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You can read Mark’s long comment here….
Before those of you read this and think that Mark and I hate each other - it’s quite the opposite. I’d trust Mark with my family. He’s an awesome friend and great guy. He’s probably one of the best disciplers of teenagers I’ve ever been around. If everyone on the planet were as lucky to have a friend like Mark, this would be a better place. Having said that….:) here we go!!!!!! haha..
First of all, I completely disagree that the church is all over the map in periphal and applications of belief. I think we are extremely congruent and alike both in application and in values. Especially in our context in West Little Rock. The church is in West Little Rock for a reason, not downtown or midtown or south of town. That is a value and belief statement (at least it was at one point in time.) The predominant population of all West Little Rock churches are white, anglo-saxon, upper middle to upper class, white collar jobs, their kids attend private Christian schools or are homeschooled (a luxury because Mom doesn’t have to work and can stay home probably.) Most churches in West Little Rock hire their leaders because they have more money than volunteers with free time.
I’m guessing there aren’t a whole lot of people banging down the doors to help you under the bridge or Renee’ in children’s ministry or Britton in student ministry or me in discipling adult Life Group leaders. Which makes us all Christian consumers as well.
I’m not just talking about Grace - although many of those same things apply to us as well. Pick any church west of I-430 and you’ll find the same thing…except maybe Rock Creek. So the fit issue is a huge issue for both the leader and the congregant. Why aren’t black people, poor people, blue collar people coming to West Little Rock churches? Why aren’t there a lot of edgy, crazy, evangelistic pastors in West Little Rock? They don’t fit.
What is further indicting is when you ask people why the didn’t choose Grace as their home church after visiting for a season. It’s hardly ever about doctrine or worship style. It’s about ‘not fitting’ or ‘not feeling welcomed.’ Why will folks pick one Life Group over another? It’s about the fit? Why do some students respond to some adults but not others? Same answer.
I’d argue that all spiritual formation starts with ‘fit’ (or feeling loved and cared for if we wish to use ‘touchy-feely’ words.) You have to have that fit to stay in the saddle during the hard times transformation. The fit also wins one ‘the right to be heard.’ We’ll listen to somebody more if they are ‘one of us.’
As far as what would Jesus say about this? Hard to say. In one place he says “shake the dust off your feet and move on”, by his example he stayed till it killed him.
I do think it comes back to something else you said - follow Him where ever.
Tags: fit, leadership, spiritual formation
6 responses so far ↓
1 Wayne // Jun 6, 2006 at 10:10 am
Maybe “fit” and “comfort” are two different things? Someone can “fit” and not be “comfortable.” I would argue that could be a good thing. Someone can be “comfortable” and not “fit.”
2 Mark // Jun 6, 2006 at 1:33 pm
You are right, in many ways we are the same. But even within our WLR white church, you have diversity of thought and action. There are people under the bridge serving the homeless, there are people engaging in the emergent conversation, there are people practicing the spiritual disciplines, there are people who do not read their bibles much and have an almost cultish view of spiritual guidance and intervention, there are people going to the prisons. Do you think there are not narrow-minded posers at even the more “progressive” churches? I think we all have the disease but relatively few want the cure. I think you have the same issues going on at the “good” churches, just maybe to a lesser degree. People are going to be people. As Dostoevski wrote in his classic chapter The Grand Inquisitor, most people don’t really want freedom and would lock Jesus up if he were to come today; “…at last they [the church] have vanquished freedom and have done so to make men happy.”
Other churches may have more people willing to take the cure, but in our cases, we are not there, we are here. The question is what do we do? Do we abandon our commitment to this group of people (we did commit to them at some point) and go to a place that is doing it “right” or do you stay and work with what you got? There is something there to work with and there are a lot of people who will be persuaded by word backed up by example. Yes, there are those that do not want “freedom” but just want “bread” (to stay with Dostoevski). The weeds grow with the wheat, the goats hang with the sheep, the birds nest in the branches. To be successful, you will have to plant some church flowers! Someone has to do it, and in WLR, we pay you to do it. So, plant the damn flowers, but keep leading people to freedom.
(youth: I am mixing the metaphors just for you!)
3 Mark // Jun 8, 2006 at 1:12 pm
I see your readers don’t like controversy.
Bottom line, I want you to stay and help us be a different kind of church, but to do it strategically.
I came across this quote in another blog:
Warren recently told the Philiadelphia Inquirer “The New Testament says the church is the body of Christ, but for the last 100 years, the hands and feet have been amputated, and the church has just been a mouth. And mostly, its been known for what it’s against… I’m so tired of Christians being known for what they’re against.”
We need to learn what it means to be his hands and feet and I suspect it has little to do with doctrine and right thinking.
4 Grant // Jun 8, 2006 at 2:04 pm
I agree - it has very little to do with doctrine or right thinking.
And I appreciate your vote of confidence.
I promise to do only what God tells us to but as far as a different kind of church - that’s not what the call of God on Grace. To try to do anything different would be to ‘break the wineskin’ and rebel against the authority that’s been placed over her.
And I’m having no part in that. That’s never right, biblical, healthy, or good.
5 Mark // Jun 8, 2006 at 5:17 pm
From what you are implying, we are talking about both a different type and approach to change. Note that I said strategically! I agree that changing some of the institutional components at any church can be a difficult and traumatic process. But there is a much more subtle, but potentially subversive approach. No one will stop you or me from practicing what it means to be the hands and feet of God. This can be done with minimal confrontation with the institutional components of Grace. I would bet you that at Grace there are a dozen or more people that would be intrigued enough to come along. How you get those people involved is a leadership (with a small “l”) issue. That presents it own challenge, but one that I would think is much more meaningful than trying to directly change some of the institutional components. Grace would become a different kind of church, not through major shifts in the institutional components, but through contagious individual change.
PS: for another time, you know I have a problem with statements like “I promise to do only what God tells [me] to.” I would argue not to blame it on God.
6 Grant // Jun 8, 2006 at 5:32 pm
haha…yeah, that’s why I wrote it! hahah.
ok, in all seriousness…I wrote about this here and your theory sounds great, it just has never, ever worked.
Besides - and this is true in any organization - when enough individuals change but the authority hasn’t - it’s either revolt or birth something new. Spin off companies, tv shows, civil wars, church splits, alternate services are all cases in point.
Plus to be subversive like that - especially when it already has been confronted - does more damage than just walking away to find a place where it’s already happening or start something new.
That’s what - I think - Jesus was saying with the wineskins passage.
And it would be immature to label either side as right or wrong - both have a place in the Kingdom work of God. It is okay to say - it’s not for me.
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