Are We Playing God in the Church?
Something must die for new life to occur.
We’ve heard the adage before. It is presented in today’s church almost as if it were romantic. There are hints that it might be biblical.
It is not biblical—at least in the way it is being used to justify self-serving actions by regional bodies and church leaders.
This month in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), this thinking was passed on to the rank and file.
SEPA’s 2013 Synod Assembly had a guest speaker deliver this message. His address figures prominently on SEPA’s web site. It is not original thinking. Bishop Burkat wrote about this concept in 2001.
Good idea to have an outsider reinforce the ideas that are hurting so many SEPA member churches.
From SEPA’s web site:
Jay Gamelin urged congregational leaders to focus on making disciples instead of taking care of members and warned that sometimes new life requires death to occur first. “What needs to die in your church?” he asked the Assembly. “Because you know what God does with death? He makes an empty tomb out of it.”
Actually, that was not Christ’s approach to mission. True, his Resurrection saved us, but He didn’t tear down the people He encountered. He taught. He nurtured new leadership. He counseled established leaders. He empowered ordinary people—people who had no wealth to give but were welcomed all the same. He cured. He encouraged. He gave hope to the marginally served in society and within the religious structures of the day. He loved.
Christ wanted sin to die. Not churches.
He didn’t teach taking financial assessments of congregations and abandoning the weak. In fact, the sense of economics in His parables often puzzles us. He found strength and promise in places no one else did!
This death-oriented ministry philosophy may create an occasional statistical success story, but church statistics don’t reveal that resulting success is the norm or automatic or has longevity. Of course, time will tell.
Something must die. Any volunteers?
Why is it that our church leaders look to find somebody else to do the dying? Why is it the efforts of lay people that are targeted?
This is an abuse of the Resurrection story. Why do we embrace this thinking? Why do we sit in Synod Assembly and listen to it being taught?
Noble-sounding words mask a dangerous idea. The Church is playing with power—group power and some individuals’ sense of power.
Power doesn’t take much encouragement before it runs seriously amok. The idea that one person or group knows better how to use another person’s or group’s assets is the root of much crime.
ELCA documents protect us from this misuse of power, but they are routinely ignored.
This pseudo-resurrection concept is rooted in a sense of superiority. It masks leadership failures. “We didn’t fail as professional church leaders. It was their time to die. We’ll help them grieve on the way to the bank.”
They are playing God.
The temptation to play God when exercised by mortals results in skewed or lazy assessments of ministries, with property and cash assets the focus — not mission.
Christ’s power grew from humility. It has no time for arrogance.
When money is a problem for everyone, including the regional body and national church, things get crazy fast. No one looks for mission solutions. We look for easy answers that won’t take work, time, or commitment or an investment of any kind. We find it easy to judge others as unworthy of God’s blessings. We stop providing mission services and tell ourselves it’s OK. We decide which congregations will die (not “might die” but “will die”) in ten years. TEN YEARS!
The dereliction of duty is intentional and horrific. We not only do nothing but we plot to speed the process. We provide a “caretaker” minister. This caretaker expects to be paid as if he or she were actually doing ministry, but they are there to do nothing more than hold hands while resources and spirit are drained. They are there to facilitate the conveyance of assets.
Let’s look at what can happen in ten years.
Ten years — enough time to fight most wars, including World Wars. Enough time to reverse a serious recession. Long enough to see a high school student through seminary. Time enough for the Civil Rights Movement to begin to see results. Ten years—the entire history of social media!
What could happen in a church in ten years?
Endowments might be enriched. New populations could move in. Mission initiatives might take hold. Community outreach might take root. New housing might be built. New businesses might move in. A new generation will be born.
If the Church’s attention is on fostering failure, they will miss out on important mission opportunities.
One Bad Idea Leads to Another
This philosophy quickly jumps to even more erroneous thinking.
“You are not here to serve your membership, you are here to serve God.” Jay Gamelin concludes.
Serving your members IS serving God. Your constitution probably spells out your duties and it undoubtedly mandates care of members.
We ARE here to serve members. Their needs and preferences DO count. It is THEIR expression of worship and ministry. They are not the only thing that counts but they DO count. Love would tell us that.
The minute we give our leaders permission to NOT serve members, we devalue our message to all. Problems will result. They may not be immediate, but they will result.
Where there is life there is hope and there is God. God can play God all He wants.
And He will.
Don’t expect this philosophy that results from our leaders playing God to spread without problems.