word of God ("They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching"), 2) vital relational experiences with one another and with God ("and to the fellowship"), and 3) vital witnessing experiences with the unsaved world("And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved").{21}
Some of you may be scratching your heads and thinking, "Surely, it can’t be that simple." But it really is. We have been duped into duplicating the mad busyness of our culture. We seethe success of malls and try and create a mall-like program offering, forgetting that few people go into all the stores. We offer as many programs as Baskin-Robbins has flavors, but no one likes to eat all of them at one sitting. The movie theater down the street from my house offers 16different movies at one time, but rarely does anyone have the time or money for more than one. Yes, multiple offerings in a church do appeal to people today, but don’t communicate that to be a "good Christian" it is necessary to be there every time the doors are open!
Perhaps we can conclude with an incident in the life of Jesus. It is very applicable to those who find themselves tired and worn out, attempting to satisfy demands of "church." Both ministers and laity are dropping from exhaustion.
"As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’ ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not betaken away from her.’" (Luke 10.38-42)
It was Martha’s house. Mary was her sister. Jesus was the honored guest. At first glance, we identify with Martha. She is running around, seeing that everything is taken care of and that things are just right. Mary, on the other hand, is sitting in the living room, listening to Jesus talk about his journeys and his hopes.
It is a perfect picture of the busy church - people running back and forth, nervously tending the store, making sure everything is in its proper place. Though we are quite busy doing things in His name, we rarely spend time in His presence. And it’s causing us needless resentment and exhaustion, just like it did to Martha.
Billy Crystal cracked audiences up in his movie City Slickers. In it, three men from the hurried city go on a cattle drive searching for meaning in life. Crystal makes a friend of the rough trail boss, Curly, who tells him the meaning of life is "one thing." Perplexed, Crystal asks what that one thing is. Curly replies, "You’ll have to find that out for yourself."
As believers in Christ, we know what that "one thing" is. For our busy churches to become centers of simplicity and transformation, we need to concentrate on our corporate and individual relationship with Christ. He is the One Thing. As we do that, it will become clear what forms our church’s ministry should take. If we will focus on the few essential functions of the church instead of the myriad programs that exist to accomplish those functions, everyone’s life will become more restful.
So if you’re worn out, tired, frustrated, and perplexed trying to fulfill nebulous expectations of the church, look at Mary. Take off your shoes. Get a glass of tea, and join her in the living room. Jesus has something to say, and you can’t hear it if you’re caught up in busyness.
{1}Glen Macintosh & Gary Martin, Finding Them, Keeping Them (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1992), 123-124.
{2}Patrick Morley, The Man in the Mirror (Brentwood: Wolgemuth & Hyat Publishers, 1989), 169.
{3}John Maxwell. Be a People Person. (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1994), 99.
{4}George Barna, Turnaround Churches (Ventura: Regal Books, 1993), 79.
{5}Ibid., 80.
{6}Rich Hurst, Giving the Ministry Away (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1992), 36.
{7}Steve Farrar, Point Man (Multnomah, 1990), 111.
{8}Hurst, 36.
{9}Jim Petersen, Church Without Walls (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1992), 118, 119.
{10}Aubrey Malphurs, Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1991), 30.
{11}Barna, 16.
{12}Dr. David Kirkpatrick. Systematic Theology II. Class Notes, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. March 21, 1995.
{13}Macintosh, 34.
{14}Barna, 38.
{15}Peter Lord, Hearing God (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1988), 90.
{16}Maxwell, 77.
{17}Bob Briner, Roaring Lambs (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993), 29.
{18}Ibid., 58.
{19}Macintosh, 100.
{20}Gene Getz, The Walk, (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994),103-104.
{21}Ibid., 91-96.
© Copyright 1998, Jeff Noble.