My Questions About American Religion #3 - What are we trying to build?

To begin this post, I want to state a couple of things.  I have planted 2 churches.  Both of these churches are "mega-churches." I have no problem with big churches and I have no intent of leaving them to go pull away and be a part of some monastery. Although there are days when the idea sounds appealing. =)

Let's go back and think about beginning in the beginning. If the story we are telling is an invitation to return to God's original agenda for His creation, then we need to consider what that is so that we can make sure we are a part of it. And it is time to introduce the first of many Hebrew concepts for this series... Shalom.

Shalom when translated means peace. But we must make sure that we have an accurate understanding of "Peace" from a Hebrew perspective. Now, this is not a blog to exhaust what Shalom is, there is much written about that already. But a quick survey would be useful I think in grappling with the issue at hand.

Peace in the western mind is often translated as the absence of conflict. This definition of peace demands that we have circumstances that are acceptable to us in order to have peace. And this creeps into our lives much more than I think we realize. Even for those who would absolutely call themselves a follower of Jesus, when circumstances are bad we have a tendency to trust the truth of our circumstances, not the truth of God's agenda.

To interject a tangent thought here: if you start your story in Genesis 3, then all of your circumstances start bad. The whole universe is under suspicion. This is magnified by a very western metaphysic that touts that the universe is utter chaos. Our job, then, if we want to have peace is to control it. So we strive to understand, control, and predict the universe believing that in doing so, we can have peace. Not to go all Dr. Phil on us here, but "How is that working for us?"

Peace is the Eastern mind comes from a different place.

The Hebrew perspective is that the universe is effectively ordered by a God that is first of all Sovereign, and second of all in His nature He is good.

There are 2 ways to understand this and for the sake of time, I am simply going to propositionally state them. First, Galatians 5:22-23 says that the fruit of the Spirit (in other words, the evidence that the Spirit is working in your life) is love, joy, PEACE, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. This would mean that peace - whatever it is - is a gift of God working in your life, not a circumstantially based reality.

Second, when the Spirit is working in our lives we are becoming more and more like Jesus in our daily lives. This brings us more and more in line with God's agenda for this world. So, if the creation story is about a proper ordering of creation in all of its facets (which it is at one level), then perhaps walking with Jesus closer and closer is at least in part about restoring the order that God has for His creation.  

Peace then, comes from the realization that everything is in fact just as it should be.  Peace comes when we own and live the reality that this is God's world. It always has been God's world. And it always will be God's world. And no amount of Chaos will ever ultimately change that, although it will try to make you believe that it has.

To state it another way, Shalom (peace) is trusting that God's agenda for this world is right and cannot be stopped.  Therefore I can rest regardless of the circumstances I am currently experiencing.

And it would seem that God's invitation for us as followers of His would be to partner with Him in the restoration of Peace - to people, and to this world.

One major implication of this is that the church as God gave it to us should be about the restoration of peace in all that we do.  And what we are building is not so much about buildings, budgets, and butts in seats; it is more about wholeness, healing, and hope for today and tomorrow.

Now, one of the major obstacles that we face is trying to square western values with biblical principles. Typically, when we have these dichotomies, the principle loses. Not so much because we reject it, but often we simply have no frame of reference for it to play out in our lives.

We have been raised in a culture that loves bigger, faster, stronger, and dominance. Competition is at the core of what drives this. Comparison, keeping score, building huge organizations, more money, more power - these are all by products of a worldview that starts in a very different place than the biblical worldview.

Now, before we go any further, I want to restate that I have no problem with big or fast or strong. God gives these things to certain people, organizations, and teams. I am simply saying that perhaps, chasing these ends is not only robbing you of the peace that God offers, it is not at all what God is asking us to give to the world.

So, are we asking the right questions when we go to a conference on how to "Grow the church?" Or is the desire to grow the church even a good desire? And are bigger and better buildings a good investment with Kingdom dollars?

I am going to say - Yes.  And No! It will all depend on what truly is the motivation of our hearts as we spend this money to do these things. Are we trying to "win?" or are we trying to restore what is broken?

There is this thing in all western cultures because they start with the self and work out from there that makes self preservation a primary concern for the humans being.  My stuff, my protection, what I want and what I need all takes precedent over the good of the community.  And this bleeds all over the church. While we try to talk about giving, loving and serving, we are so self motivated that we still bounce from church to church looking for something that entertains, or that meets "my needs" because that is what this is all about after all.

Consequently, we find ourselves trying to build these massive organizations that we call church and we try to pass it off as a noble effort, but it has much more to do with bigger, faster, stronger domination than it does anything else.  And we can try to spiritualize this. We are winning over satan! We are dominating the devil!  But the whole need for winning and dominance is rooted in a faulty worldview to begin with so it creates an unresolvable tension between our teaching and our organizations that people can feel.  And while they may not be able to put their finger on it, they can certainly tell that something isn't right.

Again, this isn't a bash against large things.  It is an observation about the motivations that cause us to build them in the first place.  There are those movements of God where big things happen. You cannot stop it and often can't account for what happened exactly although many people try to because they want to "reproduce" the growth. And so we write books and then define our system and people try it and it doesn't work and they wonder why and often feel more inadequate than they did before (guess where they are starting their story).

Perhaps, the better approach would be consider wholeness and how we restore peace to a chaotic world, rather than growth and how we make a big church. Getting a bunch of people in a room is easy. helping them let go of the brokenness that they have defined themselves by and experiencing freedom and hope and peace... THAT is a whole other ball game.  It is messy and challenging.  And forces me to deal with my stuff along the way as well.

Maybe part of our battle is that we are trying to morph God into our western "Empire building" mindset and I would submit that a big piece of the tension we feel between what we are teaching and what we want to have happen is that we are incongruent. Maybe we must choose between focusing on getting bigger and becoming whole.  And like the scriptures teach - Paul planted, Apollos watered, but God makes it grow.

I will close with a story. 

10 years ago, my marriage nearly fell apart. I was in a fast growing church with lots of recognition. It was a pastor's dream job and yet I found myself ready to run away and leave it all.  And the cost of living with the pressure of keeping up and producing more and more was way more than I was able to handle. There is only so much pressure one can take before they crack and eventually break.

I found myself at the end of my faith. And since I was there already, I decided to question everything.  And I mean EVERYTHING! Do I believe in God? Do I believe in church? Do I believe in the Bible? Why do I do what I do? Is that okay?

With the help of some great friends, here is where I landed... Ministry is supposed to give life, not take it away. How can I walk and work with the giver of life and not have any?

Second, when ministry doesn't give life, it is because I am doing things from my own power, not the Lord's. And while we all visit that place, I was living there because of the reasons that were driving me to build a large church in the first place.

Third, God cares way more about my wholeness than my production. He never says that I have to have a church of a certain size, but often says that I am to be free, healed, and transformed. I cannot care about what God cares about if my goal is to grow a big church.

Fourth, within our culture, we are invited to build our own empire.  We are encouraged to amass wealth and to find security in the possession of this wealth. God invites us to peace. And Jesus is right when He says you cannot chase both.  You will love one and despise the other.

So, I pose this question to you... Empire or Shalom? which are you chasing? is it working?  What are you building?