Friday's Recap (090710)

Yesterday we started off the cell group discussion with an exercise called church assessment. We listed many qualities of a church that we think are important to its long term growth and expansion. Some of the qualities are good leadership, sound theology, friendly congregation, effective discipleship program, strong evangelism, and many others. You can expect some or most of these qualities in most churches, if not all. As a member, it is easy to expect one’s church to embody those qualities as much as we expect our pastor to be exemplary in thoughts, conduct and speech. One has to bear in mind the excellent qualities expected of a church leader.

In 1 Timothy 3:2-7, the Bible demands that a pastor in general be a cut above the rest. Here is the passage for your mental digestion: “An overseer (pastor), then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine, or pugnacious, but gentle, uncontentious, free from the love of money. He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?); and not a new convert, lest he become conceited and fall under the condemnation incurred by the devil. And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he may not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.” Surely, one of the main criteria of a pastor is that of a good, loving and firm husband/father - one who is able to take care of his own household. Indeed, our faith is not just a public declaration; it is also a very private one.

Now tell me honestly, how many honest people, browsing through the classified ads, would have skipped pass a recruitment advertisement for a church leader if the qualities listed above were its prerequisites. It is indeed a high calling and it is not to be taken lightly.

While it is easy and convenient to make demands from our church leadership and expect almost perfect attributes from them, we as members must also turn the searchlight on ourselves to see whether we measure up as members. Remember that the church is an assembly of believers and its growth and expansion depend very much on its members as well as its leaders. It is a mutually reinforcing and beneficial relationship. Never underestimate the power of influence that the followers can have over their own leaders. I believe that good followers can be the byproduct of good leaders in the same way that good leaders can be a byproduct of good followers. Leaders and followers grow together and they also crash together. No leader can prosper under rebellious “followers” and vice versa. So, the focus here is on us, the members.

I believe that the union between each member and his/her church is a union no different from a marriage. The principles are equally applicable. It is a covenantal relationship. It is based on ministerial servitude and not contractual obligations where parties are made to sign on the bottom line. Members don’t expect any payment in return for their weekly services because, unlike a contract, the reward is not material or immediate. Neither do pastors get extra remuneration for visiting a member after office hours to counsel and pray over him or her. The sacrifices that members and their leaders make are premised upon a higher principle of selfless devotion in the replica of our heavenly model, Jesus. As such, we do not talk about lawsuits when its members fail in their service in church. In a contract, such failings would be deemed as a performance breach and the party in breach would be liable for its consequent damages to the innocent party. In the context of a church, a performance lapse or moral failure on the part of a member is usually forgiven or sometimes overlooked.

This union is special, and transcendent, because it is God-ordained. We are all one body of Christ, leaders and members alike. In Romans 12:5, it is written, “So, we who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” Although our actions are individualized, our purpose is unity-focused and driven by divine fiat in lockstep with the instructions of the Bible and the teachings of Christ. As such, Christianity is centered on people-relations and its work is people-transformation. We cannot practise Christianity in the privacy of our own home - carrying out a Sunday service of one. We cannot reject the Church and, at the same time, embrace Christ because the latter is the head of the very institution that we have rejected (Ephesians 5:23). Our church may have its flaws, and some of them are far from perfect, but, as its members, we should expectedly be the last ones to cast the first stone (assuming that the practice of stone-throwing is justified).

Like a good husband who shields his wife and children from a straying bullet, we as members are expected to stand in the gap of our church not to cover up its leader’s sins but to work together to be peacemakers and to restore faith and hope in the midst of a leadership crisis. Note that we are called to stand in the gap and not to widen the gap; to build bridges and not to burn them; to extend a loving hand to the fallen and not to push them over the cliff. Ruth Bell Graham once said, “A happy marriage is the union of two forgivers.” In like manner, I would say that a happy church is the union of forgivers en mass. A marriage cannot survive unforgiveness just as a church cannot advance with bitterness and grudges among its members.

So, when we are tempted to quit church, or backstab it, I suggest we suspend that urge and reassess it on the following basis taken from the book, Why we love the Church, by authors Kevin Deyoung and Ted Kluck, with a little modification of my own.

Are we rejecting the Church or the faith? This is a legitimate question to ask ourselves. Men are prone to make excuses for everything to cover up for what is really their truest and deepest intention. We blame the church for the lack of leadership when it is really our lack of discipline that has caused our spiritual decline. One man once complained to a pastor that he hated his church because his wife was in love with another man in that church. When the pastor asked him to reveal the identity of the man so that he could counsel him, he barked, “My wife is in love with Jesus!” This is a typical case of skirting responsibility for the failure of one’s own marriage.

I think in life, what really matters is to do what is right and not be obsessed with being right. There is a huge difference of attitude in the two. Doing what is right is essentially others-centered. It is also an attitude of humility and personal responsibility. When we do what is right, we are putting the interests of others first. We are ensuring that our approach is one of self-examination and not being judgmental. In the end, what counts in doing what is right is that relationships are strengthened and trust restored. But the other attitude is one of self-centeredness. A person who is obsessed with being right is a “fault-pecker.” He is intolerant of others’ flaws but is blind to his very own. Since he must always be right, he cannot accept that he can ever be wrong. As such, the endgame for a fault-pecker is mistrust, bitterness and broken relationships. The motto of a person who does what is right is this, “Never let your stinking self get in the way of a good relationship.”

So, in the context of a church, doing what is right is to always examine our own intention. I believe that to have the ability to self-examine is to have the gift of perspective. And to have the gift of perspective is to be rewarded the prize of wisdom. I also believe that self-examination is the genuine mark of humility and maturity. When we dare to unravel the inner recess of our heart, peer long and hard into its hidden desires and motivation, we would be less incline to cast the first stone at our church. As one Indian proverb goes, “The more the mango tree flourishes, the more it droops.”

Are we expecting too much from our church and its leadership? We all want a church of true worshippers. We all want a church that excels in expository preaching of the word. We all want exciting programs, familiar faces, and always-smiling ushers with a firm tight handshake. We expect always-beaming pastors who will readily make house-calls when needed, cheerily conduct funerals when asked for, and promptly dispense with godly advice at the right time when counseling is sought. Most importantly, we expect our pastors to have much better temperament than our spouse. He is expected to be quick to listen, slow to anger and slow to speak, at all times. But is this realistic?

On this side of heaven, before His return when we are clothed in perfection and the incorruptible, our pastors will always wear their pants one leg at a time and still need to button their shirt with their own hands. What I mean is that they are as human as we are, if not more. Sure, they may be able to offer the other cheek to you and smile in the face of insults and persecution, but they do crack under pressure just like anyone of us. Remember that they are our leaders and not our incubators or our spiritual babysitters. In the end, we are all responsible for our own spiritual growth and accountable for our actions. So, when our leaders fail us, we should not be asking, “How come like that?” but, “How can I help?”

Lastly, are we trying to have our cake and eat it? This is a corollary of the above point. In the same way that we do not quit our marriage just because our spouse has more flaws that we would like to admit, we do not walk away from our church because it is not up to par. Attending a church is not like going shopping; you can always shelve back a can of sardine when you notice that there is a dent at one corner. You cannot do the same to your church without feeling like a wishy-washy Christian.

A church is not there to please everyone. It is not a massage parlor where an individual’s needs are satisfied to a tee. In fact, a church is there because of the Great Commission pronounced by Jesus to his disciples. Our pastors should bear in mind that running the church is not like running a political campaign. They are not out to win electoral votes by being people-pleasers. They should find favor with God and not men. As its members, we should take the same approach.

Let’s face it. The expectations of its members are too diverse and varied for the church to satisfy fully. Complaints about a church are endless. What is one member’s bliss is another’s hiss. In a large church, two groups may be exposed to the same worship leader on a given Sunday service with one group liking it because the songs are catchy and modern while the other group may hate it because the same songs are unfamiliar and worldly. One group may compliment the church for its systematic approach and another group may think it is too impersonal. One group may praise the church for its friendliness and another may accuse it of being hypocritical. One group may admire the church for its structured sermons and another may belittle it for not being dynamic and charismatic enough. You see how the twain will never mix just like oil and water.

So, let’s be practical, realistic and open-minded. We cannot have our cake and eat it. All churches come with the good and the bad. We accept our church not because of what we can get out of it but what we can give to it. We make up our church and its quality depends on the quality of each individual member. In the end, as expressed by author and senior pastor Peter Scazzero in his book The Emotionally Healthy Church, the goal is not to change the church but to change us – or rather, to allow God to change us.

Have a celebrative weekend…regardless of which team wins the Cup!