Honestly

My wife and I are in the process of discerning if we are called to start a new church. Discerning is Christian talk for trying to figure it out. I have always been attracted to the idea of starting a new church. I am sure I feel that attraction mainly because new churches don’t have old church members.

 

There is little doubt that I feel this way because it has been my experience when it comes to leading an established church forward in the calling God has for it, many longtime church members fail to engage in that calling and are, instead, strongly opposed to it. Let me put it like this, when it comes to doing real Kingdom work, most seasoned church members are, at best neutral, and, at worst, antagonistic.

Here is my fear. I fear that many longtime church members will feel “called” to join us in the planting of a new church. In order to join us, they will have to leave the church they are currently a part of. To leave their church they will have to give a reason for quitting. Over the years I have heard lots of excuses people give for leaving one church to join another. We call what is being done church hopping. Let me state that I do believe there are rare occasions that God does call a follower to move from one church to another. But that is a rare calling.

 

Let me make this appeal to those leaving one church for another: tell the truth. Tell the truth to the pastor of the church you are leaving; tell the truth to the pastor of the church you are joining and, for God’s sake, tell yourself the truth. We Christians have a really difficult time being honest – especially with ourselves. We have been well versed in speaking “Christianese” and lots of practice learning and then repeating basically meaningless phrases. And we put these “skills” to work at the highest level when we shuffle out the door of one church and excitedly present ourselves at the door of a different church.

Let’s involve ourselves in a little exercise in honest translation.

We say: “I just don’t feel the spirit anymore during worship.” We mean: “I’m bored and need some different entertainment.”

We say: “I am not being spiritually fed.” We mean: “Though I have been a Christian for several years, I am still a spiritual baby who has not learned how to nor taken responsibility for feeding myself.”

We say: “I need more Biblical teaching.” We mean: “I have a Bible but I am too lazy to study it for myself. I want some to tell me what I should think it means.”

We say: “The sermons don’t speak to me.” We mean: “The pastor doesn’t… make me feel bad enough or make me feel good enough or tell enough cute stories or yell enough or yells too much or is too practical or blah, blah, blah. The truth is, I have the attention span of a gnat and I’m bored.”

We say: “I just don’t fit in here.” We mean: “Everyone needs to be more like me. I am looking for the perfect church filled with old, introverted, sarcastic, white guys”

We say: “I have been hurt (disappointed) by the people in this church.” We mean: “I wear my feelings on my sleeve and I don’t know how to maintain healthy relationships so any type of conflict freaks me out and I run from it.”

We say: “They talked way too much about giving.” We mean: “I am embarrassed about my lack of giving and don’t want to have to do anything about it.”It is sad but true; honesty doesn’t come naturally to many of us Christians. We struggle with both facing and telling the truth.

So, if you show up and volunteer to be on our new church team, please come armed with some honest answers.

• If you left your church because you are not being fed, you will not be fed here. You will be expected to feed yourself and several others.
• If you left your church because you are bored, this new church is likely to scare the wadding out of you and make you wish for bored.
• If you left your church because you didn’t fit in, you won’t fit in here either.
• And if you left your church because of giving, ours will be a covenant church that requires a minimum of tithing.

If you are looking to be fixed, fed, entertained or coddled, don’t show up at this church. If you are looking for a place to work in the Kingdom of God, a place where you can live a life of significance, a place where you can be a part of seeing lives changed, give me a call. But be prepared to answer some important questions – honestly.

 

Copyright © 2012, William T. McConnell, All Rights Reserved