What Pastors Must Never Forget

The interview was going very well.  The old pastor had regaled the young seminary student with great stories in answer to questions about his long life and ministry.  He told how he began as a teenager in the 1920s, traveling by train, carrying a circus-type tent from town to town with a brother and two sisters to preach and sing at revivals.  When he took his first church, it was in desperate need of painting.  He found a deal on white paint, so they painted the little building white.  When finished, it almost glowed in the dusty central California town.  The whole town noticed, so he took advantage by renaming the church White Chapel. 

Later, when he pastored in a small town in southern Indiana, he put large loud speakers in the church’s bell tower and blessed the whole neighborhood with his sermon each week.  Later he was the first pastor in his denomination to try a weekly radio program.  The only available air time was late on Sunday evening.  He decided that people were preached to enough during the day on Sunday.  He felt that something other than a traditional worship service was needed to end the day.  So, he created a program that included music that was easy to listen to, the Gospel spoken in a conversational voice as if he was visiting with his listeners in their living room.  The program was syndicated and reached millions in the 50s and 60s.  Always an innovator, he was also one of the first pastors to dabble in television.  If he thought a method would reach people with Christ’s message, he was willing to give it a try.

All these things he told the younger man with great humility, giving God all the credit.  It was really quite a story.  The old man had been cutting-edge in the mid-20th century.  The younger man was impressed with his record.  Many people had already reported the great things that this elderly man of God had done: churches built, people healed, broken lives mended. This man had a knack for putting everyone at ease and being able to relate to people from all strata of society.  He had always been a consummate storyteller and his messages were richly illustrated, because he wanted to make sure the people could understand and remember the message God had for them. 

Though he had very little formal education, he read widely and could converse with the farmer and the factory worker, as well as the doctor, lawyer and professor.  Upon his retirement from pastoring, a college awarded him an honorary doctorate. 

Finally, thinking he almost had enough information for the paper he was writing, the younger man asked the finishing question about the growth of the churches the older man had pastored.  “What strategy did you use to produce the growth in your churches?”  The old man thought for a moment, then a smile creased his face as he replied, “Well, you know I only went to school until the fourth grade.  I once passed the tests to get into Bible college, but the week I was supposed to start there, a church begged me to come help them with a revival, and I just felt I couldn’t let that church or the Lord down.  So I just never got around to school.  I was never taught much about strategy.  What I tried to do was just love the people, and do what God led me to do.”  For a moment the student was stunned.  He had become so wrapped up in studying the church and analyzing how it worked, he had almost lost sight of the most important thing, the very thing the older man had never forgotten.  The student also realized that wisdom trumps knowledge.  He had asked a question about knowledge, but the old pastor’s answer was one of wisdom.  

It is nearly 40 years later and that young student is now an old pastor.  I have always tried not to forget the lesson I learned from Rev. Ross H. Minkler all those years ago.  Often, I have had to remind myself what the most important thing is: loving the people and doing what God leads me to do.  Whatever vision and strategy the Lord gives us for his church, and no matter how hard we work to plan, the key remains what Pastor Ross said—Love the people and do what God tells us to do. I don’t want to forget that, and I hope that other pastors never forget it.

Names of Churches

What’s in a name?  What’s in a name for a church?

A new church is meeting at a high school near my house.  It is called Kingdom Come.  Interesting name.  I haven’t yet found out why this name was chosen, and I am sure there must have been a good reason, but I am having fun thinking about what that name means.  It probably has to do with a verse from the Lord’s Prayer, or about wishing Jesus would come back.  But what do people driving by the sign in front of the school think it means.  Most people use the words “kingdom come” in a sentence like, “The tornado (or hurricane, or explosion) blew that house to kingdom come.”  So, is this church explosive, or the aftermath of an explosion? Or, perhaps the church members know that the Hebrew word for spirit is the same as the word for wind, so they are very poetically thinking that the Spirit is blowing in the church until the Kingdom comes.  The problem is that the Bible says:

Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21, NIV).

To me that says the Kingdom is already here.  

Anyway, I don’t want to argue Kingdom of God theology at this time; instead, this post is about church names. 

I find them very interesting.  Historically, we have named churches for a saint or other leader, for a biblical place, for a doctrinal position, or a combination of these.  Some churches are named for the area or the street on which they are located.  Sometimes, that creates problems when the church relocates.  When I was a young student minister in Louisville, KY, the biggest church in town was Walnut St. Baptist Church: it was located on Broadway and had been for many years.  The First Church of God in Wichita, KS was pretty much in the middle of town when it changed its name to Central Community Church.  A couple of years later they moved to what was then the west edge of town and kept the name.  (Central Community has a sister church named West Side.  West Side is now 5 miles closer to the middle of the city than is Central—confusing.)  It has also long been the practice for churches to use numbers to identify themselves.  Usually, the only number they use is First, but I have seen a few Seconds.

Some churches that started in the 70s and 80s, perhaps inspired by 7Up’s uncola commercials chose to use an unchurch name.  They took names like Christian Fellowship, or Koinonia, or Ekklesia and left out the word “Church” … I guess to show they were different from your Grandma’s church.  Also, in that period lots of churches put “Community” in their names:  Faith Community, Fellowship Community, Ourtown or Our Neigborhood Community.  Many of these were inspired by Robert Schuller who chose not to name the church he founded Reformed Church of Garden Grove, but instead, Garden Grove Community Church.  His purpose was to identify with the people of the town.  Of course, when they built an amazing building, the name was changed to Crystal Cathedral.  Hmm … that church, which for decades was one of the most influential ones in the country, recently declared bankruptcy.  I wonder if the emphasis, like the name, turned from the community to the church.  I don’t know about that particular case, but I know that a lot of other churches have turned inward, which has led to their downfall.

In the last 10 or 15 years the fad has been for churches to choose a one word name that somehow describes the mission, so we now have churches named Journey, Catalyst, Discover, Hope, or _______pointe (fill in the blank with Life, Bridge, Faith, Touch). 

There are also some very unusual names for newer churches.  Last week I heard a speaker from Australia whose church is named Small Boat, Big Sea.  It’s located in a depressed area and wants to bring God’s rescue to the people there, at least that’s what I think it means.  Also, there is a church in Denver, CO that is called Scum of the Earth.  No kidding.  They are targeting people who feel rejected by everyone.  A good thought, but I think it might limit their clientele. Perhaps that’s the idea, and they are only interested in reaching that niche which they feel is being rejected by other churches.  I can’t help being reminded of a youth pastor friend of mine who, when we were young, was fond of saying he was going to move to Beverly Hills because he felt called to minister to the filthy rich.  I wonder how the name Church of the Filthy Rich, or Rich and Famous Community Church would have worked out.  Maybe it’s just as well he never went there.

Some church leaders are saying churches should think about changing the name every five years.  I don’t know about that.  It seems to me if a church has a reputation for being a loving community that welcomes and accepts new people, a name change is probably unnecessary and may be counterproductive.  However, if a church which has been declining or on a long plateau because it has become inward focused is choosing to turn over a new leaf, repent, and seek to have an outward focused future, then a name chance should be considered.  The new name can reflect the new life the church is now living.  Changing the name won’t change the focus, but if the focus is changing, then changing the name can make sense. 

Naming the church is a big decision.  I had the privilege of naming a church that I planted.  It was the middle 80s and I wanted to name it Hope Community Church.  (Basically, because we had little money, little training as a church planter, no people, and hope was the only resource we had.)  When I shared the name with the congregation, which at that point was my wife, my 6-year-old son and myself, the vote was 2 to 1.  My wife was fine with Hope, but my little son, being wise beyond his years, said, “Name it Jesus’s Church, because it’s His church anyway.”  I learned right then that naming a church causes controversy in any size church.  Of course, Jarad’s statement was correct, but Dad and Mom won and we named it Hope Community anyway.  As I think about it, perhaps Jesus’ Church would be a pretty good name.  Maybe it would help a body of believers to remember who is in charge and keep the focus on Him and his design for His church. 

What’s in a name?  For a church there can be a lot, especially in this day when people are less and less impressed by denominational and doctrinal names.  I think the name should reflect what the church aspires to be and the mission it hopes to accomplish.  Is your church living up to its name?  Beyond that, is it living up to the mission that Jesus gave it?

Is Your Church Flexible Enough to Survive?

It was sad to see. The church that my parents attended literally died. Largely, the people who made up this congregation got old and passed on to the next life. When they did, they left no one to pass their church on to. The church attendance had been dwindling for many years. I visited there about a year before the denomination finally pulled the plug. It was like I stepped into a time machine back to my childhood in the early 60s: the order of worship was just as I remembered, the songs we sang were the same, the choir had new robes, but many of the members were the same, the same nice lady still played the organ, and the same people (the ones who were still living) sat in the same pews. This churched thrived in the post WW II era. As the men who fought that war came home and started families they brought them to church, built a beautiful little building, and expected things to go on like that forever. The only place they went on like that was in the church building. The neighborhood changed as the children of those men grew up and moved to other parts of the city. Eventually, most of the old-timers moved out of the neighborhood, too. Because they loved their church, they would drive back to the old neighborhood each Sunday, but their children wouldn’t. Finally, the congregation got old and died off. When there were only a few of them left, the denomination stepped in and gave the debt-free building to another of their local churches to use as a satellite campus. Of course my 90-year-old parents and the other members were invited to continue attending, but everything changed and they couldn’t accept so many sudden changes. It was no longer their church.

A similar thing happened in another denomination in another state. The church grew down to ten attenders. Their congregational polity required that they vote to turn the building over to the denomination. It looked like they would make that decision so that the assets could be used by the denomination to build the Kingdom in the area. However, at the last minute the last 10 members voted to keep the building so that they could use it for a small group Bible study on Sundays. (There was no mention of reaching out to the community.)

From time to time, both of these churches had been challenged to make some changes that would help them stay relevant and reach people for Christ. Both churches went through a lot of pastors, some of them were incompetent, some of them had great ideas, but the congregation was stubborn. They wanted the church the way it was, and that’s the way it stayed. Their concern was pleasing the people they already had, instead of trying to reach those around them who needed the good news. It had not always been that way. At one time these churches worked hard to affect the world for Christ, but that was long ago.

On the other hand, there are churches today that are growing like crazy. Many new church plants struggle with facilities and meet for years in high school gyms, warehouses or abandoned big box stores. I know one new church which has yet to have its first publicly advertised worship service that already has a larger attendance at their Sunday evening sessions than the national average church attendance. They crowd into a small office.

What’s the deal? Why do many churches find themselves with a building and no people, while other churches find themselves with a growing number of people and a desperate need for a building? I have puzzled over this for years. It excites me to see people crowd in to make-shift church buildings because they want to hear the message of love, hope and forgiveness. At the same time, it breaks my heart to see nearly empty churches that seem to care only for self preservation and are not concerned about the deep spiritual needs of those around them.

I think I found the answer as I was reading in Mark. It has to do with wineskins.

“And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins" Mark 2:22 (NIV).

Jesus warned the disciples that their new relationship with him would not fit with the old temple religion of the Jews. Maybe it’s the same thing with some of our churches. They are only a little less into tradition and preserving the way things have been than were the Jewish authorities. Many congregations might well be as snobby about who is admitted to the “inner circle” as the Pharisees and Sadducees.

In Jesus’ day in Judah wine was often stored in wineskins. When the juice fermented to become wine, it gave off gases that stretched the skins. Old skins that had lost their elasticity couldn’t stretch to accommodate the process. They would break open and be ruined and the wine would spill out and be lost. I think this is the problem of many declining and plateaued churches. They have become too inflexible to accommodate the changes necessary to reach a new generation, so many are apparently being discarded. The great Bible scholar William Barclay commented on a similar passage in Luke: “No business could exist on outworn methods – and yet the church tries to. Any business that has lost as many customers as the church has would have tried new ways long ago – but the church tends to resent all that is new.” (It’s interesting to note that he wrote those words in 1953.)

The difference between churches and wineskins is that churches have a choice. They can choose to change. They can remain flexible. It all depends on the culture of the church. If the culture of the church is to be committed to the way things were, then no matter what the leadership does, the church gets old, and brittle, and eventually worthless to God’s plan to build the Kingdom. If an old church can maintain a culture that is committed to being a means the Lord uses to love people and bring them into His Kingdom, then it can continue to be a great beacon of His light in the world.

Sadly, even when declining and plateaued churches know they need to become flexible and make changes in a changing environment, they choose not to. Then, the only recourse God has is to make new wineskins (new congregations) that He will fill with his new wine (new believers).

What’s your church like? Is it an old wineskin—inflexible and no place for new believers? Or, is it willing to do whatever it takes to help new people become followers of Christ? How about you? How is your flexibility? How set are you in the way it has always been?

Why Don’t Churches Grow?

A lot of churches don’t grow and haven’t grown in a long time. The people scratch their heads and can’t figure out what is wrong. They love their church and don’t understand why others don’t. They see people come and go, but the attendance just seems to go down. The painful truth is that many of our churches are about a dozen funerals from ceasing to be. Why is it that many churches don’t grow? Of course there are many reasons, but I think the major one is that the world doesn’t see Christ in the church. Jesus’ love and the hope he gives are attractive, but too often non-Christians don’t see Him in our churches. Why is that? How are we covering Him up?

First, of all the world doesn’t know what the church is up to. We have not made clear that we are here to share the wondrous love of Jesus we have found and enjoy. Since they don’t feel the love they come up with all kinds of erroneous motives for the church.
Second, the world doesn’t think the message of the church is relevant. Generally that is at least partly because it we have not made the message clear. So they think, “Whatever they are doing has nothing to do with me.”
Third, we come across to the world as an ingrown culture. To them, we have our own jargon, we exist in our own little world. They think they wouldn’t be welcome, even if they were interested
Fourth, too often we are seen by the world as a people who argue over the strangest things: doctrines they don’t understand; the type of music that is sung in the church; the length of hair, and skirts; and whether or not to wear ties in worship.
Fifth, they see us as people to whom tradition is more important than sharing our message in a relevant way. Tradition can help hold people together, but many times we let our traditions get in the way.

What can be done? How does a church overcome these perceptions? To get past these things the people in the church first have to want to. We must decide whether it is more important to do things the way we like them, or to reassess the things we do and aim our efforts at doing what Jesus told us to do, make disciples, and make the changes necessary to reveal our wonderful Savior to a new generation.

It may sound brutal but it is true is that many of us are flat-out selfish when it comes to our church. We would rather watch our neighbor go to hell than have to change things in their church. Can anyone tell me, what Jesus is going to say about this?