Church Culture

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

/ pastorlynnmalone / 1 Comment

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.

Five Shifts Hurting the Church…

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

I’ve been doing ministry as a calling for over 35 years now. That doesn’t make me an expert, but it does make me one who has seen a lot. One of the things I’ve seen a lot of is change…and not all of it for the better.

I try mostly to be positive in my blog posts. Unfortunately, that positivity doesn’t always come through because my cynical nature manages to bleed through. I write this post to share a little of the wisdom I’ve picked up over the 35 years of ministry. 

It was coming back into an “official” ministry role (after a brief time away) that I began to notice some subtle shifts in the Church. The shifts were happening before I left full time ministry, but I think I may have been blind to them, and I may have played a role in fostering some of those shifts (I probably did, truth be known). This blog post is my attempt to unpack those shifts, and to say that I believe they are hurting the church. 

So, let’s call this blog post Five Shifts that are Hurting the Church. I won’t belabor them, but I do mention them as a means of starting the conversation with church leaders (if there are any who read my blog) to call us all back to faithfulness in our leadership and our discipleship. Perhaps I offer them as a prophetic word, not sounding an alarm, but simply speaking as one who was deeply engaged, stepped away and returned to notice the shifts.

Brokenness or Sin

The first shift hurting the Church is the Church talks more about “brokenness” than it does about sin. I can’t honestly tell you how many times I’ve personally used the words “broken” and “brokenness” in my sermons when I could have (should have) used the word sin.

Yes, we’re all broken in some manner or another. But, we are also all sinners. When we focus on the brokenness of our humanity, we might too easily overlook the sinfulness of our humanity, and if we overlook the sinfulness of our humanity we might miss the Savior who gave Himself for us. And, if we miss the Savior we miss everything.

See, when something is broken, the most likelihood is that it didn’t break itself. Take a vase, for instance. Vases don’t just jump off shelves and break themselves. The brokenness is the result of something that happened to it. The vase carries no guilt.

In the same way, by constantly referring to ourselves as broken, we fail to acknowledge our own complicity in anything that is wrong with us. Our brokenness, more times than not, is the result of our own sinful choices. There are times when we are broken through no fault of our own. Still, we are guilty.

Here’s why it matters: If I’m simply broken, then I need a therapist or a doctor to mend the brokenness. That might be one reason the philosophy of Moral Therapeutic Deism (MTD) has gained a foothold in the Church. What is that? Basically, God becomes my therapist and the cross becomes a self-help tool.

God exists to help me fix my problems so that I can feel happy about my life and myself. Being a nice person is the only requirement of faith and being good gets one into heaven. The need for repentance is non-existent. We just need the self-help section from the local bookstore. It is a very self-centered religion, but it fits oh, so nicely in American culture.

This is more than a subtle shift in language. It is a total shift in our theology. We are sinners. Sinners need a Savior and the Gospel reminds us that Jesus died for our sins so that we might be reconciled to God through His blood. That’s not to say we don’t all need a little therapy from time to time (I’ve been to therapy myself), but the root problem underlying all the “brokenness” of humanity is sin. The Church must name it and call sinners to repentance so that we might discover the only cure for what really ails us. Let me say it again—sinners need a Savior!

Self-Improvement or Self-Denial

The second shift hurting the Church is we talk too much about self-improvement and not enough about self-denial. Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). When we come to church seeking self-improvement, we still have self as the focus. Our gathering as the body of Christ puts Him at the center. We are there to worship Him.

We want to come to church to learn how to be a better spouse, or a better parent, or a better whatever. When Christ is at the center, we’ll be better. Basic discipleship begins with self-denial. Jesus doesn’t want a better version of ourselves. He wants a crucified version of ourselves. Self-improvement refines the self. Self-denial replaces the self. Improvement makes us better, but the cross—well, that makes us new.

Comfort or Conviction

The third shift hurting the Church is we’ve chosen comfort over conviction. We live in a culture where comfort is king. We want to be comfortable, and by comfortable, I mean comfortable in our beliefs. We want to come to church to have our beliefs and our behavior affirmed, not challenged. 

And, we in the church have, too often, been willing to oblige. We have, too often, embraced the philosophy that the only thing we can’t tolerate is intolerance. We don’t want to come across as “toxic” because if someone feels convicted, they might feel judged and go to another church down the street. Our problem might be that we don’t understand what conviction is. Conviction isn’t judgement. Conviction is invitation—an invitation to holiness.

Christianity without conviction cannot produce holy people, and a holy people is what we’re called to be. Holy literally means “set apart,” and we are to be set apart from the world. We are not called to reflect the world’s values, but rather the values that are embodied in Jesus Christ and recorded in the pages of the Bible. 

Comfort does not call us to holiness. Comfort keeps us chained to brokenness. Conviction breaks the chains. Sin kills us. Conviction calls us out of our sin. Conviction leads us to repentance. Conviction claims us for the holy life to which we’ve been called. Conviction clarifies the values and behaviors that set us apart from the world.

Atmosphere or Formation

The fourth shift hurting the Church is we chose atmosphere over formation. In our effort to be sensitive to those outside the Church, we made Christianity a commodity to be consumed rather than a lifestyle to be embraced. I’ve confessed my own complicity in this shift in other places.

In my own defense, we had the best of intentions. We used evangelism as the reason. It was an attempt to reach the un-churched so that they would feel “comfortable” hearing the Gospel. What we accomplished was to communicate a false understanding of the purpose of the Church. In this shift we created consumer Christians instead of forming faithful disciples. Atmosphere creates consumers. Worship shapes disciples.

Worship is at the heart of spiritual formation. When the focus is atmosphere, people experience church but are never formed by it. We gather to worship a Holy God as the center and focus. We gather, not to feel good, but to be in the presence of God. Sometimes we feel good because we have been in His presence, but we should leave with a sense of awe and wonder because we have been in His presence.

Worship that is faithful to scripture is God-centered and moves us away from ourselves and reminds us that God is God and we are not. It is meant to remind us of His omnipotence, His omniscience and His omnipresence. In worship, we bring an offering to God, not to receive something from Him. Worship is not entertainment. Worship is formation.

Belonging or Believing

The fifth shift hurting the Church is that we prioritized belonging over believing. We all want to “belong” somewhere. That is human nature. But, when the Church believes, unbelievers encounter Christ in their belonging. We can belong for twenty years and never believe. Belonging provides a comfortable entryway, but believing (transformation) is the goal.

Again, in our defense, we want to practice hospitality. Hospitality is a Christian virtue, and unbelievers should feel welcomed and loved in church. But, our intent is ultimately to love them into a relationship with Jesus Christ, not simply to want them to feel welcomed. 

We can belong to the Rotary Club and the Book Club. We join those clubs because we support their goals and want to participate in the projects that support those goals. We have a common aim in our belonging. Do we belong to those clubs before we understand their purpose? Sometimes, yes, but we soon embrace the goals of the club or we move on.

Why do we expect less in the church? The church is more than a group of warm and open people. It is the community of saints in the world. The believing church functions as a witness to the truth of Jesus Christ when its members are united in that truth. If we simply belong regardless of our belief, the witness of Christ and the church is weakened.

     The Church, as biblically defined, is a supernatural body of believers. Belonging can lead to belief, but when belonging becomes the priority, belief takes a backseat, and the Church ceases to fulfill its purpose in the world—which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Discipleship happens through spiritual formation, and Christians are formed through the Church. Belonging matters. Belief is essential.     

These five shifts have influenced the way the Church engaged in ministry over the last 35 years. I’ve written these shifts down as a guide to my own faithfulness in leading the body of Christ. They will also serve as a means of holding my congregation accountable to the purpose for which we’ve been called.

There is much for which we must repent. We, as the Church, must return to faithful discipleship that is rooted in our understanding of our purpose. I spent a lot of years in ministry desiring to be successful. My only desire now is to spend the rest of my years being faithful.

Until next time, keep looking up…