Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Archives for March 2016

5 Distinguishing Marks of a Fruitful Church (link)

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Recently I Tweeted a link to an article that I found helpful:

I thought I would take a few moments and capture some thoughts in response to this article by Jarod Wilson.

First, I would agree with what Jarod lists as three “Marks of Neutrality.” I have been in large churches that had thousands on a Sunday and almost no real body life. In the largest of these churches, one could tell when the main pastor was not preaching because there would be 30 – 50% fewer cars in the parking lot. Too many people were coming to hear a big name preacher and were not coming to experience real fellowship.

My second thought is that to develop the “5 Distinguishing Marks” requires the church leadership to be intentional about all these areas. These marks need to be modeled by the pastoral staff and lay leadership for them to be part of the DNA of a church body. If the leadership is not committed to these, they will not be engendered in the church.

My third, and last, thought is that the six diagnostic questions Mr. Wilson gives at the end of the article are worth asking. If you are a church leader, these would be good to discuss in your next elder board meeting.

These questions present a challenge, especially in the overly-busy 21st Century. To develop these traits takes time. It takes time for the leadership to provide the opportunities for discipleship. It takes time for the disciplers to get trained. It takes time for the disciplers to disciple. Time is the one thing on which most of us continually run short.

No matter how well your church is doing in these areas, there is always room for growth.

For a plant to sustain itself, its root system must be deep enough and strong enough to support the growth. Churches are no different. If we want to sustain the numerical growth, the people that are already there need to be growing deeper in their relationship with God and others.

It doesn’t take very much drought to wilt a plant with weak roots.

On being Job’s friend

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Listen to your friendOne of the lessons to be learned from reading the book of Job is that we should be very careful when counseling someone who is going through a difficulty. Job’s friends felt compelled to give advice to Job which ended up being not very helpful.

I have noticed in Christian circles that there is a subtle pressure to have the correct Bible verse or the perfect prayer for any situation that one encounters. Too often we function as if quoting a verse or offering a prayer will magically wipe away the difficulty.

God is gracious and sometimes does intervene in spectacular ways, but we must remember that it is God that does the work of changing the situation. Our prayer is an intermediate cause at best.

Job’s friends offered Job some measure of truth in what they said, but missed the larger issue.The friends were blinded by their presuppositions about the situation and did not stop long enough to reflect on what Job was saying before they bombarded him with nonsense.

James tells us that we should be quick to hear and slow to speak. A long time ago I was told that I have two ears and only one mouth and I should use them proportionally. This means that I should listen twice as much as I speak.

We cannot know the difficulty someone is in without listening. Any assumptions that we make are likely to be wrong, so we should not assume.

Our world has no need of pat answers. No-one, Christian or otherwise, needs to be bombarded with Bible verses in response to a difficulty.

This is not to say that Scripture does not speak to that difficulty, but what is shared must be shared with wisdom and sensitivity, both of which require that the situation be understood before offering a response.

My takeaway from this is that I should not feel pressure to have a perfect response in every situation. I sometimes struggle to understand my own context and should have no delusions that I am able to fully understand someone else’s situation.

Be real. Be sensitive. But be wise.

Sometimes the best thing to say to a friend is nothing at all.

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