Category: Ministry & Church Health

“This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.” (1 Corinthians 4:1-2, ESV)

Instructive is what these descriptions eliminate in our typical view of Christian ministers. Servants of Christ are necessarily not servants of man, though we typically use terms such as “servant-leader.” Leaders in the church are certainly servants, but servants of Christ, and lead Christ’s flock through serving Him. It is only in serving Christ and in leading his people that Christian ministers serve their congregation.

A minister should consider his service to the flock, but when the congregation views its minister as serving it, rather than serving Christ, problems arise.

Similarly, ministers are stewards of God’s mysteries: that is, they are responsible for delivering God’s revelation through exposition and application to those who hear it. Some, however, view the minister as a misguided kitchen manager, who, instead of serving up fresh, nutritious meals to his patrons, instead either hoards all the goods to attain a well-stocked pantry, or only serves the one course he finds interesting or easy to prepare.

The faithful minister serves up dishes from all of God’s word, not just those that please the palate of his diners, or that land him a photo in the culinary arts journal.

The vast majority of churches in the United States have them. Most church members wouldn’t know how to operate one. You risk your life if you leave your cup of coffee on top of them. They are emblazoned with the nameplate of the benefactor who donated them. It takes several brutish men to change their location.

No, I am NOT talking about the media center copy machine.

There was a time when an organ was considered against good taste, at best, and an instrument of the devil, at worst, especially when used in the church (gasp!) in which case the devil himself was attempting to sabotage the saints with the sort of frivolous diversion that characterized the theaters from whence they came.

Now, we say that about drum sets.

Perennial debates about how to spend resources in the church abound. Some things must be paid: salaries, insurance, licenses, mortgages. Other things fall within the discretion and wisdom of the church: how much to contribute to the Cooperative Program (for Southern Baptists), how much to give to local missions, how much to provide in local benevolence, and so forth.

Whether to spend $90,000 for repairs to an organ that is as old as the church is, contrary to sentiment, optional. That is, having an organ is not necessary for the ministry of the church.

Some will contend that the organ is like the furnace or the roof and must be maintained in order to be good stewards of the church’s physical plant. Yet an organ is merely a musical instrument, and if the furnace has outlived its usefulness and would cost more to repair than it’s worth, the church would consider buying a new HVAC instead.

Some will content that the people expect the church to have an organ and need it for worship. Perhaps that is why God broke the organ in the first place.

The decision to have an organ, or to fix one that’s broken, is certainly an individual church’s to make. But the church should consider other ways that $90,000 could be used to further God’s kingdom. For that money, the church could easily support two or three foreign missionaries for a year. It could purchase thousands of Gideon bibles, hundreds of copies of the Jesus film, or support many children in poverty-stricken areas of the world through organizations such as Compassion International.

Ninety-thousand dollars to hear wind blow through a bunch of pipes, or to hear the wind of the gospel of salvation blow through unreached areas of the world? It’s really not much of a choice.

Search committees are charged with the significant responsibility of locating a church’s next pastor. And it isn’t as if at the conclusion of the committee’s first meeting the Holy Spirit drops on the conference table the resume of the man the church will eventually call. Countless hours are spent poring over resumes, listening to sermons, talking with references.

It is, to be sure, a huge job.

But do search committees make things harder on themselves than they need to be?

There is an old saw that when polled regarding what it wants in the new pastor, a congregation decides that the ideal man will have a Ph.D., a wife and three kids, 15 years of senior pastor experience, and still be in his 30s. And if the search committee honors this request it might as well be searching for a polka-dotted unicorn.

One search committee chairman spoke with me regarding the progress the committee was making. They had interviewed a few candidates, who each had been deemed inappropriate because what the church really needed was a man “with experience handling a staff.”

I recalled that this church had started its search process about six months prior, and that, to my knowledge, all had not come to a grinding halt without a senior pastor. The doors were not chained shut, the power had not been turned off, God had not withdrawn the church’s lamp stand from its proper place. In fact, the church had been managing to worship for those months with good teaching and leadership from other staff ministers and guest preachers.

Who, I thought to myself, had been ‘handling the staff’ in all these months?

Many churches will go six months, or twelve, or even a couple of years before locating and calling their new pastor. The business affairs of the church – and to a large degree even the ministry function of the church – continues without interruption during this time. Yet many will, just like the chairman I spoke with, require that their new pastor be a good ‘manager.’

It does not occur to many churches looking for new pastors that what they are missing without senior pastoral leadership is not ‘management’, but proclamation.

There is only one man in a congregation charged with the responsibility to proclaim God’s word to God’s people – the preacher. God usually blesses many in a congregation with management skill, organizational ability, and administration gifts. When a church focuses on whether a pastor can ‘manage,’ rather than on whether he can preach, they may end up with a harmonious and efficient staff, but one that surrounds an anemic pulpit.

Pastors – even young ones – can learn people skills on the fly. They usually don’t learn how to preach.

It seems to be fairly common practice for churches to cancel or limit services during the summer, the most common victim of this summer sacrifice being the Sunday evening service (for those churches that still have one).

I suppose the theory is that summer is the time when most church members are vacationing and attendance will be down.

But this cause/effect relationship leaves us with compelling questions. First, if lower attendance means eliminating services, then we should also cut the Sunday morning service and the Wednesday night supper/prayer meeting. After all, very few vacationers stick around for the Sunday morning service, and none come back from the beach for Wednesday’s pot luck supper or for a progress report on Aunt Matilda’s bunion.

If lower attendance is not the reason for cutting summer services, then perhaps it is too avoid offending the consciences of vacationers. One cannot feel guilty about missing church if there is no church to miss. But, alas, this also leads to other problems. If cutting evening services eases the beach-bound member’s conscience, then why cut only one service? The conscience would be eased three times as much if all three weekly services were cut. Furthermore, if easing the conscience is the goal, why ease it only in summer? Why not cut Sunday morning services during hunting season? Why not cut them when a big golf tournament is going?

So, if neither low attendance nor easing the conscience is the goal, perhaps it is something as yet unconsidered. Perhaps we cut services during the summer because members need them less. Perhaps we’ve worshiped God enough during the previous nine months: we’ve built up a “worship credit” against which to draw while we absorb the rays. Or, perhaps we’ve fellowshiped enough with believers and need to spread joy among the unchurched on the beach.

Or, perhaps there is less need to feed the sheep and guard the flock during the summer months. Spiritual ignorance, indwelling sin, and spiritual warfare are, perhaps, inversely proportional to the number of vacations the congregation takes.

So, if our spiritual leaders are concerned about their members’ collective conscience, unused ‘worship credit’, fellowshiping with the unchurched, and spiritual vitality, there is, really, only one conclusion to reach: more vacations means more spiritual vitality, and the deacon board should mandate that members stay away from church year-round, so that piety and church health can reach new levels.