Wednesday, May 11, 2005
chicken or the egg
Which came first the missionary or the church? the simple point churches should be helping missionaries not the other way around. I mean the priority should be the use of church funds and resources to see God's pimary task of reaching every person with the good news that God is choosing to not punish our sins because of Jesus dying on the cross. Expand the tent stakes instead of build the protective social walls. Sometimes these walls may not seem so obvious. One of these walls, i believe is the trend of missionary agencies to spend large amounts of time helping the local church in their activities and services. I dont have any objection as long as there is no compromise of the missionaries efforts and events. Most often they become ambassadors to the church as to the value of missionary agencies and the differences. I see churches as heavy machinery that are really difficult to move from one place to another, as far as ideas are concerned. I see missionaries and missionary agencies as more nimble. If we as missionaries are spending all our energies and time getting permits and checking with code inspectors etc. (you get the picture) we will be unproductive and really slow. I truly believe there needs to be a radical change in Japan as far as the system of the "church" in Japan. think about the last 50 years. The traditional church way has not "worked" here. I know fear jumps in and says wait a minute. What if God wants to do something that looks totally different? are you ready? I dont mean house churches. That is not change in comparison to what I am envisioning. Not change for the sake of being different.
I see 1 trend in Tokyo. Churches are calling for people to join them in their new building projects and funds. They are saying as mission statements , "build a bigger church". If it is just a trend in worldwide churches- one it will fail- two if its of God it can work with what I envision. I truly believe as Christians we meet to often for the same type of meetings, smae structure, similar "pastoral messages" etc. I believe this type of meeting could be more powerful if it was once every 3 weeks or once a month. The only reason we have it once a week or more is because we have always done it that way- we dont question at all. The result - in my humble opinion- watered down, mediocre repetative messages, pastors who are burned out, pastors who never get the opportunity to minister because they have no time or energy. I envision a Paul like existance for pastors- Visitation so they can minister. Helping people one on one to start all sorts of different "ministries". Using that word ministries is pretty dangerous. It has a well defined definition. time to broaden our horizens- if we truly believe we are all ministers of the Gospel then we should live like it. I dont believe there is any separation between out sacred and secular lives- we should be able as living temples to carry Christ into everything we do. All should become sacred and sanctified. As a society Christians have created an alternative subculture- Its weird to me and to any non christian as well which is most of the world. Remember i was speaking of social barriers before- can you see now how the way we do things, although we say we are "open", could be viewed as closed and unaccessible to most of society?
So back to what a ministry is - almost anything- the pastors role should be to encourage, not generally but specifically each persons ministry- or encouraging people to do what God has told them to do. Helping them discern the will of God etc. Oh but my pastor is too busy- exactly he is hired as a minister of God's word not really a preacher- or was he or she? Pastors move farther and farther away from the individual.
Some may argue that it is always like this when people move up in responsibility and when they become more and more of a vision castor (sp). I dont believe that is an acceptible argument. Why should they become amature vision castors? People lean too heavily on their leaders as it is. They never leave the nest- This is the way the church has always been run- 10% lead the rest follow. This is how cults start and it ois very similar to a welfare state. We end up unable to stand on our own. We end up needing the pastor to illuminate scripture. If we were reading and studying the scripture we would realize that the Bible teaches that this is the time when we would no longer need to ask our brothers to explain the scriptures to us because God will write it on our hearts. It also teaches that the Holy Spirit illuminates and teaches us the scriptures. All I see are people who are hungry for more. So they keep going to church. But they hear all these inspirational messages, not really about God's character- i mean describing it etc. The messages are so inspiring that it wears off in 3 days and they need to come back to the mid week service to get their fix. Best times I have had studying the scripture is after someone has asked me a question in the real world. The times I really felt engaged in a conversation about God and his ways was never in church or rarely, but with other friends or Christians and sometimes non-believers. So why do we think these meetings are less church than those meetins we have under the steeple?
I see 1 trend in Tokyo. Churches are calling for people to join them in their new building projects and funds. They are saying as mission statements , "build a bigger church". If it is just a trend in worldwide churches- one it will fail- two if its of God it can work with what I envision. I truly believe as Christians we meet to often for the same type of meetings, smae structure, similar "pastoral messages" etc. I believe this type of meeting could be more powerful if it was once every 3 weeks or once a month. The only reason we have it once a week or more is because we have always done it that way- we dont question at all. The result - in my humble opinion- watered down, mediocre repetative messages, pastors who are burned out, pastors who never get the opportunity to minister because they have no time or energy. I envision a Paul like existance for pastors- Visitation so they can minister. Helping people one on one to start all sorts of different "ministries". Using that word ministries is pretty dangerous. It has a well defined definition. time to broaden our horizens- if we truly believe we are all ministers of the Gospel then we should live like it. I dont believe there is any separation between out sacred and secular lives- we should be able as living temples to carry Christ into everything we do. All should become sacred and sanctified. As a society Christians have created an alternative subculture- Its weird to me and to any non christian as well which is most of the world. Remember i was speaking of social barriers before- can you see now how the way we do things, although we say we are "open", could be viewed as closed and unaccessible to most of society?
So back to what a ministry is - almost anything- the pastors role should be to encourage, not generally but specifically each persons ministry- or encouraging people to do what God has told them to do. Helping them discern the will of God etc. Oh but my pastor is too busy- exactly he is hired as a minister of God's word not really a preacher- or was he or she? Pastors move farther and farther away from the individual.
Some may argue that it is always like this when people move up in responsibility and when they become more and more of a vision castor (sp). I dont believe that is an acceptible argument. Why should they become amature vision castors? People lean too heavily on their leaders as it is. They never leave the nest- This is the way the church has always been run- 10% lead the rest follow. This is how cults start and it ois very similar to a welfare state. We end up unable to stand on our own. We end up needing the pastor to illuminate scripture. If we were reading and studying the scripture we would realize that the Bible teaches that this is the time when we would no longer need to ask our brothers to explain the scriptures to us because God will write it on our hearts. It also teaches that the Holy Spirit illuminates and teaches us the scriptures. All I see are people who are hungry for more. So they keep going to church. But they hear all these inspirational messages, not really about God's character- i mean describing it etc. The messages are so inspiring that it wears off in 3 days and they need to come back to the mid week service to get their fix. Best times I have had studying the scripture is after someone has asked me a question in the real world. The times I really felt engaged in a conversation about God and his ways was never in church or rarely, but with other friends or Christians and sometimes non-believers. So why do we think these meetings are less church than those meetins we have under the steeple?
hd 10:56 PM
2 Comments:
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Huh, I like your ideas. But I would like to add that churches don’t just meet on Sundays because it’s always been done. It’s because the apostles taught us to. The early church held steadfastly to apostolic doctrines, and one of those was to gather together on the first day of the week for breaking of bread and prayer.
The “tradition” that has evolved from this simple approach to the local assembly of believers (and here’s where I agree with you that we could shake stuff up) is to have one man (Sr. Pastor) preach a sermon every week bookended by a band playing repetitive songs.
Incidentally, my thought about apostolic doctrine is also in answer to another blog you wrote about how Jesus would evangelize (i.e. would he plant a church?). Well, we are not called to only do what Jesus did during His 3 years of ministry on earth. If so, none of the epistles would be in the New Testament canon.
The “tradition” that has evolved from this simple approach to the local assembly of believers (and here’s where I agree with you that we could shake stuff up) is to have one man (Sr. Pastor) preach a sermon every week bookended by a band playing repetitive songs.
Incidentally, my thought about apostolic doctrine is also in answer to another blog you wrote about how Jesus would evangelize (i.e. would he plant a church?). Well, we are not called to only do what Jesus did during His 3 years of ministry on earth. If so, none of the epistles would be in the New Testament canon.
