First of all, thank you to all of you who have made this a vibrant and thoughtful conversation. As I said in my original post, I am agreement with most of you that the disciplinary process as described was inappropriate at best.

As for Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church, I guarantee that stories like this are not going to win them a lot of fans. Articles like this thoughtful one, written by frequent iMonk commenter Wenatchee the Hatchet (who left MHC a few years ago), suggest that practices of church discipline and accountability at MHC have long been of concern to observers. The web has been buzzing about Matthew Paul Turner’s articles, and more blogs have sprung up in their wake for those who feel they’ve been abused in authoritarian church settings.

Second, the more I’ve thought about this matter, however, the more I’m thinking that the shame of this story is that the “church discipline” aspect of this whole matter was unnecessary. That makes the rest of the story even sadder.

Why do I say “unnecessary”? Because this story provides a clear case study of the lack of relational wisdom that plagues many church communities. And that’s what I’d like us to consider today.

For purposes of discussion, once more, we will accept the story at face value. As I understand it, here is what happened.

• One night, Andrew acted inappropriately with a woman other than his fiancee. (They did not have sexual intercourse.)
• The next day, he felt guilty about what he had done and determined to tell his fiancee.
• That night they went to their community group together.
• After community group, they walked to his car and they had a hard conversation, during which Andrew confessed what had happened.
• His fiancee understandably became upset and went back into the house.

Before the church ever got involved, Andrew set himself up for problems. What happened next led even further in the wrong direction, until the whole situation blew up in his face.

Here is what happened next:

• Andrew drove away.
• Stung by his conscience, he stopped, turned the car around and returned to the group.
• On the way he called a friend from the community group and asked if they could talk. When he got back to the house, they met and he confessed to his friend what he had done.
• From there, the situation became known to his community group and its leader.
• Within days, he was asked to join another community group, and the process of having meetings with others, including church leaders, began.
• The rest is “church discipline” history.

In Matthew Paul Turner’s post, before he talks about “church discipline,” he uses the words “church drama.” That drama itself was not necessary nor helpful. And that church drama grew out of unwise decisions about how Andrew chose to handle his sin from the beginning.

How could this have been dealt with differently?

First, Andrew should not have chosen the community group setting to have a confessional conversation with his fiancee. This was a matter between two people in a relationship and was of such importance that it required a discreet and private meeting. This is not something you tell your fiancee out in the driveway after you leave a meeting, with a bunch of other people around. This showed relational immaturity, insensitivity to his fiancee, and lack of awareness of the danger that other people might become inappropriately involved.

The young man confessed to the appropriate person but because of his immaturity it got beyond the two of them and it wasn’t long before bigger machinery started working. If we really want to apply a Scripture like Matt 18 to the story as it stands, the process should have stopped with him confessing to his fiancee. He sinned against her. It was her forgiveness he needed to seek. In my opinion she was the only one at that point with whom he needed to have a conversation.

Unfortunately, because he took it to community group and tried to deal with it in a semi-public setting, their small group friends and leaders became aware of what was happening. Before you know it, the big boys were involved and it just kept getting more complicated from that point. There is a lot in the leadership’s reaction to criticize down the road, as we’ve seen, however none of it may have been necessary if Andrew had shown better judgment at the start.

So, for me, the problem was not only what happened when the church leaders got involved. The whole thing got started on the wrong foot. The matter should have been kept within appropriate bounds at the beginning — between Andrew and his fiancee. If she forgave him, they could have then decided together (with whatever guidance from trusted others they thought best) how to proceed with counseling or some other form of help. If, in the course of counseling, it was recommended that the young man or woman had more serious or habitual problems that needed attention, then church leaders could have helped with that, as appropriate.

In my view there was no reason this needed to become a matter of “church discipline” the way it did.

Now, don’t go away from this saying that I’m blaming Andrew for everything that happened!

That’s not my point. I am looking at this entire matter as a prime example of the lack of maturity from top to bottom in Christian communities. Yes, as we discussed yesterday, the church did not act well. But let’s be honest. The young man sinned and then did some relationally foolish things. Furthermore, he did them in the context of a church and small group. Those are not always places where relational wisdom reigns either. To that we turn next.

Needed: Relational Wisdom in the Church
Andrew and his fiancee’s small group became the petri dish in which a lethal combination of sin and relational immaturity quickly fermented, creating a stink of “church drama” at the outset of this situation.

I have seen numerous examples of relational immaturity and unnecessary drama over the years in churches. I’ve contributed my fair share too. Churches can be unsafe relational places, not just because some of them are toxic or authoritarian, but because churches are human communities, frankly, in which people tend to broadcast their business indiscriminately while others stick their noses into other people’s business without warrant. Saying the church is our “family” is not always a happy description.

The Bible says, “Love covers a multitude of sins” (1Pet 4:8). However, in the church, because of our unhealthy habits of relating to others, we often uncover and spread a multitude of sins. How?

• We talk too much.
• We talk to the wrong people.
• At the wrong times.
• In the wrong settings.
• For the wrong reasons.
• We talk rather than act when action is required.
• We “share” prayer requests.
• We verbalize our “concerns.”
• We talk to the pastors or other leaders about problems we should be dealing with.
• We ask friends to bear “stuff” they should never have to carry.
• We share too much personal information in the name of “transparency” and “vulnerability,” and others don’t know what to do with it.
• So they talk about it with others who don’t know what to do with it.
• And so on.
• We hear parts of stories and think it is our job to come up with “answers” immediately for people we think we “know.”
• We hear a couple of those stories and now we think we have a “pattern” of behavior that demands even more attention.
• And because this person is a “member of the Body” we feel we are all responsible to deal with “helping” him or her.
• So we talk about them all the more in the name of “helping” them.

To be sure, certain kinds of churches exacerbate these tendencies more than others, so issues of leadership and theology do come into play. If the leaders are unhealthy, the congregation is undiscipled, the Gospel is not prominent in both preaching and practice, and the spirit of the church is toxic, it is certain that these kinds of problems will be intensified and various groups and cohorts in the church will not be safe, loving places.

So, let’s take the next step beyond Andrew and his fiancee. Let us assume that Andrew is immature and lacks relational wisdom and follows the same course. He commits his sin, still meets his fiancee at community group, walks her out afterwards, and has his hard conversation. She runs back in the house, he speeds off. Conscience-stricken, he returns, calling his friend to meet him when he arrives.

My next concern would be whether or not his friend has relational wisdom. As Andrew begins to tell him what he’s done, a wise friend might say, “Andrew, stop before you go any further. You know, this really is not my business. I’m your friend, but if you have a problem with your fiancee, you need to try and work it out with her first. If you need help, we will assist you in figuring out how to do that. But I don’t need to hear the details of your sin. Jesus took care of that. We love you and want to help you here. So, let’s go see if she wants to talk with you.”

And let’s say Andrew’s fiancee, when she ran back into the house crying, was soon surrounded by her community group friends, trying to comfort her. I would hope those friends, or perhaps one or two that she was especially close to, would stop her as she began to pour out her story and say what Andrew’s friend said to him.

The specifics of the sin, the details = none of their business at this point (if ever). Caring friends try to “cover” others’ sins through love, to protect them from undue exposure so that sensitive matters might be dealt with properly.

I’m not talking about a “cover-up” — as in trying to hide or conceal sin. I’m talking about dealing with sin wisely, deliberately, carefully, lovingly, keeping all the relationships that are involved in mind. I’m talking about dealing with sin responsibly and only increasing the number of people who are participating in the matter when necessary.

That, to me, is a key point Jesus made in Matthew 18. Only expand the circle of information when necessary, and do so with care.

In addition, as I said in my first post, I recommend that churches have a venue for the practices of corporate as well as personal, confidential confession of sin and absolution to help all the “Andrews” — every one of us! — find relief in Christ from our guilt and shame.

Kyrie eleison.

NOTE

• • •

In two emotionally-charged posts, Matthew Paul Turner has given a detailed account of the church discipline process in one well-known congregation. Here are links to the articles:

• Mark Driscoll’s Church Discipline Contract
• Mark Driscoll’s “Gospel Shame”

These pieces tell Andrew’s story. As a young man, Andrew set out on his own in an effort to find himself. So he moved to the big city and joined a well-known megachurch. He began dating a daughter of one of the elders and they became engaged. During their engagement, he spent an evening with an old fling and acted inappropriately. Feeling extremely guilty afterward, he confessed to his fiancee and another member of his small group. Then to his small group leader. Soon Andrew was involved in meeting after meeting in which he confessed other relational and sexual failures he had experienced in his life, including the fact that he and his fiancee had been intimate. A month later, he was informed in another meeting with a pastor and his small group leader that he was “under church discipline.” Soon he was sent a “church discipline contract” that listed the “background issues” (a list of his sins) and the “plan of discipline” they had set up for Andrew. (You can read the details of the contract at Turner’s first post.)

In the second article, we learn what happened next. Andrew waited and thought before signing the contract, and then decided not to sign. Instead, he contacted the pastor and informed him he was leaving the church. When asked why he made this decision, Andrew replied, “Because I felt that the contract was legalistic, voyeuristic, and controlling. I felt like it was putting them in the place of God, determining when my heart was right or repentant enough. I didn’t want that.” The pastor wrote back, warning him that this would lead to more severe action. Citing Matthew 18, other church members were notified via the church’s internal social media system that Andrew was under discipline and that church members were to treat him “as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt 18:17). The communique gave specific examples of the kinds of interactions that would be permissible and impermissible, along with practical examples.

Matthew Paul Turner takes a dim view of this “gospel shame” process of discipline:

Where do I even begin? Honestly, this letter speaks for itself in my opinion. The harsh heavy-handed “theology”. The misuse of scripture to validate their reasoning. The carefully worded instructions on what to say, how to act, etc. The term “gospel shame”? The assumptions that their decisions are to be viewed equal to God’s decisions. At times, this letter comes off like the Roman Catholic church during the Dark Ages.

…And if this is how they plan to treat Andrew–as an “unbeliever”? How in the world do they treat people who really are non-Christian? (And not to mention the fact that Jesus hung out with Gentiles, tax-collectors, etc.)

Fine. If they don’t want Andrew to be a member of their church, take his name off the list! But this? I mean, seriously, did any of this letter, except for perhaps the “heavy heart”, infer that Mars Hill loves Andrew? Oh I know they think their actions represent love. But really, many of us have experienced firsthand that kind of “love,” and we know very well that it’s an abuse of the term.

I encourage you to read these articles in their entirety. Then come back and share your opinions about how “discipline” should be understood and practiced in the local church.

As for my opinion, the whole process described here seems askew. I recognize that we are only getting one side of the story, and that is an important caveat to keep in mind. But if we are to take Andrew’s word as anywhere near accurate in the description of what he went through, then I would make the following observations:

• First, the “sinner” came forward and confessed of his own free will.
• Second, Andrew makes no mention that anyone he talked to offered him forgiveness or pointed him to Christ.
• Third, instead of absolution and restoration, a seemingly endless series of meetings began which only served to dredge up more sin and more shame, but still provided no word of forgiveness.
• Fourth, the end result of all these meetings and all these confessions was that Andrew was issued a discipline “contract.” This written and signed agreement gave him a list of “works” that he had to perform in order to “prove” that he was repentant, including detailing all the sins he could recall with regard to relationships, sexual behavior, and deception.
• Fifth, when Andrew rejected these demands, the entire church was notified and instructed to shun Andrew, only excepting conversations in which congregation members could appeal to him to repent.

As far as I can see, this approach to “church discipline” was misguided, counterproductive, and counter to the Gospel.

• It ignored the principle that if we confess our sins, forgiveness and absolution should be granted (1Jn 1:9). It ignored the example of Christ, who said simply and immediately, time and time again, to those who came to him, “Go in peace, your sins are forgiven.”
• Instead, it stirred up more and more talk of sin and repeated that talk in ever-widening circles until finally the entire congregation knew about it. In contrast to the Gospel — “where sin abounded, grace much more abounded” — this process just seemed to cause discussion of sin to abound. It put all the attention on this young man’s sin, repentance, and works.
• The contractual requirement that this young man write out his “sexual and emotional attachment history,” and give a “full chronology of events and social/emotional sin” seems invasive and inappropriate. Why document such things and why should anyone want to read them? That feels really creepy to me, not only encouraging morbid introspection, but also voyeurism. Manifestly unhealthy!
• Rather than count on Christ and his finished work, this “discipline” process put the onus on the sinner to feel sorry enough, to be repentant enough, to do enough works to prove his contrition and thus “earn” forgiveness and restoration from the church. That is not the Gospel.

Here is yet another instance where the evangelical world needs to listen to the traditions of the church. No system practiced by humans will ever work perfectly, but how much more like the Gospel is the simple practice of confession and absolution, the administration of the “Office of the Keys” that has been practiced for centuries?

Regarding the practice of confession, the Augsburg Confession states:

But of Confession they teach that an enumeration of sins is not necessary, and that consciences be not burdened with anxiety to enumerate all sins, for it is impossible to recount all sins, as the Psalm 19:13 testifies: Who can understand his errors?

And Luther (who knew something about a tortured conscience and endless confessing of sins!), wrote in the Smalcald Articles:

But the enumeration of sins ought to be free to every one, as to what he wishes to enumerate or not to enumerate. For as long as we are in the flesh, we shall not lie when we say: “I am a poor man [I acknowledge that I am a miserable sinner], full of sin.”

In the Small Catechism, Luther then describes how the pastor should respond when such a confession is made:

Then shall the confessor say:

God be merciful to thee and strengthen thy faith! Amen.

Furthermore:

Dost thou believe that my forgiveness is God’s forgiveness?

Answer.

Yes, dear sir.

Then let him say:

As thou believest, so be it done unto thee. And by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ I forgive thee thy sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Depart in peace.

But those who have great burdens upon their consciences, or are distressed and tempted, the confessor will know how to comfort and to encourage to faith with more passages of Scripture.

“As thou believest, so be it done unto thee.” Go in peace. Because of Jesus, God forgives all your sins. Rise to walk in newness of life.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Gospel. So much better.

If you have read Internet Monk over the past two years, you know that I have a heart for pastors and their true work and a desire that good pastoral theology be honored. Here are a few posts from the past that you can review, which run along those themes:

• My Issues with Evangelicalism (Pastoral Ministry)
• I Am a Pastor
• Peter the Pastor
• Paul the Pastor
• The Sad State of Pastoral Thinking
• Is It a Pastor?
• Walking the Neighborhood
• IM Book Review: The Pastor – A Memoir
• In Praise of the Chaplain Pastor
• We Have All the Tools We Need — Post 1, Post 2, Post 3
• Carl

The main burden of these articles (and on my heart) is that pastors take care of people. That is the very definition of the title, and the title defines the calling. Being a pastor means working personally with people to help them live in the Gospel of Christ.

So, naturally, we proclaim Christ! We warn everyone we meet, and we teach everyone we can, all that we know about him, so that, if possible, we may bring every man up to his full maturity in Christ. This is what I am working at all the time, with all the strength that God gives me. (Col 1:28-29, Phillips)

Our attitude among you was one of tenderness, rather like that of a devoted nurse among her babies. Because we loved you, it was a joy to us to give you not only the Gospel of God but our very hearts—so dear did you become to us. Our struggles and hard work, my brothers, must still be fresh in your minds. Day and night we worked so that our preaching of the Gospel to you might not cost you a penny. You are witnesses, as is God himself, that our life among you believers was honest, straightforward and above criticism. You will remember how we dealt with each one of you personally, like a father with his own children, stimulating your faith and courage and giving you instruction. Our only object was to help you to live lives worthy of the God who has called you to share the splendour of his kingdom. (1Thess 2:7-12, Phillips)

This “shepherding” role was always understood as the main focus of pastoral work until fairly recently in church history. One particularly major shift in definition came with the church growth movement of the 1970′s. Church growth theorists began to teach that, if churches are to grow and multiply, they need “ranchers” rather than “shepherds” leading them.

“As I frequently say, the first two axioms to church growth are: (1) the pastor must want the church to grow and be willing to pay the price, and (2) the people must want the church to grow and be willing to pay the price.

“…Start the church as a rancher, not as a shepherd… It is hard for some to picture how they can start a brand new church and not shepherd all the people, but they can, as long as there is mutual agreement that this is the way it is done in our church. This mutual agreement requires three basic ingredients:  (1) the pastor does not visit the hospital, (2) the pastor does not call on church members in their homes, and (3) the pastor does no personal counseling.”

• C. Peter Wagner, The Everychurch Guide to Growth

In essence, Wagner baptized capitalist corporate models of organization and leadership. He saw what growing companies were doing and translated that to the church. What is most important in a “pastor” is not his or her people skills and his devotion to providing pastoral care and spiritual guidance to members of the congregation, but his or her leadership skills:

• a capacity for vision and the ability to attract loyal lieutenants who will support the vision,
• a quick, discerning mind that recognizes one’s “market” and is able to creatively develop strategies for increasing market share,
• effective communication and presentation ability that will attract and inspire crowds,
• a strong personality that can control and hold others accountable to the “vision” he or she has set forth,
• corporate intelligence — the ability to grasp the big picture of large organizations and how they best function
• an attractive and charismatic image that will allow him or her to become the “face” and the “voice” of the organization, its spokesperson, its inspirational center.

Can anyone deny that the purveyors of the church growth mentality have had a huge impact on American church culture and the definition of what it means to be a pastor? The net result is that the pastor is no longer involved in “the work” of ministry but is in charge of “the business” of ministry.

This brings me back to the business of corporate health care.

It seems like every week our team of hospice workers gets communiques from the leaders of our organization and the wider network to which we belong. These messages enthusiastically announce how our network is focusing on excellent patient care as our top priority. As examples, they go on to talk about new construction projects, changes in leadership and leadership structures, new technologies, the implementation of new programs, and so on. I have yet to read one of these that actually talked about one specific effort to improve face-to-face patient care. It’s all about the business, the organization, the way we are “positioning ourselves” to be leaders in excellent health care. The people who are focused on these corporate matters are not doing “the work” of health care, they are running “the business” of health care.

I am not saying what they do is unimportant. The responsibility of those who “run the business” is to keep the business viable. That is not a small concern. In order for workers on the front lines to do their work, the business must be sustained. I don’t want to work for an unhealthy organization. I respect and support those who are trying to keep costs down and increase revenues in order that I and others might have gainful employment and do the work to which we are called.

Nevertheless, it is easy to fool ourselves into thinking that running the business equals doing the work.

No, the people who are doing the work in our area of the network are the folks on my team — the nurses, social workers, chaplains, health aides, and volunteers who serve people face-to-face. We visit them, go to their homes, listen and talk with them, touch them, provide practical assistance to them. We laugh and cry with them, hear their stories, answer their questions, sit with them in silence, share their burdens, educate and encourage them. We become like friends or even extended family during significant seasons in their lives.

The responsibility of those who “do the work” is to care for patients. Directly. Personally. Compassionately. Skillfully.

It galls me that so much focus in health care is on the business but the language from corporate headquarters is all about the work. In actuality, many times it’s those who are doing the real work who get shortchanged, because at certain points there can be significant conflicts between keeping a business viable by guarding the “bottom line” and providing excellent patient care. Yet the business-types keep smiling and saying their number one priority is our patients. Aargh!

And this, I fear, is what is happening in many churches. When we redefine “pastor” and make it part of the “business” side of things, the work gets shortchanged. Real people suffer. A church might become big but it will not grow deep.

I have no problem accepting the fact that churches need to make sure they are conducting the “business” aspects of their life with integrity and skill. Any gathered community of people will have organizational and institutional aspects of their life together. We need devoted, faithful people who are gifted in leadership, administration, finance, etc. We need them to “run the church,” to keep the institution viable, healthy, strong, as well-organized and smoothly run as possible. Their contributions should be honored and not be diminished.

But they are not pastors. They are not called to do the “patient care” work in the same way that those with pastoral gifts are.

Let’s stop confusing “the business” with “the work.”

I encourage you to ponder the piece yourself, but I will summarize the main points of his critique here:

• Showmanship over substance. “There’s no reason to be dour or straight faced when talking about sex, yet ploys of this sort invariably distract from the seriousness of the message. There’s an old rule in communication that suggests that if the audience is focused on your rhetoric, you’re doing it wrong. Yet in this case, the showmanship has clearly become the story, supplanting the substance.”

• Deficient discipleship. “Such ‘over the top’ moments—and was there ever a more apt time for the description?—are troubling indicators of our woefully deficient discipleship patterns on matters of marriage and sexuality.”

• Community concern. “In the New Testament, the family isn’t the foundation of the new society. The church is. And that makes sexual ethics a community concern…. In short, if there were more talk about sex elsewhere in the church, perhaps in the privacy of our communities and classrooms, we might get away with a good deal less of it from our pulpits and our publishing houses. Until then, the message will continue to get drowned out amidst the bombardment of infotainment that our evangelical world suffers from.”

• Esteeming singleness. “Just as importantly, learning how sexuality is a community concern gives a voice to those who are frequently ignored when the topic arises: those who are single, and especially singles who may be called to that state…. When we push singleness to the background, or treat it simply as a holding tank for the not-yet-married, sex itself will become ever more important to a flourishing community life. Our talk about sex will inevitably become a sensational sales pitch for its ecstatic awesomeness. Meanwhile, single people won’t be shown a more excellent way than white-knuckling their abstinence until they make the marriage bed. They are never empowered to show a more excellent way of faithful Christianity without the marital delights. Just as single people need the image of Christ’s fidelity and love that the married give, so married people need single people to remind us that the ‘form of this world is passing away.’”

• Modesty of the mouth. “…speaking about sex in the community of the church means remembering that modesty is more than a manner of clothing, but a way of life that transforms our speech…. For Christians, modesty isn’t grounded in fear or shame: it is a positive good, aimed at increasing the beauty of the person and appropriately recognizing the dignity of what’s covered…. “as a movement, we should consider carefully what our stunts and our salacious sermon series say about us.”

You can also read Matthew Lee Anderson’s review of the Driscolls’ Real Marriage at his blog, Mere Orthodoxy.

• Real Marriage: A Review (pt. 1)
• Real Marriage: A Review (pt. 2)

Here is a great, insightful paragraph from part 2: “The Driscolls are surprisingly unconcerned with the pornification of the marriage bed, and don’t quite seem to realize that the questions themselves [in the infamous “Can we _______” chapter] might be coming from a people whose imaginations have been stunted.   It’s occasionally worth challenging the premise of questions in order to reach beneath the surface and understand the problematic forces at work in our evangelical culture of sexuality.  That the Driscolls do not is nothing if not a missed opportunity.”

• • •

Finally, two books on matters of sex and marriage that I recommend instead of the two that have received so much publicity lately are:

•  Sexual Character: Beyond Technique to Intimacy, by Marva Dawn. This is a thoughtful presentation of distinctly “old-fashioned” character and virtue when it comes to marital and sexual matters. Marva Dawn is one of the church’s best teachers because she speaks out of personal weakness, suffering, and maturity as well as intellectual depth. Her own physical handicaps and limitations, an extended period of life in which she was single and serving God, and the delightful friendship, partnership, and romance she shares with her husband give her profound credibility when addressing the subject. One big idea which permeates the book is that the health and holiness of our “genital sexuality” is dependent on the strength of our “social sexuality.” That is, the relational supports we have in our life apart from sex must be strong in order for us to keep sexual intimacy in proper perspective — “…we need complete support of our personal identities. Without affection, approval, and the knowledge that one belongs in some sort of community, a person might become desperate and falsely assume that what is need is genital sexual expression rather than social affection.” Part of the problem in our society is that families and churches are not forming communities wherein such support is strong.

• Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity, by Lauren Winner. One of our finest young authors resurrects the old word “chastity” and recommends it as the framework of her frank discussion of contemporary sexuality from a Christian perspective. “I don’t offer instructions or hard-and-fast-rules. Instead, I offer a flawed example, a few suggestions, some thoughts about what works and what doesn’t work, and the occasional reminder of why, as Christians, we should care about chastity in the first place,” she writes. Like Marva Dawn, Lauren Winner insists that individual sexual behavior is and should be a matter of community concern, and that in Christ, we have a loving duty to both encourage and admonish one another on the subject. She suggests that not only our culture, but also the Christian community tells lies about sexuality, and she calls the church to remember our theological tradition, which assigns three purposes to the sexual relationship: unitive, sacramental, and procreative. The final section of her book deals pointedly with the actual practice of chastity. I appreciate that Winner does so within and not apart from the broader context of spiritual formation and spiritual disciplines, and solid theological perspectives about such matters as vocation, community, and confession.

I think some music is good for fellowship, but not for worship.

Wow. That stayed with me the rest of the day as I helped guests find things in my electronics department at the local Target. It stayed with me all that evening, and the next day, and the next. Now, two weeks later, I am still trying to get my arms around that. “Some music is good for fellowship, but not for worship.”

So I want to open this up for discussion. Are there some songs that you deem wrong for worship, but ok if you and some friends are talking and sharing and have music on in the background? Are there styles of songs that should never be used in a worship setting, but are ok for casual listening? Or do you believe worshipping the Lord should encompass all songs and all styles? Is it ok if Church A selects songs of this style, and Church B selects songs of that style? We all know that next to programs for children the music style of a church is what attracts and retains people. Should churches take this into account in deciding what style of music they will be performing in their services?

Enough questions. Now it’s your turn. Play nice, now.

I asked Lee if we could share his articles here on IM, and he graciously agreed. We will run one each Tuesday afternoon for the next few weeks.

Thanks, Lee!

• • •

Part One: Ministry as a “Career” vs. a “Calling”
by Lee Adams

The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming.”

• Frederick Buechner

I spend a good deal of time thinking about the church and faith on various levels.  I love church history, and looking at trends, practices, and the evolution of what we call Christianity.  It’s impossible for me to remove my own personal experience from that equation, as a guy who grew up in a liturgical, United Methodist tradition; who viewed the rise of the religious right in the 1980′s and 1990′s; who was a part of the seeker-friendly, post-modern mega church movement in the early days of my own ministry;  who experienced being a part of church plants and splits (better spoken, I was a part of a church split that called themselves a plant…I didn’t realize this until I had been on staff for quite a while);  who had great moments of triumph and equally emotional moments of defeat as a pastor; who ran from post-modernism to historical Christianity; and who eventually wound up right where I started…In the little United Methodist Church in which I grew up.

All of those things combined together make quite of pot of hash.  If you don’t know what hash is, just imagine taking all the meat you currently have in your freezer, throw in a hogs head, onions, tomatoes, and whole lot of spices, and let the mix simmer in a black cast-iron pot over an open fire until it tastes good.

That being said, I’m going to do the best I can to describe what the hash is going to taste like once you get a spoon in your hand.  The aforementioned faith ingredients are all mixed up, and I wanted to take a few moments over the days to come to make my best attempt to tell you what I believe the flavor of Christianity is going to be over the next few years.

Too Many Cooks, Pillsbury

There are some trends and cultural phenomena that must be considered as you take a whiff of what I’m cooking.  Consider these things we’ll be looking at as the spices that I’m throwing in the pot:

1. Ministry as a “career” vs. “calling”.
2. The evangelical response to growth in orthodox denominations.
3. Return to liturgical practices:  Here to stay?

For now, let’s look at spice #1…..ministry as a career vs. ministry as a calling.  I’ll speak a good deal from personal experience, and provide some concrete stats that hopefully, will support where I’m coming from.  The end result will be some thoughts that are solely my own, my personal opinions on what I think will make this stew more than just palatable, but downright delicious.

I’ve got a great friend who has been a deacon at a small, rural Baptist church with a membership of about 80 people for several years.  He’s in his late twenties, married, college education, and has a good career.  He’s led a home group consisting of twenty-somethings and college-aged folks for some time now.  He’s addicted to sound doctrine.  We don’t always agree on matters of theology, but he’s a great guy, wonderful teacher, and he’s serious about his belief system.

Quite a while back, he was discussing his frustrations with the institutional church, mostly to support his idea that the early church met in homes, not temples or cathedrals.  In the midst of his conversation, he mentioned that his pastor at the time had an annual salary of $72,000.

$72,000.

To minister to 80 people.

I was shocked.

Later on, I did a little research to see just what the average salary was for pastors in my region.  There are some wild cards in the data.  There’s one mega church in the area, where the pastor has a salary of a little over $100,000 each year.  There’s also a number of very small, rural churches with memberships less than thirty.  I looked at some specific criteria:

1) Churches located in Madison County, Georgia.  Madison County is a bedroom community for Athens, Georgia, where the University of Georgia is located.  There’s a good mix of agricultural, blue-collar, and white-collar folks.

2) Salaries of pastors with a seminary degree only.  A friend of mine pastors a very small church in a rural area of the county, and gives his salary back to the church each month as a gift.  It’s a part-time career, but full-time passion for him and his wife.  He works full-time for our local school system. There are others like him in our area, who have miniscule salaries from the churches they lead, and didn’t attend college with the idea that they would be “full-time” pastors one day.

Using the aforementioned criteria, I plugged into www.payscale.com, just to see what pastors were making in the MC.  The average pastor makes a salary of $39,050 each year.  Now, keep in mind, salary doesn’t include mileage, housing allowance, and other tax-free perks that many pastors enjoy.  25% of pastors in Madison County make more than $50,969 per calendar year.  10% make over $62,995.

Here’s some more stats, courtesy of www.city-data.com. There’s a population of about 28,000 in Madison County, about 38% of whom are involved in some type of active practice of faith.  There are 35 churches in the county.  Over 8000 of about 10,000 folks who report religious affiliation in the county are Baptist.

16.9% of Madison County residents live below the poverty level, above the state and national averages for poverty.  The most common occupation in the county is “construction worker”.  The average household contains 2.6 individuals, 2 of whom are typically adults.  The median household income for Madison County is $40, 764 annually.

What strikes me about the above stats is that the average individual pastor’s salary is virtually equal to the average household income in this region.

Now, I’m not going to argue that your calling can’t be your career.  I’ve worked in the medical field before, and have seen physicians and nurses who were completely devoted to their patients, regardless of whether they had a great health insurance policy.  I currently work in child protective services, and admire the devotion of my co-workers to the children to whom we strive to provide safety and stability.  I believe that I’m called to this job, and do my best at it.  Lord, you can’t see the things we see on a daily basis and escape insanity without it being a calling.

There just seems to be something crazy going on with pastor’s salaries.  In England, the primary Christian body is, well, the Church of England.  BBC News reported some time back that the average vicar makes 16,400 Pounds annually, or $26,362 each year.  Dailymail.co.uk reports that the average annual salary for any individual in England is 25,543 Pounds, or $41,059 in US dollars.  So, pastors back in the mother country don’t seem to do quite as well as they do over here in the colonies!  They don’t do any less work, or have less responsibility.  They just make less money than the average Joe.

This spice is not smelling so good to me.

I’m not advocating the idea that every pastor should take a vow of poverty.  I suppose the point I’m making is that statistics prove that pastors in our culture tend to make more money than the average working family in the communities they serve.  My fear is that pastors making a lot of money produces the idea that pastors should expect to make a lot of money!  How long will it be before congregations, in these difficult economic times, begin to stand up and take notice that the pastors called to wash their congregation member’s feet are getting their own pedicured on a regular basis, while mama’s toes back at home are startin’ to look a mess?

I’ll admit, that was probably a little mean.  I’ll give the podium to G.K Chesterton for a moment:

“He that serves God for money will serve the devil for a better wage.”

Ouch.

To focus this rant a bit, I would say that the danger in paying pastors a high salary is that they will not only fall in love with money, but become slaves to those who give the most, in terms of dollars.  If you have a pastor who tells you, “I don’t know who gives what amount in this church. I don’t want to know.”, then friend, your pastor is telling you a story. And I use the phrase “telling you a story” not meaning to indicate that he is relaying details of an incident, but instead in the Southern sense of the phrase. In the intended context, “telling you a story” means he is flat-out lying. Having been a pastor for years, and served with every personality type of pastor you can imagine, in tiny churches and in a mega church, I can tell you, they know who the big givers are. They may not know how big, but they know who to call when the church van breaks down, or the church can’t make this month’s mortgage payment.

Setting the Table, Dial

As I stated earlier, much of this post and posts to follow about the future of the church are little more than my own opinions.   I don’t advocate the elimination of professional clergy.  I do believe that God ordained a three-fold order of bishops, priests, and deacons.  We need pastors to provide order and Biblical leadership.  I don’t believe that a “house church” movement without designated leadership is the direction the church is going.

I believe that we are about to see a shift in the culture of church leadership, however.  I believe that we will begin to see more “home-grown” pastors, serving for years on the parish level, sent to seminary with the blessing and support of their local church, graduating to serve in a part-time capacity at the church they grew up in, with more delegation of responsibilities to members of the congregation.  This won’t excuse preachers and priests from the responsibilities of pastoral care, visitation, counseling, etc.  In fact, the primary responsibilities of the pastor should be, in no particular order, pastoral care, preaching, discipleship, and ordering Sunday worship.  I believe that you will see less pastors attempting to manage every aspect of the church, though (money, building projects, etc.).  The John Maxwell-inspired CEO model of leading churches is dying a slow and painful death, along with many of the churches that latched onto that format.

In the next twenty years, I anticipate that there will be more pastors who pursue a life in ministry because ministry is what they are passionate about, not because it’s what they wish to do for a living.  Some of the most dedicated and enduring pastors I’ve known in our region spent much of their lives doing construction work to support their families, in addition to being church planters, leading significant congregations, and making a lasting impact for the kingdom in their communities.  In an area where the primary vocation is construction work, doesn’t it make sense that a pastor who is willing to work with his hands would have good results in ministry?

It’s not a new concept.  Neither Lifeway nor Ed Stetzer has a patent on the idea.  Jesus started the business.  Remember, “The word became flesh and dwelled among us…”?  Jesus became the target demographic that he wished to reach, and I would say that he did a pretty good job of church planting. Heck, look at all the satellite campuses he’s got going!

With congregation members suffering economically, there will be less to put in the offering plates.  Paul made tents to feed himself while doing ministry, a hands on, workman’s job.  Is it unrealistic to expect that we would have pastors who are more committed if they have to work for the privilege of the position, rather than working the position for the benefit of its privileges?

Now, that smells a little bit better.

The author of this post, Donny B, is a minor league baseball and hockey broadcaster who lives in Central California. He reports that, while only in his late 20s, he has been in churches since he was 5 years old, and has seen both the miraculous and the ugly (and most everything in between).

• • •

Quiet Desperation
by Donny B

In recent years, the Irish have finally begun to address one of their country’s lesser yet age-old problems: How do they keep hundreds of young rural farmers from hanging themselves?

It’s a dilemma that stretches back for centuries. Starved of any kind of companionship, surrounded by nothing but sheep and potatoes and the pointlessly green beauty of the rolling Eire countryside, without  a wife or the meaningful prospects of ever finding one because of their perpetual isolation (the farm and its crops can’t be abandoned, and what town girl wants to move to the back country to live with a bucktoothed hick anyway?), many decide that ending things is preferable to living extended, miserable lives of crushing isolation.

By contrast, today’s young, lonely, suburban American men generally don’t commit suicide; they just surf the internet, play video games, and watch movies. You could call them lazy, and some of them are, but that’s often unfair. They’re simply stuck in an early-life dead end and aren’t sure how they’re supposed to get out. Henry David Thoreau’s famous observation that “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” is usually applied to middle-aged fathers of three who have an insatiable mortgage, a nagging and aging-around-the-edges wife, and a soul-numbing white-collar job. But it could increasingly be applied, with greater accuracy, to those of a younger generation who would kill to have such problems.

So what is the church going to do about their single, insecure, internally desperate twenty-somethings who are now graduating from school only to find an economic climate that makes it incredibly difficult to earn any kind of decent living for many years? The old Christian paradigm of marrying young is increasingly unrealistic for many. And most Christian adults over forty don’t seem to understand this. They attack today’s male semi-youth as being slow, unmotivated, and stereotypically rooted to his parents’ basement. They make condescending, unhelpful statements about “lack of biblical initiative” and “faith in God’s provision.” I wonder, though, how they would have fared if they had come out of college in this environment? I suspect they wouldn’t be quite so glib.

Unlike non-Christians, single believers can’t cheat (theoretically, at least). They have no sexual outlet. No, it’s not death. Sex isn’t an absolute basic requirement. But it is an undeniable, powerful drive, and a growing number of Christian guys are finding themselves without the ability to support a spouse and family at  the most basic level. Furthermore, they’re facing an uphill battle to attain even those modest means within the foreseeable future. If they were good boys and went to college like everyone told them to, they’re likely loaded down with debt, and that degree is looking like a fairly worthless (and expensive) scrap of paper that doesn’t do much to land them a job. If they didn’t go to school, they’re fighting tooth and nail for the unskilled retail and service gigs that everyone (including the ones with college degrees) are desperately flocking to. It’s an economic catch-22, and it’s creating a whole new generation of financial and relational non-starters.

For some, this will be an excuse to gently push aside biblical restraints on premarital sex as outdated or simply unbearable. Frankly, these will make up the majority (just as, statistically, they already do). For the conscientious minority, however, a different (and, arguably, even more dangerous) problem is on the horizon: they are going to find themselves part of a swelling tsunami of single, sexually frustrated male adults in an institution that has, historically and in contemporary times, had no idea what to do with them.

Add the potentially crushing weight of a lack of institutional understanding and support to the already difficult loneliness and physical frustration of extended Christian singleness, and you have a recipe for volatility. All those pent-up desires and dreams can create a toxic internal stew of anger if they’re allowed to bubble unattended. And, unfortunately, many young Christian men’s emotions will be left to do exactly that. They’ll be told (either through implication or overt command) to just smile and praise God’s perfect timing…in public. Then, they’ll go home to their small, lonely apartment and wonder just how long they’re supposed to keep on smiling and pretending they’re fine. Some will be able to keep up the charade for years. Others won’t.  Eventually, they’ll crack…and the resulting explosion could be devastating, even deadly.

Unfortunately, many church leaders remain blissfully ignorant to this issue. It’s understandable; they always have a thousand other pressing issues that demand their attention, and other constituencies that are much more vocal. But they would do well to see this growing cultural trend and have some honest discussions about how they’re going to support their ominously growing subculture of young (but not for long) singles.

The revolution is coming, whether we want it or not. And lame chastity pledges aren’t going to cut it this time.

Witherington’s piece is about one aspect of evangelical Protestantism’s ecclesiology that he (and I) find deficient: the lack of authority, accountability, support, and a sense of belonging outside the context of the local congregation.

Ben is talking about the autonomous local church, the independent local church, the non-denominational local church in which there is too much authority given to the local leader or leaders, and too little connection to any kind of authority outside that setting.

One of the real problems which has plagued the Protestant movement from Day One is bad or weak ecclesiology. What I mean by this is that in various cases it is both unBiblical, and it is also often unworkable. It is unBiblical because there definitely is a hierarchy of leadership in the early church that extends beyond a particular local congregation, and furthermore, there is a concept of ‘church’ and its leadership structures which transcends a particular local expression of the church say in a house church or a particular local congregation.

To illustrate, he cites the scandal concerning “Bishop” Eddie Long in Atlanta’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Long’s wife recently filed for divorce in another sad chapter in the story of the charismatic minister who built a following of over 25,000 people, but who has been involved in a number of moral and financial debacles.

What went wrong with Bishop Eddie? What went wrong was not merely that there was a cult of personality in this church and too much power resided in the one local church figure. What went wrong, at it’s root, was bad Protestant ecclesiology [my emphasis]. The man had no real accountability outside of the members of the local church — no bishops, no elders, no district superintendents who were not part of that local church who could come in and remove, defrock, or discipline the man.

The evidence of the New Testament and the early church suggests a much different picture, NT scholar Witherington suggests. Though there was diversity and development with regard to the character of local congregations and their organizational structures, it is clear that they functioned both as faith communities with local leaders and as members of the broader “church of God,” under the guidance and authority of trans-congregational leaders. In fact, the local leaders were appointed by those apostles or apostolic co-workers. It is early in post-apostolic writings that the “bishop” appears in the same role, providing authoritative pastoral guidance on the regional level.

Any careful study of the phrase ekklesia tou theou in the NT makes clear that while each congregation would be seen as a fully adequate expression of the body of Christ, at the same time they were seen to be part of the larger collective entity ‘the church of God’ (see e.g. Gal. 1) and as such were accountable to the larger church and to its over-arching leaders — apostles, apostolic co-workers, prophets, teachers, and the like. At any given time, an apostle might come and correct, or rebuke, or appoint new local leadership. There was accountability outside the local congregation.

I have always wondered how those with a doctrine of “the autonomy of the local church” justify their position.

Will we ever learn that our “do-it-yourself,” entrepreneurial approach to faith undercuts the nature of NT Christianity and leads to consequences that tarnish the reputation of our Savior?

Despite my strong opinions that churches should have services on Christmas whether it falls on Sunday or not, and that when it is on a Sunday churches should not cancel services, we didn’t make it yesterday.

We had the best intentions and planned to go — but it didn’t happen.

I suppose I could make excuses, or give what some would consider legitimate reasons. We were there for three hours on Saturday night, preparing for and participating in Christmas Eve services. And it wasn’t just singing Christmas carols and lighting candles. We heard the Word and met Christ at the Table. I suppose it would be legitimate to say we took part in our weekly worship, and that we should not have felt obligated to attend on Christmas morning.

We had ten people at our house celebrating Christmas, including three young grandchildren. Our family has always opened presents on Christmas morning and as we’ve grown the process has become more lengthy and involved. As it was, we weren’t done with our festivities until after noon. Plus, not everyone was eager to attend church — some are not in the habit of doing so regularly, and some go to other churches (and also had long Christmas Eve service commitments).

Our plan was not to make a big deal out of expecting others to go with us — it would just be Gail and I. If anyone else wanted to come, they were welcome but all were free to make their own decisions.

In the end it got too complicated to work out, so we stayed home with the family. If something must be blamed, it would be our planning and execution. We should have recognized the additional issues the rare Sunday Christmas schedule presented, prepared for them more fully, and communicated our plans to all concerned more clearly.

Don’t get me wrong. I think regular readers know I’m no legalist or religionist. I don’t think God is upset or angry with me for missing a Sunday morning worship service. If we practiced confession, I would not feel the need to bring this up to my pastor. I do wonder how many others showed up. I regret not joining the faithful few to show support for my brothers and sisters and our pastor on a morning that must have been a challenge for him.

In fact, that may be where some of my angst is coming from. Having been a pastor, and having had the duty of leading services at times when cultural practices made them inconvenient, I have a deep sympathy for pastors and want them to know that I am on their side. I support them. I value the work they do when it seems like everyone else is focused on other priorities. I have tried to speak for them here on Internet Monk again and again, and it’s a bit embarrassing to admit I didn’t live up to my words yesterday.

I still think the Church should worship on Christmas morning, Sunday morning or not. When Christmas is on Sunday, congregations definitely should not cancel services. God’s people should come together to celebrate Christ’s birth in the same way we celebrate the resurrection on Easter. These are still my strong opinions.

But our cultural habits are deep, our family patterns too. We didn’t do enough to modify them so that we could include going to church on Christmas in our observance yesterday.

I feel a little sad about that.

Lisa Dye led us off today with a wonderful overview of David Augsburger’s Dissident Discipleship. And Chaplain Mike has a review of N.T. Wright’s Simply Jesus lined up for next week. So it’s my turn at the review stand. It just so happens this book articulates much of what I want to say in my series. The book I’m speaking of is Christianity In America: A Crisis by E.G. Homrighausen.

Homrighausen, a distinguished theologian and former professor of Christian education at Princeton Theological Seminary, doesn’t mince words when it comes to what he sees as wrong with Christianity in America. He gets right to it in his opening paragraph:

Sincere lovers of the Church are disturbed by the state of the churches in our country. Certain trends have developed within them to weaken their clear witness and their inner reality. In many local churches the undignified and chaotic nature of the work indicates a lack of true justification for their existence. It is hard to distinguish these churches as other than mere social or educational institutions. Cheap entertainments, petty programs, overactive organizations are in many cases a waste of time and energy and a travesty upon the honor of the Church. Quiet stability, dignified strength, and genuine respect for the holy things of God have flown, and the minister is often helplessly caught in the whirl of wasteful disintegration, or is himself so lacking in true theological vigilance and intellectual integrity, as to unconsciously further this tendency. There are few churches in our country that can escape this ubiquitous and subtle influence.

Wow, E.G., don’t mince words. Tell us just how you feel.

And he does. Homrighausen sees the modern church in America as a natural extension of the Reformation, which gave birth to individual expressions of faith, no longer connected to the history and tradition (and the authority) of the Church.

Therefore we lack historical perspective and balance. We do not see the Church as a persistent entity with a long and venerable tradition. Our sectarian idea of the Church as separatistic voluntary groups will need to be corrected by a conception of the Church as universal, traditional, and historical. Christianity did not begin with American sectarian life! It began long ago and has lived in varying expressions all over the world. All this is Church. There is something far more important in the Church than its human varieties.

On the whole, Homrighausen doesn’t see much that he likes among Christians and churches in the United States. Commenting on an article he read in a European theological journal, he recalls,

It stated that American theology is quite generally pretty thin, inclined to humanism and Socialism, that the gospel is largely identified with naturalism, and is a loose program of social betterment, a technique for spiritual development, a human value of the highest kind. Christianity here, it held, unlike that in Europe, begins usually with the human being’s needs and then works out to God’s satisfaction of those needs. This makes for humanism and religious pragmatism. In Europe, theology begins with God, and from that basis man is asked to adjust himself to that God, who is forever beyond man’s proof and beyond any man’s claim upon Him.

Wow. Are you hearing what he is saying? He is saying that in America the foundation of our faith is the self, and the needs of the self shape the way the church addresses faith. This self-faith is built on what are called “felt needs.” Churches all across the land meet on a regular basis to come up with ways to meet people’s “felt needs.” From the songs that are sung, to the length of those songs, to the instruments played during those songs, to the lights that are up (or down) during those songs, everything is geared to elicit an emotional response which will lead into the next segment of the service. That next segment will be geared toward felt needs, with emotional pleas to come forward to repent or be prayed for, or emotional pleas to give. (“Plant a seed so God can meet your need.”) Then comes the message, which is also tailored around the hearer’s needs.

I’ll just come out and say this square: I hate the phrase “felt needs.” I think it is the greatest profanity my ears can hear. What is so special about my needs and how I feel about those needs? Look, I taught marketing for fifteen years. I have been involved in media marketing for more than 38 years. I know how to manipulate people with words and images and sounds. I know that to get an emotional reaction usually means to get a financial reaction as well. To be able to get a consumer to think, “I have dingy teeth. And if I have dingy teeth, that stud walking by won’t be interested in me. So I’ll spend money and buy this toothpaste that promises me white, bright teeth, and by association, promises me that stud,” is magic. It means millions of dollars in sales. Meet someone’s felt needs and you have a vacuum cleaner hooked up to his or her wallet.

So tell me, what does this have to do with the Gospel? And why are churches so concerned with meeting one’s felt needs? Homrighausen says the answer lies not with us, but pointing us beyond ourselves to Jesus. Yet not the Jesus we often hear spoken of in church.

While there is much about Him that can be rationally understood, yet the most important thing about Him is His power to find man, to reach his real problem of existence, which is moral guilt; to face man with the qualitative character-reality of man, as well as of God. He is always intent upon revealing the real problem (crisis) of human life. No dispenser of wisdom is Jesus! No philosopher of the a priori is Jesus. He finds and redeems sinners.

What a great statement to build on: Jesus finds and redeems sinners! Yet that is not a felt need recognized by most churches today. And thus Homrighausen’s “crisis.” It’s not one of denominationalism or Catholic vs. Protestant. This is a crisis caused by taking our eyes off of the one thing that matters: the Gospel of Jesus. And this is also our hope to “recover” the church, to use Homrighausen’s words. His conclusion is that we must return to our one and only message: Jesus Christ.

This is a powerful and well-timed book. Or at least it would be if had been written in this year, or decade, or even century. But Homrighausen, who died in 1982,  published Christianity In America in 1936.

If only we had listened to him then.

At the time of this writing, there were four used copies of Christianity In America available through Amazon. I think it would hold a well-deserved place on most any bookshelf. (Read it before you put it on the shelf though, ok?)