I have been a part of a Church where the pastor suffered from a midlife crisis, wanted a different life but was afraid to say so. The church shrunk in size, moved to a smaller building, saved their extra possessions in a larger semi-truck trailer for a year or so. When the church could not afford to pay for storage of their extra possessions the trailer was returned and all of the possessions were left out in the rain until they became worthless. We learned that wealth, and stability are very temporary.
I have been a part of a Church where the pastor went in seclusion and prayed for God to clearly articulate his vision. When God reviled his vision to the pastor this vision was brought before the church leadership and they responded by saying we have no doubt that God has clearly spoke his vision to you but you must not share that vision with the people here, it is not for us. Not everyone wants to here from God.
I have been a part of a Church where an old church closed and a new church started in its place. Many of the members of the old church did not even seem to notice that their old church had died, as they kept showing up every Sunday morning. The building was filled with the same faces. Routine as a focal point of church life is very empty.
I have been a part of a Church where a pastor planted a new church according to the denominational tradition. After doing things according to our quarter of a century old tradition for several years this community was absorbed into another that had been doing the same thing even longer. The pastor decided we couldn’t exist as a “church”. Failure to reinvent ourselves causes death.
I have been a part of a Church where after years of leading a congregation in a manner that was at one time considered to be revolutionary or at least evolutionary. The pastor heard from God about doing something else with his life. He asked the church if they wanted to continue in the fashion that they had been working but with a new pastor. Two-thirds of the congregation decided that it would be better to have nothing at all. So they dissolved. It is good to know when a group of people has run their course together.
I have been a part of a Church where we led a group of people who were bound together sometimes by a common distain for church life and sometimes with a common interest in seeing what God wanted to do next. We met together, we ate, we shared our lives, we looked at the message of Jesus sometimes in new ways but most of the time we sat around and recapitulated beliefs that others had given to us. We started to see beyond ourselves for a moment and into serving the world around us. In the beginning they were walking behind us. In the end we were pulling them away from their old traditions.
This was our beginning of our new church and we left them. We had become the program that we tried to escape and our leadership became the product that others used.
Some Churches that we attented disolved right out from under us wille others were a faint shadow of what the next generation of church and community might look like. It is clear that the institutions that we have created for the last several hundered years are now failing us. Now the challange is to find a new way of connecting ourselfs to eachother so that that we can acomplish the goals of the church without many of the social and instutional trappings we have created for ourselves. The new church may exist far outside of the buildings and social structures we come from. A new form of church may look more like they types of communites that are created when people link to eachother through blogs and myspace pages.
Maybe the future of church will be more like yeast in flour.
Matthew 13:33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with (Greek: “hid in”) three measures (21 kg enough to feed over a hundred people) of flour until all the dough had risen.”
Maybe the Kingdom is the ever present indwelling of Christ in our network structures. Maybe the church appears where connectivity between each other appears.
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robspain
Sounds like you have seen many sides of the Church. This last sentence of your letter gets at the heart of the relation connection that Christ intends for the Church.
“Maybe the Kingdom is the ever present indwelling of Christ in our network structures. Maybe the church appears where connectivity between each other appears.”
Thanks for posting!
Tim
Where in the Bay Area do you live? My dad and his family live in Martinez and attend Grace Bible Church and absolutely love it. They’ve been members there for a few years now and are leading a small group Bible study in their home. I think the church meets in either Walnut Creek or Concord.
The first bit of encouragement and challenge I would offer is to always, always make sure your walk with Christ is wholehearted, singleminded, and consistent. If we really, truly trust in God, then we trust that He will meet our needs (including our spiritual and social ones)… but only if we trust Him. And trust can’t be present apart from fellowship, and fellowship can’t be present without discipleship. So for me, the place to start when I become dissatisfied (or even downright depressed) with my church experience is ME. And, in my experience, it has helped my family and me through the difficult periods of “waiting it out” at a less than ideal church, while seeking God’s face and His direction.
Blessings on your journey.
Matt
So, are you the Angel of Death or just a Chruch Tramp? Just kidding! I think you are on the right track, but I would like to comment on one thing you say: “Now the challange is to find a new way of connecting ourselfs to eachother so that that we can acomplish the goals of the church without many of the social and instutional trappings we have created for ourselves” Creating a church is the work of the flesh, and as you painfullt describe above, you just keep recreating the same thing over and over, because your idea of what you think it means to be a Christian. Why not let God be God? God is looking to create for himself a people. HE will write his laws on the fleshly tables of their hearts. They will not write them on thier own hearts, nor will they write them on each other’s hearts. Why not just get together as you feel led to, don’t try to schedule the spirit, and when you get together just share what is going on in your own walk. Talk about what god said to your heart when you were watching that episode of Lost. Talk about the synchronicities that happened to you, how someone said somethingthat made you think of a certain scripture, or how you were on the internet looking for a totally unrelated thing and god brought you to this place, so you could see this thing, and what a blessing it was. Whatever you do, don’t try to create a church. You ARE the church. THE Church, the Bride of Christ Church.
In response to Robin’s comment,
Last night God told me that LOST was the greatest TV show of all time and that I was right where he wanted me to be, sitting on my couch with my wife and a few good friends watching the season finale.
Sounds to me like you’re a narcissistic complainer who’s intentionally distorting the truth about your church situations to support your world view, ie, you’re self centered and worship yourself. You’re afraid of community and are afraid to attend a church for grown ups.
Maybe you should stop worshiping a god of your preferences.
You’re not a church angel of death but you are the epitome of Ephesians 4:14 - you’re a baby Christian tossed all over the place. Why? Because you refuse to be part of a place where there is accountability, strong Bible teaching and expectations.
The next time you find yourself saying, “this church isn’t what I want,” listen carefully for the whisper of God. I bet he’s saying something like, “since when has it been about what you want?”
In regards to clarionprophets reply above… Unless you personally know the author of the letter you are making a lot of assumptions about their character and motivation for writing their letter that don’t seem to be apparent from the letter itself. Your comment runs counter to the spirit of this website and is therefore not appreciated.
Thanks Tim. You sound like a great guy and I appreciate your approach.
But what if I’m right? I appreciate greatly the stories on these pages. My heart aches for what some of these folks have gone through. But this story sits in stark contrast to the others. Church after church after church after church after church. As Proverbs 18:17 reminds us, “The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.”
As Christians we need to extol tolerance. But as CS Lewis points out, true Christian tolerance includes looking at both the popular and the unpopular pespectives of an issue.
Do you know the writer personally?
clarionprophet,
No I do not know the author of this letter personally. However in my estimation after having read their letter there is no basis for calling the author a “narcissistic complainer” and a “baby Christian tossed all over the place.”
If you carefully read the letter you will notice that not one of the churches referenced by the author is “complained” about and many of the circumstances that the churches faced were perceived to be beyond the authors control (i.e. church not being able to afford the trailer to keep their possessions in; pastor sharing vision with church but being turned away by the leadership of the church). Rather than a tone of selfish complaining, I discern a measured and reflective tone as the author conveys their own experiences.