I was given a writing assignment for a professional journal and had been struggling with writing an article that speaks to the heart of spiritual growth. I know that it must include the importance of participation in personal spiritual disciplines and participation in a small group and participation in a ministry.
Many years ago, when I was in seminary, one of the innovative churches we studied was The Church of the Saviour in Washing¬ton, D.C. I recently came upon a copy of the only book that founding pastor Gordon Cosby published. In it he describes the pro¬cess the church used to develop mature Christians. Reading the book caused me to realize that much of what Rev. Cosby proposes has deeply impacted my approach to ministry.
The Church of the Saviour was formed in the mid 1940s by Gordon Cosby upon his return from serving as a chaplain in World War II. For over half of a century it functioned as a covenant church in which members signed a yearly covenant of commitments to follow par¬ticular spiritual disciplines and involvement in ministry in small groups called Mission Groups. Cosby called people to be committed to “an inward journey” of a deepening walk with God and “an outward journey” of learning to serve others and impact the world for Christ. While never large, the church was dynamic and extreme¬ly influential. I believe Cosby was onto something and in the present church culture we have something to learn from him.
I write all of that to bring us to this. I’m trying to find a nice way of saying something I believe is important. I’m trying to communicate and yet I’m afraid our so-called sensitivities will get in the way. Here’s my dilemma. I don’t want to say something so offensive in this article that people get stuck on the word or words and miss the point I’m making. So I have been searching to find another way to phrase some¬thing that I believe is a great insight. In rephrasing the idea, I’m afraid that the strength of what I am saying is going to be weakened. But I’ll give it my best shot to be both “clean” and clear.
It is my belief that the pur¬pose of the church is to develop mature Christians who impact their community for the Kingdom of God and invite others into the family of God. If that is true, we need to find ways to be more successful at our task. It has been my experience that most churches are rather ineffective at producing disci¬ples – fully functioning followers of Christ. It is not from lack of effort. In many ways it seems the thing that most retards the process is the idea that we can get this “Chris¬tian Thing” all done and accomplished in a couple of hours on Sunday morning. That is impossible.
It is one of the core values of the church I am a part of that everyone should be in a Life Group. Like many things in our Christian walk, we may believe that but we don’t necessarily do that. We call it a Life Group on pur¬pose. It is not a Bible Study Group. It is not a fellowship group. It is not a prayer group. It is not an evangelism team. It is not a mission team. It is not any of those things ... it’s all of those things. It is a miniature church. We say and we believe, “If you are not in a Life Group you are not really a part of the church.”
Even if you’re not a fan of Rick Warren (the pastor of Saddleback Community Church and author of The Pur¬pose Driven Church) most people will admit that he is on to something when he says that a healthy church does five things well – Discipleship, Evangelism, Fellowship, Worship, and Serving. Unfortunately there are lots of churches that don’t even consider doing all five of these things, much less working at doing each of them well. Trying to get these important things done in two-and-a-half hours on a Sunday morning is impossible. To think we do is the height of rationalization.
The following describes Sunday morning in most of our churches.
• We listen to a short sermon and call it Discipleship. Later we complain that we are not being fed through the sermons. That is laughable. Of course we’re not.
• Over a cup of coffee we greet each other and call that Fellowship.
• We sing a few songs (but only if we like them and they use the correct instruments) and call it Wor¬ship.
• Occasionally we invite someone from another church to attend ours and call that Evangelism.
• If we really want to go overboard we volunteer to hand out bulletins and call that Serving.
And then we wonder why others aren’t attracted to the faith and why our own faith has so little impact on our own lives.
How we measure the success of our Sunday morning experience is whether or not it made us feel good. Nor¬mally that good feeling is rather short lived. No one is really helped. No real connection is made with another human being. We continue the fantasy that we have a deep relationship with God because we had some kind of emotional experience on Sunday morning. Twenty min¬utes after it’s over it slips away and ultimately fails to have a lasting impact on our lives. I believe the most honest definition of what has happened is self pleasuring. There are other more direct terms for it but this is a family publication. With fantasies in our heads we have partici¬pated in an activity that has served no one but ourselves and only served to make us feel better. Sounds like self pleasuring to me.
Somehow we have allowed a relatively meaningless, self-serving, feel good Sunday morning activity to take the place of a growing relationship with the Living God and a meaningful relationship with fellow members of the family of God. And we call this being a Christian. It is not only sad; it is misleading, confusing, and obscene.
We must re-think this whole deal we call Christianity. It is not an activity. It is not a club membership. It is a lifestyle; it is a way of life. Our faith, our relationship with God, needs to invade every area of our lives. Being a Christian speaks to how I spend my time, how I spend my money, what I do for a living, how I rear my children, how I treat my spouse, who I vote for, and why I vote the way I do. Our attempts to live compartmentalized lives in which our faith is separate from and has no effect on the rest of our lives is a farce. Being Christian is not something I do, it is who I am.
Thus, I don’t think being a part of a Life Group is option¬al for a committed, growing Christian. If we can learn anything from the first century church; it is that the Christian life is not lived in a vacuum and it is not lived in solitude. We need each other. We need all the help and support we can get. And we need that help and sup¬port on a daily basis. We call that support a Life Group.
May I strongly suggest that, instead of continuing to pleasure ourselves, we dig into our journey inward and our journey outward and get real about living a life with and for God.
Copyright © 2011, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved
Many years ago, when I was in seminary, one of the innovative churches we studied was The Church of the Saviour in Washing¬ton, D.C. I recently came upon a copy of the only book that founding pastor Gordon Cosby published. In it he describes the pro¬cess the church used to develop mature Christians. Reading the book caused me to realize that much of what Rev. Cosby proposes has deeply impacted my approach to ministry.
The Church of the Saviour was formed in the mid 1940s by Gordon Cosby upon his return from serving as a chaplain in World War II. For over half of a century it functioned as a covenant church in which members signed a yearly covenant of commitments to follow par¬ticular spiritual disciplines and involvement in ministry in small groups called Mission Groups. Cosby called people to be committed to “an inward journey” of a deepening walk with God and “an outward journey” of learning to serve others and impact the world for Christ. While never large, the church was dynamic and extreme¬ly influential. I believe Cosby was onto something and in the present church culture we have something to learn from him.
I write all of that to bring us to this. I’m trying to find a nice way of saying something I believe is important. I’m trying to communicate and yet I’m afraid our so-called sensitivities will get in the way. Here’s my dilemma. I don’t want to say something so offensive in this article that people get stuck on the word or words and miss the point I’m making. So I have been searching to find another way to phrase some¬thing that I believe is a great insight. In rephrasing the idea, I’m afraid that the strength of what I am saying is going to be weakened. But I’ll give it my best shot to be both “clean” and clear.
It is my belief that the pur¬pose of the church is to develop mature Christians who impact their community for the Kingdom of God and invite others into the family of God. If that is true, we need to find ways to be more successful at our task. It has been my experience that most churches are rather ineffective at producing disci¬ples – fully functioning followers of Christ. It is not from lack of effort. In many ways it seems the thing that most retards the process is the idea that we can get this “Chris¬tian Thing” all done and accomplished in a couple of hours on Sunday morning. That is impossible.
It is one of the core values of the church I am a part of that everyone should be in a Life Group. Like many things in our Christian walk, we may believe that but we don’t necessarily do that. We call it a Life Group on pur¬pose. It is not a Bible Study Group. It is not a fellowship group. It is not a prayer group. It is not an evangelism team. It is not a mission team. It is not any of those things ... it’s all of those things. It is a miniature church. We say and we believe, “If you are not in a Life Group you are not really a part of the church.”
Even if you’re not a fan of Rick Warren (the pastor of Saddleback Community Church and author of The Pur¬pose Driven Church) most people will admit that he is on to something when he says that a healthy church does five things well – Discipleship, Evangelism, Fellowship, Worship, and Serving. Unfortunately there are lots of churches that don’t even consider doing all five of these things, much less working at doing each of them well. Trying to get these important things done in two-and-a-half hours on a Sunday morning is impossible. To think we do is the height of rationalization.
The following describes Sunday morning in most of our churches.
• We listen to a short sermon and call it Discipleship. Later we complain that we are not being fed through the sermons. That is laughable. Of course we’re not.
• Over a cup of coffee we greet each other and call that Fellowship.
• We sing a few songs (but only if we like them and they use the correct instruments) and call it Wor¬ship.
• Occasionally we invite someone from another church to attend ours and call that Evangelism.
• If we really want to go overboard we volunteer to hand out bulletins and call that Serving.
And then we wonder why others aren’t attracted to the faith and why our own faith has so little impact on our own lives.
How we measure the success of our Sunday morning experience is whether or not it made us feel good. Nor¬mally that good feeling is rather short lived. No one is really helped. No real connection is made with another human being. We continue the fantasy that we have a deep relationship with God because we had some kind of emotional experience on Sunday morning. Twenty min¬utes after it’s over it slips away and ultimately fails to have a lasting impact on our lives. I believe the most honest definition of what has happened is self pleasuring. There are other more direct terms for it but this is a family publication. With fantasies in our heads we have partici¬pated in an activity that has served no one but ourselves and only served to make us feel better. Sounds like self pleasuring to me.
Somehow we have allowed a relatively meaningless, self-serving, feel good Sunday morning activity to take the place of a growing relationship with the Living God and a meaningful relationship with fellow members of the family of God. And we call this being a Christian. It is not only sad; it is misleading, confusing, and obscene.
We must re-think this whole deal we call Christianity. It is not an activity. It is not a club membership. It is a lifestyle; it is a way of life. Our faith, our relationship with God, needs to invade every area of our lives. Being a Christian speaks to how I spend my time, how I spend my money, what I do for a living, how I rear my children, how I treat my spouse, who I vote for, and why I vote the way I do. Our attempts to live compartmentalized lives in which our faith is separate from and has no effect on the rest of our lives is a farce. Being Christian is not something I do, it is who I am.
Thus, I don’t think being a part of a Life Group is option¬al for a committed, growing Christian. If we can learn anything from the first century church; it is that the Christian life is not lived in a vacuum and it is not lived in solitude. We need each other. We need all the help and support we can get. And we need that help and sup¬port on a daily basis. We call that support a Life Group.
May I strongly suggest that, instead of continuing to pleasure ourselves, we dig into our journey inward and our journey outward and get real about living a life with and for God.
Copyright © 2011, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved
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