Leadership

Justice by Whose Definition? When Worship Becomes the Issue

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

In my last post, I asked what constitutes justice when a denomination and departing congregations find themselves fighting over church property. Who defines justice? And does protecting an institution’s interests necessarily mean justice has been served?

But the question doesn’t end at the church’s property line. It follows people through the sanctuary doors. What constitutes justice when a retired pastor’s choice of where to worship becomes a question of denominational loyalty?

I raise the question because the present situation in South Carolina called back to mind an action taken by my former annual conference, the Louisiana Conference of The United Methodist Church, three years ago.

I hear you saying, “Malone, you’re a little late to the party.” I know, but I still wrestle with whether the position outlined in Bishop Delores J. Williamston’s letter to retired clergy was just. The letter addresses their participation in congregations that disaffiliated from the denomination.

I’m including both pages here because the wording matters. Readers deserve to see the bishop’s explanation, including the concerns about clergy covenant and accountability, before considering my questions.

When worship becomes the issue

One sentence in the letter deserves particular attention:

“Being active in a church can mean worshipping regularly in the congregation and/or serving in a staff or volunteer role.”

The letter goes on to identify preaching, presiding at sacraments, and officiating at weddings and funerals as examples of participation. It states that retired clergy who worship regularly, unite with, or serve in a disaffiliated congregation are no longer in good standing or in covenantal relationship with their fellow United Methodist clergy. Withdrawal from conference membership is required.

That is a broad boundary. It encompasses the pastor standing behind the pulpit. It also encompasses the retired pastor sitting in the pew. Should those activities be treated the same way?

There is another question of consistency. If a retired United Methodist pastor may lead a funeral in a Presbyterian, Episcopal, or Baptist church, why should leading one in a disaffiliated congregation carry different consequences? In each instance, the pastor is ministering outside the denomination. What makes one acceptable and the other a violation of covenant?

Is the distinction theological? Does the restriction imply that a disaffiliated congregation is no longer a Christian church, or that it has become apostate? The letter does not make that argument. If the distinction rests instead on the congregation’s decision to leave, then why should that history determine whether a retired pastor may minister to grieving people there?

I recognize that holding a funeral in another church’s building is not necessarily the same as joining its denomination or accepting an ongoing pastoral role. That is precisely why these distinctions matter. Occasional pastoral care, regular worship attendance, and formal ministerial affiliation deserve to be considered on their own terms.

If the concern is ministry outside United Methodism, why single out disaffiliated congregations? If the concern is specifically their departure, what makes this restriction a just response? A different history may explain the different treatment. It does not, by itself, establish that the treatment is just.

Covenant deserves a serious conversation

I spent more than twenty-eight years as a United Methodist pastor. I understand that clergy covenant involves responsibilities. Retirement does not erase those commitments.

The letter explains the continuing relationship retired clergy are expected to maintain with a United Methodist congregation and the reporting required of them. I received many of those reports in my time as a District Superintendent. I know it matters.

The letter also raises concerns about retired clergy planting congregations outside the denomination and recruiting members from United Methodist churches. Yup! I agree that doing so while retaining United Methodist credentials raises legitimate questions about covenant. But putting those activities in the same category as occasionally helping with a funeral, assisting in a baptism, or participating in a worship service seems, well, a bit unjust.

A denomination has a legitimate interest in how people holding its credentials represent it and exercise ministry. Clergy colleagues have legitimate reasons to expect honesty and care in their relationships with one another. But acknowledging those responsibilities does not settle every question about how they should be enforced.

Regularly attending worship, joining another denomination, and recruiting people away from a congregation are different actions. What justifies placing them within the same boundary? What harm does each cause? And should each carry the same consequence? Those are questions about justice.

A policy can be clear and still deserve examination. An institution can have authority and still need to explain why a particular exercise of that authority is proportionate and faithful to its mission.

There are people behind the policy

I know former colleagues who have responded in different ways. Some willingly surrendered their credentials so they could participate with integrity in the congregations where they wanted to worship and serve. Others continued openly, essentially daring the conference to take their credentials. Still others continued quietly, careful about drawing attention to where they worshiped or how they participated.

I will not identify them or describe circumstances that might identify them. Their lives are not illustrations for me to use without regard for the consequences. Nor do I assume that every response resolves the question of covenant equally well. But these different responses reveal the strain this boundary places on people.

Surrendering credentials after a lifetime of ministry is no small thing. Neither is feeling that worshiping with a Christian congregation must be done discreetly.

What kind of pastoral conversation might help people navigate those choices? Is there room to listen to the relationships, convictions, and spiritual needs involved before concluding that participation constitutes a broken covenant?

The consequences matter

The letter also addresses benefits. It explicitly states that withdrawal will not affect a retired clergy person’s Wespath benefits. It distinguishes those benefits from the conference’s retiree health benefit, which it describes as available only to retired United Methodist pastors in good standing with the Louisiana Conference.

That distinction matters. The letter isn’t a threat to take away a pastor’s pension. Still, attaching consequences for retiree health benefits to a determination of good standing makes the definition of good standing especially consequential. I am addressing the letter and the reasoning it presents, rather than making a claim about how every case was handled or what policy is in effect today.

Perhaps the policy has changed. Perhaps it was never enforced. Those possibilities would matter in assessing its present impact, but they would not erase the questions raised by the letter itself. What does it mean for the church to tell retired pastors that where they worship could affect their standing—and, with it, their eligibility for a retiree health benefit?

Is regular worship attendance sufficient grounds for consequences of this magnitude? What pastoral purpose does that serve? And could a more carefully drawn boundary protect legitimate denominational interests while respecting a retired pastor’s conscience?

Justice must reach beyond our own interests

These questions should not depend on which denomination’s name appears over the church house door. If my own denomination established a comparable boundary, it would deserve the same scrutiny. Otherwise, “justice” becomes a word we use when we dislike someone else’s decisions and put away when the decisions benefit us.

I am not asking the church to abandon accountability. I am asking what faithful accountability should look like when conscience, Christian fellowship, and institutional commitments come into tension.

We should be able to distinguish worship attendance from the exercise of denominational authority. We should be able to address concerns about recruitment without assuming that every act of participation poses the same problem. And we should be able to ask whether a consequence is proportionate without being accused of dismissing covenant altogether.

In the previous post, the question concerned property. Here, it concerns people—their worship, their relationships, their years of service, and their consciences. The institution’s interests deserve consideration. So do those of the retired clergy.

Just because we can justify something doesn’t make it just. Justice by whose definition? Surely our answer must make room for the person sitting in the pew.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

Justice by Whose Definition?

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

And so the fight for “justice” continues.

In an October 13 statement, the South Carolina Conference of The United Methodist Church announced that a circuit court judge intends to dismiss cases brought by the Conference and local United Methodist churches involving 70 churches seeking to separate from the denomination. According to the statement, the written orders have not yet been entered. The Conference nevertheless announced its intention to appeal.

For years, congregations seeking to leave The United Methodist Church over theological differences could do so with their property under a temporary provision in the Book of Discipline (Paragraph 2553). That window closed at the end of 2023. In the years since, some churches have continued to separate—often outside the processes allowed by church law—while annual conferences have sought to retain the properties under the denomination’s longstanding trust clause. The South Carolina cases are one result of that unresolved conflict.

Near the conclusion, Bishop Leonard Fairley said, “So, we will continue to seek justice faithfully, pursue the appropriate legal avenues available to us, and trust God with what lies ahead.”

It was the word justice that caught my attention. Just what constitutes justice in a situation like this? And who gets to define it?

Let me acknowledge my own perspective. I spent more than 28 years as a United Methodist pastor, including two years as a district superintendent. I now pastor Haughton Methodist Church, a congregation that chose to walk away from its former church property. I have a history here. I have convictions. I won’t pretend otherwise. 

But those experiences are precisely why I think the question deserves more than an assumption that justice means our side wins. Read alongside the announced intention to appeal, that language raises a question for me: Does seeking justice necessarily mean overturning the dismissal?

Who Has a Just Claim?

An Annual Conference can argue that church property belongs to a connection larger than any single congregation. Local churches have benefited from appointed pastors, denominational relationships and the contributions of those who came before the present membership. Some have also received financial assistance. Those things matter.

But generations of local people putting money in offering plates, paying mortgages, repairing roofs, mowing grass and keeping the lights on matter just as much. So do the sacrifices of people who believed they were providing a place where their children and grandchildren could worship and come to know Jesus. How does one weigh those contributions?

Where a Conference’s financial investment has been limited or nonexistent, what makes retaining the property morally just? Is the legal claim sufficient to settle the Christian question? And from the other direction, does the present congregation’s desire to leave erase every obligation to the connection or every intention of previous generations?

Those questions require actual answers. Calling our preferred outcome “justice” does not provide them. A court can determine legal rights. Christians still have to ask how we ought to exercise those rights.

What Does the Fight Cost?

The bishop’s statement also speaks of people hungry for the Gospel, communities needing healing and children needing to discover the love of Jesus. Amen. I couldn’t agree more. There is much ministry before us. That is part of what makes this so troubling.

What does it cost to continue these disputes? And I don’t mean only the attorney fees. What does it cost in pastoral attention? In congregational energy? In relationships? In the credibility of our witness to people watching from outside the church? What could the money accomplish if it were used to feed the hungry, clothe the naked or support ministries of care for the sick?

I get it: property has value, and protecting it can preserve resources for future ministry. Stewardship sometimes requires difficult decisions. But stewardship also requires asking whether the expense of securing an asset is consuming the very ministry that asset was supposed to serve.

That question applies to departing congregations, too. A congregation can become so determined to keep a building that keeping it becomes the organizing purpose of its life. At some point, both sides ought to ask: How much are we willing to spend to avoid losing? And what might we lose while insisting on winning?

The Scripture We Have to Face

Then there is Paul. 1 Corinthians 6 makes uncomfortable reading when Christians are taking one another to court. Paul confronts believers over their lawsuits and asks why they would not rather suffer wrong or accept being cheated.

I don’t believe a blog paragraph can settle every question about how that passage applies to every legal circumstance. But surely it requires more from us than a quick explanation of why our particular dispute deserves an exception.

Paul asks us to consider the possibility that accepting a loss might be more faithful than securing a victory. What are we supposed to do with that? Does it have any practical authority over our decisions? Can it change our course of action? Or do we affirm the authority of Scripture until Scripture threatens something we are determined to keep?

I ask that as someone who has preached plenty of difficult passages and then discovered how difficult they are to live. What sounds right when we read it in worship on Sunday can be harder to accept when we meet with an attorney on Monday.

Sometimes You Walk Away

At Haughton, our congregation walked away. I cannot mention that as though leaving church property behind were a small thing. A church building holds memories. People remember weddings, funerals, baptisms and the places where they sat beside someone they loved. You can’t pack any of that into a moving van.

We now worship in a storefront. There are limitations and inconveniences. The decision to walk away had consequences beyond the day we left. But there is still a congregation. There is still worship. There is still a Gospel to proclaim and a community to serve.

Our experience does not give me the right to prescribe the same decision for every other church. It does give me a reason to take Paul’s question seriously. Accepting loss is an actual possibility, with actual costs.

It also raises a question for the institution receiving what a congregation relinquishes. A congregation’s willingness to walk away does not automatically establish the justice of the Conference keeping the property, or the justice of the Conference continuing to fight for it. Accepting an outcome and declaring that outcome just are different things.

If we appeal to Scripture when asking a congregation to accept loss, we must also ask what Scripture might require the Conference to surrender. Otherwise, accepting loss becomes something we recommend exclusively to the other side.

Justice, Mercy and Humility

Micah 6:8 holds together doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with God. I need all three. So does the church.

Humility requires admitting that my interests can influence my definition of justice. Mercy requires taking seriously what my insistence on those interests will cost someone else. Neither makes justice unimportant, but both should shape how we pursue it.

I don’t know how the South Carolina appeals will unfold. The statement itself says the trial court’s written orders are still pending. I am not claiming to know how the legal questions should be resolved. I am asking whether we have given the Christian questions the attention they deserve.

What do we owe one another? What does our witness require? What are we willing to surrender for the sake of the Gospel? And, perhaps most importantly, can we recognize justice when it requires something of us?

The fight for “justice” continues. Meanwhile, the hungry still need food, the sick still need care, the poor still need help, and the orphan and widow still need someone to stand beside them. A world still needs Jesus. Those needs don’t settle the property question. But they ought to weigh heavily in how long we fight, how much we spend and what we are willing to surrender.

Justice. We all want justice. The problem is in knowing whose definition to use.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

Why I Am an Evangelical Methodist

/ pastorlynnmalone / 2 Comments

People occasionally ask me why I am a member of the Evangelical Methodist Church, yet I pastor a Global Methodist congregation. It’s a fair question.

I spent more than twenty-eight years as a pastor in the United Methodist Church. I served churches large and small. I served for two years as a district superintendent. Methodism shaped me as a pastor and as a disciple, and I remain deeply grateful for many of the people and experiences that were part of those years. But today I am an ordained elder in the Evangelical Methodist Church. Why?

The answer begins with something very simple: They gave me a home when I didn’t have one.

When I Didn’t Have a Home

My introduction to the Evangelical Methodist Church came long before I ever imagined becoming part of it. In 1995, Rev. Dr. Fred Layman was one of my Supervised Ministry professors in seminary. Dr. Layman was a member of the Evangelical Methodist Church, and through him I learned for the first time that there even was such a thing as the EMC.

I wasn’t looking for another denomination. I was a United Methodist pastor and fully expected to remain one. The EMC was simply this little Methodist denomination that I learned about because one of my professors happened to be part of it. I certainly didn’t imagine that twenty-five years later it would become my denominational home.

In February 2019, I served as a delegate to the called General Conference session of the United Methodist Church. That experience became a significant turning point for me. After considerable prayer and discernment, I concluded that I could no longer remain in the denomination I had served for most of my adult life. By August, I had surrendered my United Methodist clergy credentials. What I didn’t have was somewhere else to go.

For almost a year, I was spiritually homeless. I still loved the Church. I still believed God had called me to ministry. I was still Methodist—Wesleyan down to my toes, as they say—but I no longer had a denominational home.

Then, in July 2020, the Evangelical Methodist Church gave me one. There is something powerful about being welcomed when you aren’t quite sure where you belong. The EMC received me, recognized my calling and ministry, and gave me a place to serve. I will always be grateful for that.

But gratitude alone doesn’t explain why I’m still here. Gratitude brought me through the door. Conviction is why I’m still here.

I Have Found a Theological Home

One of the things that increasingly attracts me to the EMC is its emphasis on Wesleyan holiness. In some ways, that attraction reaches all the way back to my childhood. I grew up next door to Pentecostal cousins, and occasionally I would attend worship with them. Those experiences made an impression on me. There was an expectancy about the work of the Holy Spirit that was different from much of what I experienced elsewhere. Then came the charismatic movement of the 1970s, right about the time I was coming of age. That movement reached even our little church in Chatham, LA.

So, from an early age I was exposed to Christians who believed there was more to the work of the Holy Spirit than simply getting us saved and getting us to heaven. They expected God to continue doing something in us. That stayed with me.

As I grew older and eventually entered ministry, however, I began to struggle with some elements of Pentecostal theology. In particular, I had difficulty with the emphasis on speaking in tongues as the evidence of a subsequent work of the Holy Spirit.

Wesleyan holiness theology eventually gave me another framework for understanding something that had attracted me for much of my life. The holiness tradition retains the expectation of a deeper work of grace. It has traditionally spoken of entire sanctification as a “second work of grace” or even a “second blessing.” But the emphasis isn’t on speaking in tongues. The emphasis is on holiness of heart and life.

God doesn’t merely want to forgive us. God wants to transform us. Grace isn’t finished with us when we are converted. The Holy Spirit continues working to make us more like Jesus. And there comes a place in the disciple’s journey where we are called to surrender ourselves fully to the sanctifying work of God.

I’m still working through exactly how I understand some of that language and how I understand it in my own experience. I can’t necessarily point to a particular date on the calendar and say, “There. That’s when it happened.” But I have become increasingly convinced that conversion cannot be the end of what God’s grace intends to accomplish in us.

One way I’ve come to think about sanctification is that when we come to Christ, the house gets a new Owner. Sanctification is the work of that new Owner opening closets, cleaning out drawers, rearranging furniture and sometimes showing us things we’ve kept around far too long. The goal isn’t merely that Jesus occupies a room in the house. The whole house belongs to him.

I find a theological home for that conviction in the Evangelical Methodist Church.

I Like Being Part of a Small Denomination

There is another reason I love the EMC that isn’t nearly as theological. It’s small. And I mean that as a compliment. Actually, there are only a few more congregations in the entirety of the United States than there were congregations in the district I served as District Superintendent in the UMC.

After spending most of my ministry in a large denomination, I’ve discovered something refreshing about being part of a denomination where it is possible to know one another.

I know our denominational leaders. They know me. They aren’t simply names printed beneath titles on an organizational chart. They’re people I can talk to, pray with, disagree with, eat with and call when I need something. There is something healthy about that kind of accessibility.

At our General Conference this summer, I was reminded again how much I value that. These aren’t distant denominational officials I know only by title. They’re brothers and sisters in ministry I actually know. Seriously, every congregation in the connection was represented. Every pastor was present. In all my years in the UMC, I never experienced anything like that.

Small doesn’t mean insignificant. And large certainly doesn’t mean bad. There are strengths and weaknesses that come with both. But at this stage of my life and ministry, I have discovered that I value relationships more than organizational machinery. I like knowing the people with whom I’m doing ministry. I like being known by them.

The EMC feels less like an institution I belong to and more like a family of churches and pastors with whom I share ministry. That matters to me.

I Like Simple

I also appreciate the relative simplicity of the EMC. I’ve spent enough years in church meetings to know that Methodists are capable of turning almost anything into a committee. And then appointing a subcommittee to study it. And then requiring a report from the subcommittee so the original committee can discuss it at the next meeting. Oh, and let’s not forget the potato salad—well actually, that part was good. But I don’t miss the endless meetings.

There is accountability in the EMC. There is structure. There are reports that have to be completed and meetings that need to happen. Any denomination needs those things. But the machinery doesn’t overwhelm the mission.

The paperwork is relatively simple and can be completed online in a matter of minutes. The denominational structure is relatively simple. There aren’t endless layers of meetings demanding the time and energy of pastors and congregations. I appreciate that more than I probably would have twenty years ago.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that the church’s structures should exist to support ministry rather than ministry existing to support the church’s structures.

I want to preach the gospel. I want to make disciples. I want to pastor people. I want to help people become more like Jesus. If our denominational machinery helps us do those things, wonderful. If maintaining the machinery begins consuming the energy we need to do those things, something has gotten out of order.

I’ve found the simplicity of the EMC refreshing.

Why I Have Stayed

There is one other part of the story worth mentioning. When I became part of the Evangelical Methodist Church in 2020, the Global Methodist Church did not yet exist. So, I didn’t choose the EMC over the GMC. There was no GMC to choose at the time.

Since the GMC was formed, however, I have been approached numerous times about becoming part of it. I’ve chosen to remain where I am.

That isn’t because I’m opposed to the Global Methodist Church. I’m not. I have friends there. I currently serve a congregation in the GMC. I want the GMC to succeed in its mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ and spreading scriptural holiness across the globe.

But somewhere along the way, something changed for me. The Evangelical Methodist Church stopped being simply the denomination that gave me somewhere to belong when I needed a home. It became my church.

Its Wesleyan holiness theology increasingly resonates with what I believe about the disciple’s life. Its size allows relationships that I have come to value deeply. Its leadership is accessible. Its structure is relatively simple. And its emphasis on holiness keeps calling me toward the kind of disciple—and pastor—I believe Jesus wants me to become.

I’m not suggesting the Evangelical Methodist Church is perfect. That would be a particularly strange claim coming from a guy who has a website called Not the Perfect Pastor. Every denomination has its weaknesses. Every denomination has things it needs to do better. The EMC is no exception. 

One example is our language around children and baptism. I remain uncomfortable with the option the EMC offers of dedicating children rather than baptizing them, because my understanding of Wesleyan sacramental theology leads me strongly toward infant baptism. 

That’s one place where I continue to wrestle with my own denomination. But I’ve reached a place in my life where I’m less interested in finding the perfect denomination than I am in being faithful where God has placed me.

Almost thirty years ago, Dr. Fred Layman introduced me to a little denomination I had never heard of. Twenty-five years later, that denomination welcomed me when I didn’t have a home. And over the years since, I’ve discovered something I couldn’t have known then: I wasn’t merely looking for somewhere to land. I was finding home.

Gratitude brought me through the door. Conviction is why I’m still here.

And that, my friends, is why I am an Evangelical Methodist.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

The Cattywampus Episcopacy: A Friendly Question About GMC Bishops

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

There is a word we used back in Jackson Parish when something wasn’t exactly crooked, wasn’t exactly backwards, but somehow didn’t seem put together quite right: cattywampus. I’m not sure that’s how one spells it, but I know it’s how one says it.

I’ve been looking at the new episcopal areas of the Global Methodist Church, approved earlier this year and now being used to elect bishops at its General Conference in South Africa, and I’m having trouble finding a better word.

I should probably establish my credentials—or lack thereof—before going any further. I am not a member of the Global Methodist Church. I am an ordained elder in the Evangelical Methodist Church. However, I spent more than twenty-eight years as a United Methodist pastor, served for a time as a district superintendent, and currently pastor a GMC congregation. I’d call myself an inside-outsider.

I understand the Methodist system. I understand some of the problems the GMC was attempting to correct when it designed its polity. I have friends and former colleagues throughout the denomination. One of the newly elected bishops, Carolyn Moore, and I were seminary classmates. So, please understand, this isn’t an attack on the GMC, nor is it criticism of the eight people elected to serve as bishops.

It is simply a question about structure. And the question is this: Does this seem cattywampus to you?

Trying Not to Rebuild What You Left

I understand at least part of the philosophy behind the GMC’s episcopacy. The Global Methodist Church did not want simply to recreate the United Methodist episcopal system with a new name on the door. That’s understandable.

GMC bishops are intended to function as general superintendents of the whole connection rather than becoming little ecclesiastical rulers over permanent territories. The denomination emphasizes a traveling episcopacy. Its Discipline even provides that episcopal areas do not have to be geographically contiguous and may be international in composition. I get the theological argument. In fact, the international character is intentional: no episcopal area was designed with more than four annual conferences from the same continent.

A bishop is a bishop of the whole church, not merely the bishop of Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, or wherever that bishop happens to be assigned. But here’s where I begin scratching my head. Why does being a bishop of the whole church require having a geographically scattered supervisory assignment? Those are two entirely different things.

A bishop could be a general superintendent of the whole Global Methodist Church while being assigned for a particular term to annual conferences located within a reasonably coherent geographic area. Those ideas aren’t contradictory. In fact, Methodists have been figuring out how to combine connectionalism and geography for a very long time.

This Map Ain’t Mapping

The problem is that theology doesn’t make geography disappear. If a bishop is responsible for annual conferences spread across large portions of the United States and other parts of the world, somebody has to travel between them. That means airline tickets, hotels, meals and ground transportation. It means days spent traveling—sometimes over multiple time zones. It means jet lag. And perhaps most importantly, hours and days in which a bishop is sitting in an airport or airplane rather than actually exercising episcopal ministry.

That raises a stewardship question for me. Local congregations provide the financial support that ultimately makes denominational ministry possible. Every dollar spent moving a bishop from one side of the country—or the world—to another is a dollar that originated somewhere in the offering plates and bank accounts of local churches. If geographically coherent episcopal areas could substantially reduce those costs without compromising the denomination’s theology of episcopacy, why wouldn’t we do that?

Maybe there’s a good answer. I just haven’t heard it yet.

There’s Also the Stewardship of the Bishop

Money isn’t the only thing being entrusted to our stewardship. People are, too. The GMC elected eight bishops in 2026 to six-year terms. Again, that isn’t a criticism of them. I’m 62 years old myself.

Carolyn Moore and I were seminary classmates, so we’re essentially the same age. I have great respect for Carolyn and wish her well in her ministry.

Rev. Dr. Moore has been assigned to Episcopal Area 8, which consists of these annual conferences: 

  • Allegheny West — U.S.
  • North Carolina — U.S.
  • Heartland — U.S.
  • Uganda
  • Kenya
  • Malawi
  • Zimbabwe

That’s three U.S. conferences and four conferences spread from East Africa down into Southern Africa.

I cannot imagine spending the next six years repeatedly flying across multiple time zones, arriving somewhere and immediately being expected to preach, preside, meet with clergy, address problems, make decisions and provide spiritual leadership—then fly home, recover and eventually do it again.

Could I do it? Probably. Would I want a denomination to design my job around doing it repeatedly until I was nearly seventy? That’s a different question.

A six-year episcopal term isn’t necessarily unreasonable. A traveling episcopacy isn’t necessarily unreasonable. International connectionalism certainly isn’t unreasonable. But when you combine six-year terms, extensive travel and intentionally noncontiguous episcopal areas, I wonder whether the pieces fit together as well as the designers intended. In Jackson Parish terminology, things start getting a little cattywampus.

Preserve the Principle Without Creating the Problem

What puzzles me most is that the solution doesn’t seem terribly complicated. Create geographically sensible episcopal areas. Assign bishops to those areas for six-year terms. Maintain strong presiding elders and annual conference leadership. Rotate bishops among episcopal areas when appropriate. And continue teaching clearly that every bishop is a general superintendent of the entire Global Methodist Church rather than the ecclesiastical owner of a particular territory.

What theological principle would that sacrifice? I don’t see one.

A bishop assigned to Louisiana, Arkansas and East Texas would not somehow cease being a bishop of the whole church simply because the conferences under that bishop’s immediate supervision were located near one another. Geographic efficiency doesn’t require theological provincialism. It just requires a map.

Sometimes the Old Guys Did Something for a Reason

This may point toward a larger danger for every new denomination. The GMC was born partly out of dissatisfaction with structures and practices in the United Methodist Church. Consequently, there is an understandable desire to avoid recreating the institution it left behind. But reaction can sometimes become its own form of institutional blindness.

Not everything the UMC did was wrong simply because the UMC did it. Some practices developed because generations of Methodists discovered that they worked. Geographically coherent episcopal areas may be one of them. 

You can reject an unhealthy understanding of episcopal authority without rejecting sensible geography. You can make bishops accountable without making them accumulate frequent-flier miles. You can insist that bishops serve the whole connection without requiring them to spend an unnecessary portion of their ministry getting from one part of the connection to another. And you can build something new without assuming that everything old needs replacing.

A Question From an Inside-Outsider

I don’t have a vote in the Global Methodist Church. I shouldn’t have one, nor do I want one. The GMC will determine its own polity, elect its own leaders and decide how best to deploy them.

But I do have an interest in the question. I pastor a GMC congregation while remaining an elder in another Methodist denomination. Many people I have served alongside for decades now call the GMC home. I genuinely want them to flourish. So, consider this a friendly question from an inside-outsider.

The Global Methodist Church says it wants a leaner, more accountable and more missionally focused denomination. Good. Then every structure ought to be evaluated according to those goals. Does this structure make the best use of the church’s money? Does it make the best use of its bishops’ time? Does it make the best use of their physical and emotional energy? Does it strengthen relationships between bishops, clergy and congregations? And most importantly, does it advance the GMC’s stated mission “to make disciples of Jesus Christ and spread scriptural holiness across the globe”?

If the answer is yes, then perhaps this old Methodist needs someone to explain the map to him.

But if essentially the same theological goals could be accomplished with less money, less travel and less wear and tear on the people we’ve asked to provide episcopal leadership, then perhaps the structure deserves another look. Because sometimes something can be perfectly permissible under the Discipline, carefully thought through by committees, overwhelmingly approved by a General Conference, and still be a little…

cattywampus.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

Accept One Another: Baptism, Denominations and the Grace of Jesus

/ pastorlynnmalone / 3 Comments

I saw a sign on Facebook this week that made me laugh. It depicted a public creek with a cross, and in large letters it said, “FREE BAPTISMS.”

My first thought was, “I didn’t know we had started charging for baptisms.” I thought all baptisms were free. The water is free—and so is the grace.

But after I laughed, I started thinking about it. That is usually where I get into trouble. What began as a funny photograph sent me down a theological rabbit hole.

The baptism was being offered by a parachurch ministry. By “parachurch,” I mean a Christian organization that works alongside the Church but is not itself a congregation or denomination. And I started asking questions.

Who prepares the person for baptism? Who hears the promises? Who receives that person into the Church? Who teaches and disciples the person afterward? Who will be there next month when the emotion of that Sunday afternoon has passed?

Those are not insignificant questions. Baptism is personal, but it is never merely private. We are baptized into Christ, and therefore also into his body. The question is not only whether there is water and someone willing to get into it. The question is whether there is a community prepared to be the Church to that person when he or she comes out.

I have seen this before. Through the years, I’ve been involved in two different Christian retreat ministries. They were described as ecumenical, though “cross-denominational” may be the better word. Christians came together from different traditions for a weekend of worship, teaching, prayer and renewal.

Here’s one irony: one of the ministries began as an offshoot of the other. Why? Because someone attended the first and thought, “I can do it better.”

Eventually, both ministries began conducting baptisms during their retreat weekends. Sometimes clergy performed them. Sometimes laity performed them. Sometimes people who had already been baptized were baptized again. That troubled me then, and it still troubles me now.

I believe baptism belongs to the Church. I believe it is more than my public declaration that I have decided to follow Jesus. Baptism is a means of grace. It is an act of God in and through the Church. I believe there is one baptism because the faithfulness being declared in baptism is ultimately God’s faithfulness, not mine.

So, I had several theological objections ready. Then I remembered Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.

When Scripture Interrupts a Good Argument

In Acts 8, Philip meets a man traveling home from Jerusalem. The man is reading from Isaiah. Philip explains the Scripture and tells him the good news about Jesus. As they travel along, the man sees some water and asks, “Why can’t I be baptized?” They stop the carriage, go down into the water, and Philip baptizes him.

There is no church building. No congregation is visibly present. There is no six-week membership class. Philip does not tell the man to wait until he gets home and finds a local church.

Now, the situations are not identical. The Holy Spirit clearly directs Philip. The eunuch is already seeking God and reading Scripture. Philip proclaims Jesus to him before baptizing him. Philip is a recognized evangelist carrying the Church’s mission into a place where no established congregation appears to be available.

The story does not answer all my questions. But it does keep me from acting as though the people on the creek bank have no biblical argument at all. They may sincerely believe they are doing exactly what Philip did: proclaiming Jesus and refusing to place unnecessary barriers in front of someone who asks to be baptized.

And while I was thinking about all this, I happened to be preparing a sermon called “Accept One Another.” Isn’t God’s timing wonderful? I first thought the sign might give me something to say to them. Then I read Romans 14 and discovered that Paul might have something to say to me.

The church in Rome was divided over food and the observance of particular days. Some Christians believed they could eat anything. Others ate only vegetables because of concerns about foods that were religiously unclean or associated with pagan worship. Some regarded certain days as holy. Others regarded every day alike.

Paul calls one group “strong” and the other “weak.” He includes himself among the strong. But he doesn’t tell the strong to flaunt their freedom until the weak finally get over it. And he doesn’t allow the weak to condemn the strong for their lack of restraint.

Instead, he identifies a temptation on both sides. The weak are tempted to judge the strong: “If they were serious about following Jesus, they would never do that.” The strong are tempted to look down upon the weak: “If they understood the gospel as well as we do, this would not bother them.”

Judgment on one side. Contempt on the other.

Then Paul asks, “Who are you to condemn someone else’s servants?”

That question caught me. I had assumed I was the mature Christian in the baptism conversation. I had the developed sacramental theology. I had the denominational doctrine. I had the experience and the ecclesiological vocabulary.

They had a creek.

But perhaps, in this particular conversation, I am the one whose conscience is troubled. Perhaps I am the “weaker” brother. Paul doesn’t tell me to abandon my convictions. He doesn’t tell me that baptism does not matter. He does tell me to stop judging the servant of another Master.

Sometimes accepting one another begins when we stop assuming that we are the mature Christian in the conversation.

Good Theology and Poor Discipleship

That doesn’t mean theology is unimportant. Theology matters because what we believe about God shapes how we understand the Church, salvation, grace and the Christian life.

But here’s an uncomfortable truth: A person can have good theology and still be a poor disciple.

I don’t mean that good theology causes bad character. I mean that knowing the right words and reaching the right conclusions don’t automatically make me like Jesus. Good theology held without humility can make me proud. Good theology without love can make me harsh. Good theology used as a measuring stick for everyone else can make me judgmental.

The purpose of theology isn’t merely to help us win arguments. Its purpose is to help form the life of Christ within us. It’s possible to be right about the issue and wrong in the way we treat the person.

Paul’s instruction is not that differences are imaginary or convictions are unimportant. He tells Christians how to treat one another while they disagree.

Acceptance is not approval. Christian acceptance doesn’t mean that every belief is true or every practice is faithful. There are beliefs and practices the Church must challenge. There are times when love requires truth, correction, boundaries and even discipline. Christian acceptance doesn’t ask us to surrender discernment. It asks us to surrender the pride with which we so often exercise it.

I can receive the person seeking baptism with joy and trust that God may genuinely be drawing that person. I can receive the Christians conducting the baptism as brothers and sisters whose desire to reach people may be sincere. And I can still ask whether their practice reflects a sufficiently rich understanding of baptism and the Church.

I can accept the people without endorsing everything they do. That is harder than either approval or rejection. Approval asks us to ignore the difference. Rejection allows us to dismiss the person. Acceptance requires us to hold conviction and love at the same time.

Guests Who Have Already Been Received

Paul takes us directly to Jesus: “For even Christ didn’t live to please himself.”

Christ didn’t accept us because our theology was correct. He didn’t wait until our motives were pure, our behavior was consistent and our understanding was complete. He received us by grace.

That does not mean he approved everything in us. Christ accepts us in order to transform us. Grace does not leave us as it finds us. But transformation begins with his gracious welcome, not with our successful completion of an entrance exam.

Alistair Begg tells an imaginary story about the thief on the cross arriving at heaven. The angels begin asking him questions. Does he understand justification by faith? What does he believe about the authority of Scripture? The man cannot answer any of them. Finally, they ask why he should be admitted. His answer is wonderfully simple: the man on the middle cross said he could come.

That’s the only answer any of us has. We aren’t here because we passed the theological exam. We are here because Jesus said we could come. And if my place in his kingdom rests upon his gracious welcome, I must be very careful about requiring someone else to pass my exam before I receive them.

We sometimes act as though we are the hosts of the Church and have been assigned the responsibility of deciding who deserves admission. But we’re not the hosts. We’re guests who have already been received.

Acceptance After Separation

This conversation carries particular weight for Methodists right now. Over the past several years, thousands of congregations have left The United Methodist Church. Many have become part of the Global Methodist Church. (Disclosure: I am an Evangelical Methodist elder serving a Global Methodist congregation). The disagreements that produced that separation weren’t superficial. They involved biblical authority, human sexuality, ordination, discipline, accountability, church property and institutional trust. People on both sides believed they were acting faithfully.

We should not take Romans 14 and declare that all those questions were merely matters of personal preference. They were not the equivalent of choosing whether to eat meat or observe a particular day. Convictions mattered. Decisions had consequences. Separation brought grief. Congregations divided. Friendships were strained. Clergy who had served together for years found themselves in different denominations.

But Romans 15 puts a question before us now that the separation has happened: Can United Methodists and Global Methodists still accept one another as brothers and sisters in Christ?

Can we remain convinced that we made the faithful decision without declaring that everyone who made the other decision was faithless? Can we name the differences honestly without making those differences the whole truth about one another? Can we recognize that the person across the denominational divide has also been received by Christ?

This is where baptism returns to the conversation. Both United Methodists and Global Methodists confess one baptism. Both baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Both understand baptism as our entrance into Christ’s Church.

Disaffiliation changed our denominational affiliation. It did not erase our baptismal identity. We may no longer belong to the same denomination, but we still belong to the same Christ. The name on some of our church signs changed. The name placed upon us in baptism did not.

That doesn’t require reunion. It doesn’t mean we must cooperate in every ministry or remain silent about the convictions that divided us. It doesn’t mean the separation didn’t matter. It means Christ matters more.

Acceptance after separation means we refuse to excommunicate one another in our hearts. We refuse to speak as though the Church of Jesus Christ begins and ends with our denomination. We refuse to presume that our faithfulness gives us the authority to judge another Master’s servant.

Perhaps Global Methodists need to hear that about United Methodists. Perhaps United Methodists need to hear it about Global Methodists. Perhaps Baptists need to hear it about Methodists, and Methodists need to hear it about Baptists. Perhaps every denomination needs to remember that Jesus never agreed to fit entirely inside the boundaries we draw.

The Church is bigger than our part of it.

The Water and the Grace

Paul gathers his argument into one sentence: “Accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.”

Not “Accept one another when you agree.” Not “Accept one another after the weaker Christian matures.” Not “Accept one another after the stronger Christian becomes more sensitive.” Accept one another as Christ has accepted you.

So, I go back to that creek bank. There stands the parachurch evangelist, ready to baptize anyone who sincerely asks. Somewhere nearby stands the Methodist preacher with several ecclesiological objections. Christ has received them both.

Neither one is received because he has baptism completely figured out. Neither one is received because his motives are completely pure or his practices completely consistent. Both are received because the grace of Christ is greater than the incompleteness of their understanding.

That does not settle every baptismal question. It does not erase denominational differences. It does not make discernment unnecessary. But it does tell me how I must regard the person standing on the other side of the disagreement.

He isn’t mine to condemn. She isn’t mine to dismiss. They belong to Christ.

And if Christ had waited until I understood baptism, the Church and grace perfectly before accepting me, I would still be standing on the creek bank.

The water is free. The grace is free. And because Christ has received us by that grace, he commands us to receive one another. So that God—not our denomination, not our position, not our correct theology—may be given glory.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

When Ambition Masquerades as Calling

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Age is a humbling thing. It brings aches in new places, but it also brings old decisions into sharper focus. One uncomfortable truth I have come to see is this: Not every decision made for questionable reasons ends badly.

That may be one reason some of them are so difficult to recognize. Sometimes the opportunity works out. Sometimes the new position goes well. Sometimes everyone involved flourishes. The outcome becomes evidence we use to reassure ourselves that we made the right decision. But good outcomes do not always justify the reasons behind our decisions. Sometimes we succeed for the wrong reason.

You’re wondering about that questionable decision, aren’t you? One in particular has returned to my thoughts recently. It happened in 2011. At the time, I was serving as pastor of Benton United Methodist Church. A few years earlier, in 2008, I had taken a clergy renewal leave. When I returned that December, I stood before the congregation and made a commitment: I would stay as their pastor as long as they would have me.

And I meant it when I said it.

At least, I thought I did.

Then, in February 2011, the bishop called. He invited me to serve on the Cabinet as a district superintendent. It was an honor—a significant opportunity and the kind of invitation a pastor does not receive every day.

Vanessa and I talked about it. I said I would pray about it. Looking back, however, I’m not sure I really did. If I prayed at all, my prayer was probably more “Thank you” than “What do you want me to do?”

The truth is, I had already made up my mind.

The invitation felt like the next rung on the ecclesiastical ladder I had been climbing for a long time. It carried recognition, greater responsibility and the possibility of broader influence. I could easily describe it as an opportunity to serve the Church in a new way—and it was.

But it was also something I wanted.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with accepting a new responsibility or pursuing an opportunity. There is also nothing necessarily wrong with ambition. The danger comes when ambition becomes so entangled with our sense of calling that we can no longer tell them apart.

That is what happened to me.

I accepted the position without fully wrestling with the commitment I had made to the congregation. A promise that had sounded firm in 2008 suddenly became negotiable when a sufficiently attractive opportunity appeared in 2011.

Perhaps it was a promise I should never have made. In the United Methodist system, pastors do not ultimately control how long they remain in an appointment. But I had made it. The people had heard it. They had every reason to believe I meant it.

And then I set it aside. At the time, I had plenty of ways to justify my decision. It was a good opportunity. It was a larger role. It offered the possibility of broader impact. I could tell myself that the bishop had called, the Church needed me, and God had opened the door. All those things may have been true.

But they were not the whole truth. The rest of the truth was that my ambition spoke louder than my commitment.

I wish I could point to a particular moment when that realization struck me, but I can’t. It emerged gradually. As I have grown older and looked back across the years of my ministry, I have begun to see things I could not—or would not—see when I was living them.

Faithfulness has certainly been part of my story. I have loved the Church. I have wanted to serve Christ. I have tried to follow where I believed God was leading. But faithfulness was not the only thing driving me. Ambition was there too.

That is difficult for me to admit because ambition rarely announces itself honestly, especially in the Church. It does not usually say, “I want a more important position,” or “I want people to recognize me.” It learns to speak the language of calling, opportunity, influence and impact.

We tell ourselves we are expanding our ministry. We are accepting a new challenge. We will be able to influence more people. We may even interpret the opportunity itself as proof that God wants us to take it.

I did not have to choose between faithfulness and ambition because I had learned how to call my ambition faithfulness. Only with the passage of time have I become more capable of separating the two.

Leading a small congregation has been part of that process. Small-church ministry has brought a level of humility into my life that I did not know I needed. It has forced me to reconsider some of the assumptions I once carried about success, influence and significance.

There are fewer people in the room. There is little institutional prestige. Most of what happens will never be noticed beyond our congregation. There are no impressive statistics to report and few opportunities to convince myself that the size of my platform is evidence of the importance of my ministry. There are simply people to love, Scripture to teach, burdens to help carry, prayers to pray and a congregation to serve. And perhaps that is closer to faithfulness than much of what I once imagined.

Small-church ministry has not removed every trace of ambition from me. I am not sure anything short of complete sanctification could accomplish that. But it has exposed ambition in ways that success often concealed it. It has reminded me that a larger assignment is not necessarily a more important one, and that faithfulness cannot always be measured by the size of the room, the prominence of the title or the reach of the ministry.

Sometimes faithfulness looks like staying.

That is what makes the promise I made to the Benton congregation difficult to remember. I told them I would remain as long as they would have me. A little more than two years later, when an attractive opportunity appeared, that commitment became negotiable.

I never went back and acknowledged that to the congregation. There was no moment when I stood before them and admitted how much ambition had influenced my decision. I cannot go back and change what I did, but I can look back honestly and name what I now see.

Some things can be corrected. Other things can only be confessed.

I do believe God was at work in ways I could not see at the time. The Benton congregation has flourished, and so have Vanessa and I. God brought good from the years that followed, and I remain grateful for them.

But good outcomes do not make every motive good.

God’s ability to redeem a decision does not relieve me of the responsibility to examine why I made it. Grace does not require me to rewrite the past so that I was right all along. Grace gives me the freedom to admit that I was not fully honest about what was driving me—with the congregation, with God or perhaps even with myself.

That may be one of the most difficult forms of repentance. Failure forces us to examine ourselves. Success often allows us to avoid it.

Sometimes the hardest thing to face is not realizing that we failed.

It is realizing that we succeeded—and still need to repent.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

What Has Institutional Success Done to the Church?

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Questions About Multisite Churches, Institutional Spending, Consumerism, and Accountability

Over the past several posts, I have been examining eleven questions I have been asking myself about the contemporary church.

I began with questions about church leadership and then turned to questions about what happens when the church gathers. 

Four questions remain:

  1. Are multisite campuses a desire to grow God’s kingdom—or the senior pastor’s kingdom?
  2. How biblical is it for as much as 50 percent—or more—of a church’s giving to support buildings, maintenance, utilities, and staff?
  3. Has the contemporary church fostered a consumer mentality rather than genuine discipleship?
  4. Why is the contemporary church so reluctant to practice church discipline?

These may appear to be four separate issues, but I believe they belong together. Each one raises a larger question: What happens when preserving and growing the institution becomes more important than forming faithful disciples?

Once again, I am not asking these questions as someone standing outside the institutional church. I have spent more than thirty-five years as an insider. I have served as a senior pastor and district superintendent. I have made my living from the gospel for most of my adult life. I have not merely participated in these systems. I have benefited from them.

Neither am I suggesting that everything associated with institutional Christianity is necessarily wrong. Institutions can preserve important traditions, combine resources, support ministries, and accomplish things an individual congregation could never accomplish alone. But institutions also have a natural instinct for self-preservation. Over time, keeping the institution alive can become more important than fulfilling the mission for which the institution was created. That is the concern behind these four questions.

When Expansion Becomes the Mission

I understand the appeal of the multisite church model. We explored it in two of the congregations I served over the years. It can make good financial and missional sense, particularly when a larger congregation merges with a smaller or struggling one.

The larger church can provide financial resources, leadership, technology, administrative support, and ministry programs the smaller congregation could not sustain on its own. A struggling church may remain open, and a Christian presence may be preserved in a community where it might otherwise disappear. Those are good things.

Everyone wants to reach more people for Christ. At least, that is what we say our goal is. A multisite model can provide opportunities to reach people in different communities while avoiding the expense of duplicating every administrative function. I appreciate the concept.

Still, I find myself asking a question: Why not call the new location a church plant? If the goal is to establish a congregation that makes disciples and reaches its community, why must it remain a campus of the larger church? Why must it retain the larger congregation’s name, organizational identity, ministry system, and usually its primary preacher?

Does the campus have local leadership with meaningful authority? Is it being prepared to become a self-governing congregation? Is the goal to reproduce healthy churches—or to extend the reach of one church’s brand? And, perhaps most uncomfortably, is the goal to grow God’s kingdom or our kingdom?

I am not suggesting that every multisite church is driven by ego or control. That would be an unfair judgment about motives I cannot know. Some multisite churches are undoubtedly reaching people and doing meaningful ministry.

But the model deserves examination. Bigger is not necessarily better. Expansion is not necessarily multiplication. Increasing the audience of one gifted communicator is not necessarily the same thing as forming a new congregation with mature local leaders.

Perhaps the real test is not how many campuses a church has but what kind of disciples and leaders those campuses are producing. If every campus remains dependent upon the personality, preaching, and authority of one senior pastor, have we planted churches—or merely expanded a platform?

When Maintaining the Church Consumes the Church

I am writing this while attending the General Conference of my denomination, the Evangelical Methodist Church. As part of that meeting, I have been looking at financial information from our congregations. The numbers raise difficult questions.

In many smaller churches, more than 50 percent of the congregation’s giving is allocated to pastoral support. Once denominational support, insurance, utilities, maintenance, and other facility expenses are added, as much as 80 percent of the church’s income may already be committed. That leaves very little margin for ministry and outreach.

This is not an argument against paying pastors. Scripture clearly supports those who receive their living from the gospel. As one who has received his living from the gospel for most of his adult life, it would be more than a little hypocritical for me to suggest otherwise.

Nor is it an argument against maintaining church property. Buildings require electricity, insurance, repairs, and upkeep. Those expenses are real and ignoring them does not make them disappear.

The problem is not that churches have expenses. The problem is what happens when almost everything a congregation receives is required simply to keep the congregation operating. At what point does maintaining the church consume the church?

We regularly say, “The church is not a building.” Our budgets, however, sometimes tell another story. They may reveal that maintaining the building, supporting the staff, and preserving the organization have become our highest priorities.

Again, I understand how this happens. A congregation loves its pastor. It values the building where generations have worshiped, married, baptized their children, and buried their loved ones. The building holds memories that cannot be measured on a financial statement. But a difficult question remains: If 80 percent of a church’s giving is required to maintain its staff, building, and denominational obligations, how much is left to feed the hungry, care for the poor, serve the community, support missions, and make disciples?

Perhaps an even harder question is this: Are we supporting these things because they advance the mission, or has preserving them become the mission? The institution was created to support the ministry of the church. The ministry of the church was never intended merely to support the institution.

When Disciples Become Consumers

Church-hopping and church-shopping have become normal in the United States. When we want a strong children’s ministry, we look for the church with the best children’s ministry. When our children become teenagers, we search for the church with the largest youth group, the most activities, the best facilities, or the most dynamic youth pastor.

I have watched this happen in churches I served. Families would participate in our children’s ministry, but once their children became teenagers, they migrated to the bigger church because it offered more opportunities for their teens.

I understand the impulse. Parents want their children to enjoy church. They want them to build Christian friendships, learn the faith, and have experiences that will encourage them to follow Christ. Confession: I’ve got teenage grandchildren. I want the same for them.

But I have begun to wonder whether we parents (and grandparents) have abdicated our responsibility for our children’s faith development to the professionals. We have outsourced discipleship.

We began to believe our children needed a professional children’s minister, a professional youth minister, and a full calendar of religious activities more than they needed parents who prayed with them, opened Scripture with them, worshiped beside them, served with them, and demonstrated a life of faith before them.

Churches have helped create this expectation. We compete for families by offering more programs, better facilities, larger events, and specialized ministries for every age and stage of life. In the process, we can unintentionally communicate that discipleship is something religious professionals provide for us. That is what consumerism does. It changes the question.

Instead of asking, “Where is God calling us to belong, serve, sacrifice, and grow?” we ask, “Which church offers the most for me and my family?”

The church becomes another provider of goods and services, which happen to be religious in nature. Worship becomes something we attend. Ministry becomes something the staff performs. Discipleship becomes another program we consume. And when another church offers a better product, we move.

I am not opposed to children’s or youth ministry. I am grateful for those who invest in children and teenagers. But no church program can replace the role of parents (and grandparents) in the spiritual formation of their children. The church should equip parents for that responsibility, not encourage them to surrender it. Have we become so focused on attracting families that we have forgotten how to form them?

When Accountability Threatens Attendance

Consumer Christianity also helps explain why church discipline has largely disappeared. No one seems to be accountable anymore—morally or theologically. We are reluctant to address destructive behavior because we do not want to appear judgmental. After all, we are all sinners. We are afraid of being hypocritical, unloving, or legalistic.

Those concerns are understandable. Church discipline has sometimes been practiced harshly, selectively, and publicly. Certain sins have been exposed while others were excused. Ordinary members have been disciplined while influential leaders were protected. What was supposed to produce restoration sometimes produced humiliation instead. We should repent of those abuses.

But the misuse of church discipline does not eliminate the need for loving accountability. “We are all sinners” is a reason to practice accountability humbly. It is not a reason to abandon accountability altogether.

The New Testament vision of the church is not a gathering of people who mind their own business while sitting near one another for an hour each week. It is a community whose members belong to one another. They encourage, teach, correct, forgive, restore, and bear with one another. That kind of life requires accountability.

Of course, accountability becomes difficult when people relate to the church primarily as consumers. Consumers do not expect to be corrected by the businesses they patronize. If they become dissatisfied, they take their business somewhere else. Church leaders know this.

If we challenge someone’s behavior, question a theological conviction, or call for repentance, that person may leave. Their family may leave with them. Their giving may leave too. They will probably find another church down the road that asks fewer questions. The temptation is to remain silent. But a church that is afraid to lose people will eventually become afraid to disciple people.

Biblical accountability is not about controlling people, policing every failure, or pretending some of us have risen above the need for grace. It is about loving one another enough to tell the truth and walking with one another toward restoration.

Perhaps the disappearance of church discipline reveals something deeper. Meaningful accountability requires meaningful belonging. It is difficult to hold one another accountable when relationships are shallow, attendance is optional, and participation consists primarily of watching a few people conduct a service. Church discipline cannot be separated from church community. We cannot expect accountability from people who have never been taught that they belong to one another.

What Are We Actually Building?

Multisite campuses, church buildings, paid pastors, denominational structures, children’s programs, youth ministries, and organizational growth are not inherently wrong. Each can serve the mission of the church. The danger comes when these things cease to serve the mission and quietly become the mission.

A church can have multiple campuses, excellent facilities, strong programs, growing attendance, and a substantial budget while failing to form people who live under the lordship of Jesus. A smaller congregation can devote nearly all its resources to preserving its pastor, property, and programs while having little margin left for the ministry it is trying to preserve.

Both may be institutionally successful—or at least institutionally committed—without necessarily being faithful to the mission Jesus gave His church. Perhaps the most important question is not whether our churches are growing, adequately funded, programmatically successful, or institutionally secure. Perhaps the question is whether our life together is forming people who look more like Jesus.

Are we making disciples—or merely attracting attenders? Are we multiplying churches—or extending brands? Are our resources supporting ministry—or is ministry supporting the institution? Are we forming children in the faith—or outsourcing their discipleship? Are we loving one another enough to practice humble, restorative accountability—or are we too afraid someone might leave?

Institutions have a way of convincing us that their survival is essential to the kingdom of God. It is not. The kingdom existed before our institutions, and it will remain long after they are gone.

The church must always be willing to ask whether its structures are helping fulfill the mission of Jesus or hindering it. Everything else—our buildings, budgets, programs, positions, campuses, and denominational systems—must remain secondary to that purpose.

We should not be asking only whether the institution is succeeding. We should be asking what its success is producing.

No Easy Answers

I know. I’ve raised a lot of questions. Many of which have no answer. Or, the answer will be different in every congregation. 

I haven’t asked these questions to condemn anyone or anything. I asked them of myself as one who leads in the institution. I just asked them out loud in the hopes that other leaders might ask themselves, and in so doing, that we might all be more faithful in our leadership.

As usual, my questions only raise more questions. Perhaps they did for you, too. I’d love for you to share your questions with me. Leave them in the comments below.

Until next time, keep looking up…

What Happened to the Church Gathering?

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Questions About Participation, Preaching, Communion, and the One-Hour Worship Service

Fair warning: This post is longer than most. I’m supposed to be writing a blog, not a book. Even so, these four questions belong together, so I hope you will persevere to the end.

In my last post, I considered three questions about church leadership: the role of the senior pastor, denominational hierarchy, and professionalized ministry.

Today, I want to turn from who leads the church to what happens when the church gathers.

Four of my original eleven questions belong together:

  1. Is the church supposed to be a gathering of non-participants?
  2. When did church gatherings become sermon-centered?
  3. When did the church lose its weekly commitment to the Lord’s Supper?
  4. Were early church gatherings limited to one hour?

Once again, I am not standing outside the church criticizing what everyone else is doing. I have planned and led more worship services than I could possibly count. I have selected songs, prepared sermons, written liturgies, scheduled volunteers, administered Communion, and watched the clock—yes, that clock that hangs above the back door.

I have worried about whether the service flowed smoothly. I have shortened parts of the service when I knew my sermon would be long. I have felt the pressure to finish on time. I have also stood at the door after worship hoping people were pleased with what they experienced.

I am not questioning practices in which I have merely participated. I am questioning practices I have helped create and continue to perpetuate. That doesn’t necessarily make those practices wrong. It does mean I should be willing to examine them.

Is the Church Supposed to Be a Gathering of Non-Participants?

Most churches say they want people to participate. We invite people to sing, pray, give, serve, and respond to the sermon. Even so, most of what happens during a typical worship service is performed by a relatively small group of people.

The pastor preaches. The worship team sings. The musicians play. Designated people pray, read Scripture, make announcements, receive the offering, and serve Communion. Everyone else watches, listens, and participates when instructed.

There are practical reasons for that arrangement. A worship gathering needs order. Not everyone is gifted to preach, sing, teach, or lead publicly. Giving everyone an opportunity to say whatever is on their mind could produce something closer to chaos than worship.

Paul certainly valued order. When addressing the church in Corinth, he instructed them that everything should be done properly and in order. But the same passage also presents a picture of participation that feels unfamiliar to many of us:

“When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.” (1 Corinthians 14:26 NLT)

Whatever else we make of that passage, Paul seems to assume that different members of the congregation will contribute something when the church gathers.

That reflects his larger understanding of the church as a body. Every member has a function. Every member has received gifts from the Spirit. Every member has something to contribute to the health and mission of the whole. How, then, did the gathering of the church become an event in which most people are spectators?

Perhaps part of the answer is that our gatherings became larger. Participation that might occur naturally in a home becomes more difficult in a room filled with hundreds or thousands of people.

Perhaps another part of the answer is our desire for excellence and predictability. We want the music rehearsed, the transitions smooth, the message prepared, and the service completed on time. Spontaneous participation is difficult to plan, control, and fit into the order of worship.

Again, none of those concerns is necessarily wrong. Preparation can honor God and serve the congregation. Disorder does not automatically indicate the presence of the Holy Spirit. But has our desire for order gradually eliminated meaningful participation? Have we unintentionally taught people that their role in worship is to arrive, sit down, sing when invited, listen to the sermon, and go home?

Attending a worship service is not the same as participating in the body of Christ.

When Did Church Gatherings Become Sermon-Centered?

I need to tread carefully here. I am a preacher. Preaching has been central to my calling and ministry for more than thirty-five years. I believe in proclaiming the gospel. I believe Scripture should be read, taught, explained, and applied to our lives. This is not an argument against preaching. It is a question about the place preaching has come to occupy in our gatherings.

In many Protestant churches, the sermon is the defining feature of worship. Even the architecture of our sanctuaries communicates the significance of the sermon—we have “pulpit-centered” sanctuaries. Everything before the sermon prepares for it. Everything after the sermon responds to it. The length of the service is often determined by it. I have heard church members call everything leading up to the sermon “the preliminaries.” Worse, I’ve heard pastors call it that!

If the music is exceptional but the sermon is poor, people may say the service was disappointing. If the pastor is absent, attendance sometimes declines because people prefer to wait until “the preacher” returns.

I know because I have helped create that expectation. I have promoted worship by telling people what I would be preaching. I have encouraged church members to invite their friends to hear a particular sermon. I have sometimes acted as though the congregation gathered primarily to hear what I had to say. Preaching matters, but was the sermon intended to carry so much of the weight of the church’s life?

The earliest Christians devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. Teaching clearly mattered. But they also devoted themselves to fellowship, sharing meals—including the Lord’s Supper—and prayer. The church gathered to hear the Word, but it also gathered to pray, eat, share, encourage, discern, testify, give, and care for one another. Somewhere along the way, many of those elements moved toward the margins while the sermon moved to the center.

Prayer was shortened. Testimony became unpredictable and occasionally uncomfortable. Conversation was moved to a Sunday school class or small group. Shared discernment was assigned to a committee or leadership board. The Lord’s Supper became an occasional addition to the regular service. The sermon remained.

Perhaps that happened because a sermon is efficient. One person can prepare during the week and speak to the whole congregation at once. It is easier to control than open participation. It fits neatly within the allotted time.

It also reinforces the centrality of the pastor. The pastor studies. The pastor hears from God. The pastor explains what the Bible means. The congregation receives what the pastor has prepared. That arrangement may produce informed listeners. But does it necessarily form mature disciples?

People can listen to thousands of sermons without learning to read Scripture for themselves, pray with one another, discern the Spirit’s direction, articulate their faith, or participate in Christ’s mission. The question is not whether we should preach. The question is whether we have asked preaching to do what the entire body of Christ was intended to do.

When Did the Church Lose Its Weekly Commitment to the Lord’s Supper?

This question may expose the imbalance more clearly than any of the others. The earliest Christians gathered regularly around the Table. Acts tells us that they devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. Acts 20 describes believers gathering on the first day of the week to break bread. Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians suggest that the Lord’s Supper was a normal part of their life together—even if they were observing it badly enough to require correction.

The evidence may not allow us to establish that every congregation celebrated Communion every week in precisely the same way. Still, the Table appears to have occupied a far more central place in the early church than it does in many churches today.

How did we arrive at a pattern in which the sermon is offered every week while the Lord’s Supper is offered once a month, once a quarter, or even (heaven help us!) once a year?

I grew up in a tradition that celebrated Communion quarterly. Later, monthly Communion became more common. In some churches, even monthly Communion can feel like an interruption to the regular order of worship—something that makes the service run long.

Think about what that communicates. We make room every week for the preacher’s words but only occasionally for the bread and the cup. At the Table, the focus shifts away from the preacher. We remember Christ’s death. We receive the signs of His grace. We confess our need. We gather not as customers evaluating a religious presentation but as sinners who come with empty hands.

Communion also reminds us that Christianity is not merely a private relationship between Jesus and me. We do not receive the bread and cup alone. We come to a shared Table as the body of Christ. Rich and poor come to the same Table. Young and old come to the same Table. Republicans and Democrats come to the same Table. Those who agree and those who struggle to understand one another come to the same Table. We receive the same grace because we share the same need.

Perhaps that is part of what we lost when the sermon became weekly and the Meal became occasional. The sermon can be evaluated individually: What did I learn? Did I enjoy it? Did it speak to me? The Table confronts us with a different reality. Christ gave Himself for us, and in Christ we belong to one another.

I am not suggesting that weekly Communion would automatically renew the church. We can participate in the Lord’s Supper thoughtlessly just as easily as we can listen to a sermon thoughtlessly. But perhaps the frequency of our practices reveals something about our priorities. What does it say when we consider thirty minutes of preaching essential but ten minutes at the Lord’s Table optional?

Were Early Church Gatherings Limited to One Hour?

Let me say immediately that longer services are not necessarily more spiritual. I have attended long worship services that were deeply meaningful. I have also attended long worship services that only felt long. A three-hour service can be every bit as lifeless as a one-hour service.

The issue is not simply how long we gather. The issue is why one hour has become the expected limit in so many churches.

We print the times on signs, websites, and social media. Worship begins at 10:30 and should end around 11:30. If the service goes fifteen minutes long, people begin looking at their watches. Parents become concerned about children. Restaurant plans are affected. Volunteers in the nursery wonder if they have been forgotten. I even had an uncle who was a member of one of my churches whose watch alarm went off promptly at noon every Sunday. Such a nice reminder for the preacher. And, from a family member, too…

Some of those concerns are legitimate. Time matters. People have responsibilities. Children have limits. Respecting people’s time can be an expression of hospitality. But our anxiety about time may reveal something deeper.

We routinely spend several hours at ball games, concerts, movies, festivals, and other activities we value. We arrive early. We stay late. We do not resent overtime when the experience matters to us. Yet an additional fifteen minutes in worship can feel like an unreasonable demand. Why?

Perhaps it is because we approach worship as one appointment among many. We have given God His hour, and we expect the church to honor the arrangement. The one-hour expectation also shapes what can happen when we gather. There is time for a few songs, announcements, an offering, a prayer, and a sermon. There may not be time for people to share what God is doing in their lives. There may not be time for extended prayer, silence, conversation, testimony, or discernment. There may not even be time for Communion unless something else is shortened. The schedule favors the predictable. It rewards efficiency. It makes participation difficult.

Again, the answer is not necessarily to make every service longer. Perhaps the answer is to ask whether everything the church needs to do when it gathers can—or should—be compressed into a single hour.

Maybe some of what we expect from Sunday morning needs to happen in smaller gatherings where people can know one another, pray for one another, confess to one another, bear one another’s burdens, and contribute their gifts.

The deeper concern is not the length of the service. It is whether our gatherings are structured primarily around convenience or around the formation of a people. Perhaps the deeper problem is that we have made the Sunday worship service virtually synonymous with the gathering of the church—and then tried to compress everything the church is called to be into that single hour.

The Church Is Not an Audience

I am not calling for the elimination of sermons, worship teams, planned services, or established times. I am asking whether our gatherings are accomplishing what they were intended to accomplish. Are people merely attending, or are they participating? Are sermons equipping people to engage Scripture and follow Jesus, or are they creating a congregation dependent upon the preacher?

Does the Lord’s Table occupy a central place in our life together, or has it become an occasional addition to a sermon-centered service? Does our use of time reflect thoughtful stewardship, or does the sixty-minute limit reveal how little room we have made for worship in our lives?

Perhaps we need to recover gatherings in which more members of the body have something meaningful to contribute. Perhaps we need more room for prayer, testimony, conversation, silence, discernment, and response. Perhaps we need to come to the Lord’s Table more frequently and remember that Christ—not the preacher—is the center of our gathering.

Not every congregation will answer these questions in the same way. A church of thirty people will gather differently from a church of three thousand. A congregation meeting in a home will have possibilities that a congregation meeting in a large sanctuary may not have.

The New Testament gives us principles without handing us a complete order of worship. That gives us freedom, but it also gives us responsibility. We are free to develop forms appropriate to our time, place, and circumstances. But we are responsible for asking what those forms are producing.

Perhaps the problem is not that we have sermons, planned worship, or an established order of service. Perhaps the problem is that the order has become so fixed, the sermon so dominant, and participation so limited that most people can attend church for years without ever believing they have anything meaningful to contribute to the gathered body. The church is not an audience. It is a body.

When the body gathers, every member may not speak, sing, preach, or lead. But every member should understand that they have been given grace, gifts, and responsibility for the good of the whole.

Once again, I have generated more questions than answers. Then again, I’m not the perfect pastor.

That doesn’t keep me from trying—or from asking more questions.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

Who Leads the Church?

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Questions About Senior Pastors, Denominational Hierarchy, and Professional Ministry

In my last post, I shared eleven questions I have been asking myself about the contemporary church. Today, I want to dig deeper into three of them:

  1. Is the senior pastor a truly biblical role?
  2. Is denominational hierarchy a biblical concept?
  3. Is professionalized ministry the biblical model?

These questions belong together because they all concern leadership—who leads the church, how that leadership is structured, and what leaders are supposed to do.

Once again, I need to acknowledge my complicity. I have been a senior pastor. I have been a district superintendent. I have worked for a denomination. I have received my living from the gospel for most of my adult life. I have not merely participated in these systems. I have benefited from them.

That doesn’t necessarily make the systems wrong. It does mean that I am not casting aspersions. I am questioning structures in which I have spent more than thirty-five years of my life.

Is the Senior Pastor a Truly Biblical Role?

The New Testament certainly recognizes leaders in the church. It speaks of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders, overseers, and deacons.

What I have trouble finding is anything that looks quite like the modern senior pastor.

In many churches, the senior pastor is the primary preacher, chief executive, vision-caster, staff supervisor, fundraiser, institutional manager, public face, and central spiritual authority. That is a lot to place on one person. I know. I have been that person (and I still am).

I have also helped create churches in which too much revolved around me. I was the primary preacher. I was expected to cast the vision. I was the one people called when they needed prayer, counsel, a hospital visit, a decision, or an answer.

Some of that came with the calling. Some of it came with the structure. Some of it probably came from my own need to feel important. That last one is difficult to admit.

The New Testament seems to picture leadership as more shared. Elders are generally spoken of in the plural. Spiritual gifts are distributed throughout the body. Every member has a function. No part can say to another, “I don’t need you.”

Does that mean having a senior pastor is inherently unbiblical? I’m not prepared to say that. But I am prepared to ask what happens when so much authority, visibility, and responsibility become concentrated in one person.

The pastor begins to carry expectations no human can fulfill. Preach well. Lead decisively. Counsel wisely. Visit faithfully. Manage effectively. Grow the church. Resolve conflict. Be available. Keep everyone happy. When the church grows, the pastor receives too much credit. When it declines, the pastor receives too much blame.

The congregation can also become dependent upon the pastor. The pastor prays. The pastor teaches. The pastor visits. The pastor evangelizes. The pastor hears from God and tells everyone else where the church is going. That may create an efficient institution, but does it create a healthy body?

Perhaps the problem is not that churches have senior pastors. Perhaps the problem is that the senior pastor has become the center of gravity around which the congregation revolves. Christ—not the pastor—is the head of the church.

Is Denominational Hierarchy a Biblical Concept?

This question gets even more personal because I have seen denominational connection at its best, and at its worst.

Denominations can provide accountability, theological identity, shared resources, clergy standards, mission partnerships, and opportunities that individual congregations could never provide on their own. I have benefited from all of those things.

And accountability matters to me. When I left one denomination I joined another for that very reason. I suppose that’s why this question causes so much cognitive dissonance for me.

The New Testament church was not simply a loose collection of congregations with no connection or responsibility to one another. Churches shared resources. Leaders traveled among them. The apostles provided instruction and correction. Acts 15 describes leaders gathering to address an issue affecting the wider church.

Connection is biblical. Accountability is biblical. Shared discernment is biblical. But is everything our denominational systems have become biblical?

Boards create agencies. Agencies create offices. Offices develop policies. Policies require administrators. Administrators require budgets. Before long, a structure created to support ministry requires enormous energy simply to support itself.

I understand why many of those structures developed. Heck, I helped administer some of them. They were usually created to solve real problems or accomplish something worthwhile. But every institution eventually develops an instinct for self-preservation.

When does connection become control? When does accountability become bureaucracy? When does theological oversight become institutional gatekeeping? When does preserving the denomination become more important than serving its congregations and advancing the mission?

Denominational structures are not necessarily wrong because we cannot find them outlined in the New Testament. Neither are they sacred simply because we inherited them. They are tools. Tools should be evaluated by whether they still serve their intended purpose.

The local church does not exist to maintain the denomination. The denomination exists to help the church follow Christ and participate in His mission. When that order becomes reversed, something has gone wrong.

The problem? Those on the inside don’t always see the issue. They see themselves as “helping” the church and “fulfilling” the mission. I know because I was one who saw it that way.

Is Professionalized Ministry the Biblical Model?

Let me be clear: Scripture provides for the financial support of those who devote themselves to preaching and teaching.

I am grateful for the churches that have supported my family and me through the years. Their generosity allowed me to devote time and attention to ministry that I could not have given otherwise.

The problem is not that we pay pastors. The problem is that ministry can gradually become something performed primarily by the people who are paid to do it.

We call pastors “ministers,” which can subtly imply that everyone else is something other than a minister. We hire staff to teach, visit, disciple, organize, lead worship, conduct outreach, and administer the church. Eventually, the pastor and staff perform the ministry while everyone else attends, gives, and occasionally volunteers.

Pastors become religious service providers. Church members become their customers. Members expect the professionals to provide good preaching, meaningful worship, pastoral care, children’s ministry, student ministry, and opportunities for the family. If one church does not provide what they want, they can usually find another one that does.

That arrangement may keep the institution operating, but is it the biblical vision of the body of Christ?

Paul wrote that Christ gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers “to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church.” The leaders are not given to do all the ministry for God’s people. They are given to equip God’s people for ministry. There is a significant difference.

Perhaps the measure of a pastor’s ministry is not how much the pastor personally accomplishes. Perhaps it is how effectively the pastor helps people become more like Christ and participate in His mission.

A church can have excellent preaching, polished worship, strong programs, and a large staff while its members remain mostly passive. They can be well served without ever being equipped to serve.

Professional ministry should not relieve the saints of ministry. It should prepare the saints for ministry.

Giving Ministry Away

I am not calling for churches to eliminate senior pastors, dismantle denominations, or stop paying ministry leaders. I am asking whether our structures are accomplishing what they were intended to accomplish.

Does the pastor help people depend more deeply upon Christ, or does the congregation become increasingly dependent upon the pastor? Does the denomination strengthen local churches for mission, or do local churches increasingly exist to maintain the denomination? Does professional ministry equip God’s people to do the work of ministry, or does it quietly teach them to leave ministry to the professionals?

Perhaps faithful Christian leadership can be measured, at least in part, by how willingly it gives ministry away.

Jesus did not gather disciples merely to watch Him work. He taught them, formed them, corrected them, empowered them, and sent them. He gave them real responsibility and invited them to participate in His mission.

The church will always need leaders. But it needs leaders who understand that the goal is not to build ministry around themselves. The goal is to equip the whole body to become more like Christ for the sake of others.

Once again, it appears that my questions only lead to more questions—questions for which I really don’t have answers. I suppose that’s another reason I’m not the perfect pastor.

But that doesn’t keep me from trying…or asking more questions.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.

11 Questions I’m Asking Myself About the Contemporary Church

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Examining the Church We Have and the Church Jesus Intended

I have spent most of my adult life serving the institutional church and I’ve spent much of the past week sitting in institutional meetings. The week was encouraging and uplifting, but it also prompted me to reflect on the “institutional” church as it exists today.

Here is what I’ve been thinking about all week…

For more than thirty-five years, I have preached sermons, led worship services, administered programs, attended meetings, developed budgets, supervised staff, and participated in denominational structures. I have served as a senior pastor. I have served as a district superintendent. I have not only participated in the denominational system; for a season, I worked for the denomination. Even now, I remain an ordained elder serving as the pastor of a local church.

I say all that because I don’t want anyone to misunderstand what follows. I am not standing outside the institutional church throwing rocks at it. I am standing firmly inside it. I have given most of my life to it. I love the church, and I continue to believe the local church can be one of the most beautiful expressions of the body of Christ in the world. But I also know that I have been complicit in fostering some of the very issues I am beginning to question.

I have helped create worship services in which most people watched while a few people participated. I have stood behind the pulpit as the central personality in the room. I have encouraged people to invite their friends to “come hear the preacher.” I have supported budgets that devoted significant resources to staff, buildings, programs, and institutional maintenance. I have participated in denominational systems that sometimes appeared more concerned with preserving the institution than advancing the mission.

I have measured attendance, counted giving, promoted programs, celebrated growth, and worried when the numbers went in the wrong direction. I have sometimes treated a full room as evidence of spiritual success without asking whether the people in that room were actually being formed into the image of Christ.

I am not confessing that everything I have done was wrong. Much of it was done prayerfully, faithfully, and with good intentions. Some of those practices have borne genuine fruit. But good intentions do not place our practices beyond examination.

Neither does the fact that a particular practice is not found explicitly in the Bible make it inherently wrong. The New Testament does not give us a complete operations manual for the twenty-first-century church. It does not tell us what time to gather, how many songs to sing, whether to use a pulpit, how to organize the church office, or what kind of building to occupy. We have freedom to develop structures and practices suited to our time and place.

The question is whether those structures still serve the purposes of the church—or whether the church has gradually begun serving the structures.

A practice does not become biblical simply because churches have done it for a long time. Neither is it necessarily faithful because it attracts a crowd, produces measurable results, or appears successful. Every practice must be examined in light of the character of Jesus Christ, the teaching of Scripture, and the mission Jesus entrusted to His church. That examination has led me to begin asking some uncomfortable questions.

1. Is the senior pastor a truly biblical role?

The New Testament speaks of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders, overseers, and deacons. It certainly recognizes spiritual leadership and entrusts some people with particular responsibilities. But do we find anything resembling the modern senior pastor—the primary preacher, chief executive, public face, institutional leader, and often central personality of the congregation?

The role may not be inherently wrong, but what happens when so much authority, visibility, and responsibility become concentrated in one person?

2. Is the church supposed to be a gathering of non-participants?

Paul describes the church as a body in which every member has a function. He also pictures gatherings in which different members contribute to the life of the community.

How, then, did church become a gathering in which a relatively small number of people perform while everyone else watches? Have we unintentionally taught people that attending church is the same as participating in the body of Christ?

3. Are multisite campuses about growing God’s Kingdom—or the senior pastor’s kingdom?

I know this question sounds pointed, and I do not presume to judge the motives of every pastor or congregation using a multisite model. Heck, I even tried it myself once (to no avail). Multisite churches may reach people who would otherwise remain disconnected from Christian community.

Still, we should be willing to ask why one pastor’s preaching must be broadcast into multiple locations. Are we multiplying churches and leaders, or extending the reach of a particular personality and brand?

4. How biblical is it for more than half of a church’s giving to support buildings, maintenance, upkeep, and staff?

Buildings and staff can serve the mission of the church. Pastors who devote themselves to ministry may rightly receive financial support, and congregations need places in which to gather.

But when much of the church’s financial life is devoted to sustaining its own operations, we should at least ask what remains for mission, mercy, generosity, and ministry beyond ourselves. At what point does maintaining the institution become the institution’s primary mission?

5. When did church gatherings become sermon-centered?

I am a preacher, and I believe preaching matters. The proclamation and teaching of God’s Word have always been central to the church’s life. I’ve often told my congregations that they pay me to be their pastor. I preach for free!

But is a thirty-minute sermon delivered by one person supposed to become the defining feature of Christian worship? How did the sermon come to dominate the gathering while prayer, testimony, conversation, shared discernment, and the Lord’s Supper moved toward the margins?

6. When did the church lose its weekly commitment to the Lord’s Supper?

The earliest Christians appear to have gathered regularly around the table. The breaking of bread was not an occasional addition to worship. It was central to their life together.

How did many Protestant churches move from the Table every week to once a month, once a quarter, or even less frequently? What did we lose when the sermon became weekly but the Meal became optional?

7. Is denominational hierarchy a biblical concept?

Denominations can provide accountability, connection, shared resources, theological identity, and a means of accomplishing ministry that no single congregation could undertake alone. I have benefited from those structures and have worked within them.

But how closely do our layers of boards, agencies, executives, superintendents, bishops, conferences, and administrative offices resemble the leadership structures of the New Testament? When does connection become control? When does accountability become bureaucracy? When does the institution begin protecting itself?

8. Is professionalized ministry the biblical model?

Scripture recognizes that those who preach the gospel may receive their living from the gospel. There is nothing inherently unbiblical about paying pastors or other ministry leaders.

But have we created a system in which the work of ministry is largely outsourced to professionals? Have pastors become religious service providers while church members become their clients? Has professional ministry equipped the saints for ministry—or relieved the saints of ministry?

9. How did we develop such a consumer mentality concerning church?

People shop for churches based on music, preaching, children’s ministries, facilities, style, convenience, and personal preference. Churches respond by marketing programs and attempting to provide increasingly attractive religious experiences.

How did following Jesus become another consumer choice? And how much has the church itself contributed to that mentality by treating people as customers whose preferences must be satisfied?

10. Were early church gatherings limited to one hour?

There is nothing inherently spiritual about a longer gathering. A three-hour service can be every bit as lifeless as a one-hour service.

Still, why has an hour become the accepted limit for worship in so many churches? Why do we become anxious when the service runs long? What does that reveal about the place worship occupies in our lives—and about the kind of experience our gatherings have become?

11. Why is the modern church so afraid of church discipline?

Jesus and the New Testament writers took sin, accountability, restoration, and the holiness of the Christian community seriously. Church discipline was not intended to be cruel, controlling, or punitive. Its goal was truth, repentance, reconciliation, and restoration.

Yet many churches avoid it almost entirely. Are we afraid people will leave? Are we afraid of conflict? Have abuses of authority made us unwilling to exercise any authority? Or have we become so consumer-oriented that we no longer believe the church has the right—or responsibility—to call its members to a life of holiness?

I’m Asking, Not Accusing

I do not have settled answers to all these questions. If I had the answers, I probably would not be writing this series. Or, more likely, I would have already written a book and gone on the speaking circuit.

I am also aware that it is much easier to identify problems than to propose faithful alternatives. Institutional structures developed for reasons. Many of them solved real problems, supported valuable ministries, and helped the church carry the gospel across generations and cultures. Tearing down structures without understanding what they hold together is neither wise nor faithful.

Nor do I believe the solution is simply to reproduce the first-century church. The early church existed in a particular historical and cultural setting. It had problems of its own—many of which are preserved for us in the New Testament. My goal is not to romanticize the past. My goal is to examine the present.

I want to consider what Scripture establishes, what freedom Scripture allows, what benefits our contemporary practices provide, and what unintended distortions they may have produced. I want to distinguish between what is biblically commanded, what is biblically permissible, and what we have simply come to assume.

Most of all, I want to ask whether the church we have built is forming people into the image of Jesus for the sake of others.

I love the church too much not to ask. And because I am part of the church I am questioning, these are not questions I am asking about “them.”

They are questions I am asking about us.

They are questions I am asking about me.

So, I invite you, over the next two weeks, to reflect on these eleven questions with me. In addition to my regular Tuesday posts, I will add two Friday posts to unpack these questions a little more deeply.

I would love your feedback, too. Comment below with any questions these questions raise for you, or feel free to dispute my assumptions. I certainly could be wrong and I invite your correction. Let me hear from you.

Please join me on the journey.

Until next time, keep looking up…

If any of my reflections encouraged or challenged you, follow Not the Perfect Pastor on Facebook for more conversations about faith, ministry, and becoming faithful disciples of Jesus.