26June2008

RUNNING THE COUNTRY 5-4

Written By robfaircloth

>In the past week the US Supreme Court has issued rulings in two controversial and closely-followed cases by the narrowest of margins: five votes to four. In the first, the Court told the State of Louisiana that it could not impose the death penalty on those convicted of raping children. In the second, it told the District of Columbia that it could not ban firearms.

Is there anyone in the United States who agrees with both of them?

Most who would support the rights of law-abiding DC citizens to own guns (and honor the Second Amendment) would also support the right of a state to execute criminals (and honor the Fifth Amendment). Most who oppose the death penalty in general, and as it is applied to rapists in particular, would also support gun control. Thus those who were dismayed by the death penalty case found themselves rejoicing in the gun rights case, and vice versa.

The very fact that so many Supreme Court cases are being decided by one vote is an indication not that the best legal minds in the US disagree about the law, but that we are permitting the Court to decide issues best left to the States and to Congress. In essence, one vote has determined whether citizens may continue to exercise a right that has been enjoyed for 230 years, and one vote has determined that 4.5 million Cajuns may not put to death a criminal that they have democratically decided deserves that punishment.

The Framers and the Constitution they devised were not nearly as schizophrenic as the Court has become in passing on them.

It is decisions like these — groups of inconsistent decisions — that lead one to the conclusion that the Court is no longer the Judicial Branch, but has become the third house of Congress.

25June2008

APPROVING THE EXCELLENT

Written By robfaircloth

‘And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.’ — Philippians 1:9-10

Do we always ‘approve what is excellent’? Obviously not, but do we realize that our approval of the good is an enemy of the excellent, that approval of the mediocre and the bad maligns Christ and his gospel?

Here Paul writes from a Roman prison to the church at Philippi, which he had not visited in ten years. But he had learned of their situation: internal strife, legalism, careless living. And 1:3-11 he tells them three things: 1) the fact of his prayer; 2) the reason for his prayer; 3) the content of his prayer.

He describes their ‘partnership in the gospel’ and that they were ‘partakers of grace’ both in his imprisonment and the defense and confirmation of the gospel. Simply because they had been saved in Christ, they demonstrated the gospel, and their lives served to confirm (or deny) it. So he prays that their love would abound, with knowledge and discernment. But this was not the result he sought. Discerning love was to produce the ability to ‘approve what is excellent.’ In the midst of their trials, sufferings and difficulties they were nevertheless to approve the things that are excellent. Why? Simply to be good choosers? No, but so that they would be pure and blameless before Christ.

When we claim salvation in Christ, we become partners with every other believer in the gospel and in grace. Your friends are now mine; your enemies are now mine; your cause is now mine. Your success and your failure: now all mine. And, mine is yours. How we live — approving the excellent or the not-so-excellent — reflects on each other, on the gospel, and on Christ.

Paul’s example is to pray, with rejoicing, that our fellow believers would ‘approve what is excellent,’ whether in our personal lives, work, family, or especially church.

23June2008

DEATH BY COMMITTEE

Written By robfaircloth

Q: How many church members does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: We all know Catholics use candles, not light bulbs. Presbyterians wouldn’t care, because it is obviously predestined that the light would go out. And Baptists would need 16 people: 2 to pass the collection plate for the new bulb; 2 to organize the pot luck supper to celebrate installation of the new bulb; and 12 to staff the new committee to explore conversion to incandescent bulbs.

Southern Baptists receive the brunt of committee-related jokes, and
deservedly so, since we paint a bright red joke target on our collective head called “Committee on Committees.” All humor aside, the use of committees in a church can have a dramatic and undesired effect upon that church’s ability to fulfill its mission. Many committees are service-based and organize volunteers for needed work in the church (even so, do we truly need a committee to “count”?). The problem arises in the number of committees given leadership responsibilities and their relationships to each other. Because Baptist churches are traditionally ‘congregational’ in government (which requires regenerate membership), authority and clearly defined leadership quickly become diluted in the average committee-dominated structure.

A contemporary phenomena in the U.S. Congress, which is apparently afraid to tackle serious issues, is the creation of special “Blue Ribbon Commissions” to decide the thorny issues so that each congressman’s position on the issue won’t create a threat to his re-election chances. Taking a cue from politics, in the typical church every idea, crisis or opportunity is met with the formation of a new committee. As a result, the deacons defer most questions and act as a board to manage the property and money, and are rarely, as a group, involved in the actual leadership of the church. The church committees are not restricted to deacons, or other appointed leaders, but are open to involvement by non-leader members.

Our committee-based church structures thus come to resemble our buildings: a hodgepodge of mismatched styles pieced together in a labyrinth of misdirection and circuitous routes, which no member could truly describe accurately and which leaves the uninitiated wanting to drop the proverbial trail of bread crumbs in order not get lost and meet an untimely demise in the redwood committee forest.

For churches that require their elected (or selected) leaders to meet the biblical requirements for deacons and elders, this presents a difficult and thorny issue. If the church is congregational in its polity – meaning that the church membership as a whole makes the ultimate, final decisions on all issues – the deacons or other leadership body makes recommendations on church life to the church. However, those “recommendations” are almost always accepted by the congregation, without much discussion as to their merits, due to the deference paid to the deacon body. Committees come to have almost the same deference and in their recommendations are rarely opposed. And thus committees, which include non-deacons, come to have almost as much authority, responsibility and leadership function as the deacons, yet are not required or expected to meet the qualifications for leaders.

Common committee structures thus pose two primary problems for the activity of church congregations: 1) the sheer volume of the committee bureaucracy burdens the church’s ability to conduct ministry and is extremely inefficient; 2) the delegation of biblical leader responsibility to committees is contrary to stated polity and permits immature and sometimes ungodly people to exert leadership responsibility.

On one occasion a local church, the deacons wanted to appoint someone to manage a Family Ministries program, which was established in the church’s by-laws but had not been created or operated. Once the deacons decided on the man they wanted, discussion turned to how to get him appointed. Pursuant to rule, either the Steering Committee or the Committee on Committees or the Nominating Committee had to recommend the appointment to the church, after which the church had to approve the appointment. The deacons decided to inform the Committee on Committees who it should select. The Committee agreed and presented the nomination, which the church approved.

This is, to be kind, schizophrenic and dishonest. In this situation no one really knew the proper procedure because so many committees, as well as the deacons, had stated responsibility in the matter. Furthermore, the committees served merely to rubber stamp the deacons’ recommendations. The whole matter was presented to the church as if it had come from the committee raising the motion. The much simpler process would have been the one that makes the most sense: let the deacons present their recommendations for the Ministry leader to the church. Or, better yet, let the deacons make the appointment without church “approval.” Discussion, much less opposition, to standing deacon or committee recommendations is so rare that the facade of congregational involvement should be discarded.

On another occasion, a Sunday school Leadership Team had a vacancy in a Bible study teacher position. Because it had conducted teacher training and had firsthand knowledge of the Bible study program, it had a teacher in mind to fill the vacancy. However, because of rules it had to submit its recommendation to the Nominating Committee, which had to approve the recommendation and obtain approval from the church as a whole, a process which would take several weeks, at best. The much simpler process would be to permit the Sunday school Leadership Team to fill the vacancy, without having to obtain approval from any other committee or even the church.

When so many layers of bureaucracy and redundant “approval” exist, it hardly makes common sense to give deacons or Sunday School Teams any authority at all. The reality is that so much approval is not necessary, and serves only to impede the ministry of the church. And, at least in the occasions cited here, congregational “approval” is merely lip-service to democratic processes in the church. Those groups or committees with better knowledge of the needs should be freed to make decisions quickly and efficiently.

I personally believe that the best form of church polity, and the one most resembling the biblical example, is a congregational system in which elders manage spiritual concerns (Acts 6 – the ministry of the word and prayer) and deacons manage temporal concerns (Acts 6 – distributing resources to the needy members and other temporal needs). In such a system elders are recognized as godly leaders and are entrusted with general decision-making authority, while the congregation retains ultimate authority with its ability to choose and remove elders.

However, the most common form of protestant church government is likely the deacon-led scenario. In it deacons play a hybrid role of elder and deacon, shepherding and service. In fact, even among churches that vigorously disavow the elder form, elders are a de facto system. Responsibility for deciding spiritual matters, normally reserved for the elders, is given to various committees and church leaders, who might not be ordained members of the deacon board or elders, but who nevertheless fill the role of elders.

Some might be thinking at this point whether it makes any difference. Scripture tells us that the spiritual leaders (elders) and recognized servant leaders (deacons) must meet certain qualifications (1 Timothy 3:1-13). Instead, we select the members of leadership committees on the basis of “fair cross-sections”, egalitarianism, proportional representation, secular criteria such as business success, or – probably the worst – that inclusion on the committee might make invisible and uncommitted members more interested in church. We can select our leaders – regardless of whether they are called deacons, elders, or committee members – based upon biblical commands, or based upon our own limited, shortsighted and sinful notions of fairness. There is certainly a difference.

Churches can recover from the slow death and unbiblical leadership from which they now suffer. They can be like another church which had sixty committees for its 1200 members and which was slowly but surely dying a painful death of attrition. That church recognized the problem posed by its committees and completely changed its structure, abolished the stifling volume of committees, and adopted a board of elders and three standing committees. As a result, ministry flourished and the church came back to life.

Not every problem is caused by too many committees, and not every problem would be solved by streamlining a church’s governing structure. Ultimately it is God who grants the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). Yet it is our responsibility to be orderly and efficient, and to remove any impediments to that order and efficiency. If we don’t, we will not be like the church that recovers and flourishes again, but we will be like the church that succumbed to the inefficiency and ministry-stifling agglomeration of committees:

F.B.C. R.I.P.

Here lies the putrid, festering remains of First Baptist Church, Everywhereville, which was condemned to a slow, agonizing, but altogether ignored death by the accretion of legions of blood-sucking and vitality draining vermin known as nefarious committius, which suffocated the congregation in bureaucracy and prevented life-sustaining ministry and biblical leadership.

In Loving Memory
1886-2006

23June2008

Polluted Sacrifices

Written By robfaircloth

Among other things, the Old Testament sacrificial system was an object lesson to God’s people and to the nations that God is holy and that the sin of the people had offended that holiness. The animals sacrificed — as the type of what was to come — had to be without blemish. The perpetual shedding of the blood of substitutes served as constant reminder that God was continually holy, the people continually sinful. The promise, then, was for a once-for-all substitutionary sacrifice.

God’s indictment of his people in Malachi for offering polluted sacrifices — those that were lame, defective, sick — was not (primarily) because God needed meat and was getting less than he deserved. The people were due chastisement because their substandard sacrifice profaned the type, and muted the lesson it was intended to convey. If the people could offer blemished sacrifices, perhaps, then, the Messiah could also be blemished.

The severity of our sin and the holiness of our God require that the substitute be without stain. Our sacrifices and offerings (‘present your body a living and holy sacrifice’) must, therefore, also be the best we can muster, not because we satisfy God with our best — after all, our best is not good enough, and God has already been satisfied in Christ — but because even after we have beheld the Lamb who took away the sins of the world we need constant reminder of his holiness, and the perfection of his redemption.

22June2008

REGENERATE CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

Written By robfaircloth

I once recommended to someone on the church’s ‘Membership Committee’ that we begin to visit all of the people who were still listed among the church’s members, but who had not attended any service of the church in as long as 15 years, and encourage them to attend faithfully or remove them from church rolls. The suggestion got around to others, and the responses ranged from typical resistance to change to disturbing ignorance of biblical teaching: ‘we just don’t do that here’, ‘people don’t want to be told what to do,’ ‘who are we to take people off God’s roll?’

That was years ago, and nothing has changed. Only thirty to forty percent of the church’s ‘membership’ attends on any give Sunday, and no one seems to care.

Fortunately, the Southern Baptist Convention, the denomination to which I and my church belong, has taken steps to address the regenerate membership issue by passing resolutions encouraging churches to admit only those who exhibit signs of regeneration and to return to the practice of church discipline, in which the church actually demonstrates concern for the ability of its members to live a Christian life.

With the types of resistance that are entrenched in most SBC churches, one wonders how long it will take for the Convention’s non-binding resolutions to have any effect upon local congregations. George Barna and other researchers of Christian culture have found that so-called Christians behave no differently than those claiming no religious faith at all: trickle-down cannot occur soon enough, it would seem.

22June2008

EVOLUTION AND REVENGE

Written By robfaircloth

“Don’t take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God” (Romans 12:19).

Proponents of evolutionary theory suppose that every characteristic that now exists in beings today, most especially humans, is the product of natural selection, wherein blind, impersonal forces choose which mutations to keep and build upon, through countless millennia. The survival of the fittest asserts that only those characteristics best able to preserve the existence of the species is selected in this process.

But many things cannot be explained in this way. Such human emotions as love and affection, melancholy and irony don’t fit this scheme. What purpose would these emotions serve in preserving the human species?

Revenge, the saying goes, is best served cold. Which leaves it an unappetizing dish and wholly unsuited for preserving offspring. Unlike the huge tusks of a bull elephant, representing his health and vitality, revenge does not accomplish the dominant male’s right to breed or the abundance of his progeny. In fact, revenge is reputedly best when it has no utilitarian (Darwinian) benefit whatsoever. Revenge is delicious to the one serving it up when he has already been shown to be the least fit, so to speak.

22June2008

CHRISTMAS CARDS FROM ORPHANS

Written By robfaircloth

Should an alien be charged with the task of assessing just what sort of beings existed on earth, and what was important to them, but could only do so by visiting a post office in December, he might very well conclude that all of the people on earth were children, wore white clothing and lived at the beach. He might also conclude that everyone had credit problems.

I am looking now at a 2007 Christmas greeting card — the kind that incorporate a family photo — still magnetically affixed to our refrigerator. We received quite a few of them, and of all that we got I only recall one that included parents in the photograph. It’s as if the only people truly interested in Christmas are the kids.

Is that as it should be? Is the only compelling reason for a thing that it is “for the children”? (Recall Dr Joycelyn Elders’ proclamation that we need ‘safer bullets’ for the children, but not, apparently, for adults, who are able to handle dangerous bullets just fine). Do adults not have a compelling interest in Christmas, in the advent of Christ? Have we become so anti-adult, so pro-child, so enamored with Peter Pan that we have unwittingly become kidolaters?

Sure, Jesus was a child for part of his earthly life, but no significant role in his ministry was occupied by anyone other than an adult. During his short ministry he was an adult, his disciples were adults, his opponents were adults. Yes, children are important, but primarily because they will, eventually, become adults.