We all just wanna be big rockstars
Thinking about my previous post called “Is the Church Top Heavy?“, I ran across this article by Ed Stetzer called “The Problem with Pastor as Rock Star.” Stetzer sees the same problem with too much emphasis on leadership (maybe) and especially on one man (the “Pastor”).
He says “rock star” pastors lead to problems in personal imbalance, hindering community, approval addiction, and selling out the church’s future. This is what he says about the problem of rockstar pastors “hindering community”:
If the church life revolves around one person’s speaking gift, it is incredible difficult to move to community. A community “won” to a single voice is not won to community, but to spectatorship. Thus, when pastors say, “it’s all about the weekend,” they tend to create an audience rather than a biblically functioning church community. This is still true if your church is an oft-criticized seeker megachurch or a your verse-by-verse preaching point. Either way, if you get thousands sitting in rows but can’t move them to sitting in circles, true community is hard to find.
As a guy who travels around speaking, I understand how quickly it can happen. For the last few weeks, I’ve spoken at a church close to my own house while the pastor is on a short sabbatical. But even in delivering biblical messages, I’m not engaging in biblical community with those people. It takes more than a stage to create a community. The temptation must be fought that a mass of people gathered to hear one person speak is equal to biblical community.
A gifted communicator can draw a crowd, but biblical community will sustain a congregation. A great orator is fun to have at worship, but cannot build community during the other six days and 23 hours of the week. Great preaching will be used by God to bring others to faith and sanctify God’s people, but it will also encourage the body to do life together on mission.
I’m not saying that every person in the community should have immediate access to the pastor. But I am saying that every pastor should be in some accountable biblical community.
I agree with Stetzer that this is a problem. I disagree with his solution, which seems to be for the pastor to be a little less of a rockstar.
What do you think the solution is? How would a church move from emphasizing leadership to emphasizing community?
Reading Scripture Together
Steven McKinion at “Gospel-Centered Living” has written a post called “Listening to Scripture.” While he maintains that studying Scripture is important, he also exhorts us to listen to Scripture.
He says:
In a day when everyone wants to do a Bible study what Christian communities really need is more Bible reading.
What’s the difference?
Bible study asks, “What does the text mean?”
Bible reading asks, “What does the text say?” Reading the Bible is listening to the Story. Were I to receive a note from my wife, I would not begin by parsing the language or questioning the context within which it was written. I would not ask, “What was in the mind of the author?” I would simply read. Read to enjoy the self-communication that is writing. I would not study the letter, I would read it.
There is a place for Bible study; a very important place. But study follows reading. Start at the beginning of the Book and read it simply to hear. No studying. No parsing. No cross-referencing. Just reading.
Several years ago, we decided to make public reading Scripture an important part of our church meetings. (By the way, see 1 Timothy 4:13.) Each week, we read at least a chapter of Scripture together, with usually two or three people reading. (We also teach through Scripture, but that is separate from our reading time.)
Also, a few times, we’ve met together only to read Scripture. We’ve read through the Gospels of Luke and John together in one sitting. I hope we do this again soon.
How about you? Is the public reading of Scripture important to you and the church that you meet with?
Mutuality: Just to Reiterate
In my previous post (“Church Activities“), I briefly stated that mutuality is necessary for maturity.
Arthur, at “The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia,” makes the same point in his post “Muzzling God’s people.” He says:
The church as we see portrayed in the Scriptures is a place for Christians to come together to minister to and be ministered to. It is a place of participation and mutuality without hierarchy and where Christians can edify, pray, sing, teach, exhort and admonish one another. That phrase “one another†appears so often in Scripture but practically speaking we see the church as “one and all the othersâ€. How have we perverted the very vehicle designed to provide “one anothering†and mutuality into a barrier to Christians ministering to one another?
It’s really sad. We’ve turned a time of mutual talking and listening and teaching and serving and caring into a time of one person talking and everyone else listening.
In Scripture, maturity in Christ comes through every part of the church speaking and serving one another. It doesn’t matter how great your hermeneutics or oratory skills: if you are the only person speaking, then the church is not maturing.
Church Activities
Eric at “A Pilgrim’s Progress” has come to the same conclusion as me in his post “The Church’s Primary Activity.”
What is that conclusion?
The conclusion is that the particular activity (activities) undertaken when the church meets is less important than the goal (or outcome) of that activity (those activities). That is, whatever we do when we get together with other Christians (activities) should have the goal / outcome of building up one another in maturity in Christ.
Eric gives a good summary:
This indicates that content of gatherings is not nearly as important as the attitude and motivation of those present. If the goal is edification and church people strive for this, then any of a wide variety of things could happen – maybe preaching, maybe teaching, maybe scripture reading, maybe testimony, maybe prophecy, maybe speaking in tongues, maybe the sharing of the Lord’s Supper, etc. However, if edification and the sirring up to love and good works is not the goal, then it doesn’t matter what we do because it won’t be biblical.
A good scriptural example of this can be found in 1 Corinthians 11:17-22 (actually 11:17-34, since the whole section is about the same topic). In this passage, Paul points out that the Corinthians are doing the activity (eating and drinking), but that the result is not the Lord’s Supper because they are not concerned with one another. (Note, there is no “doctrinal” issue involved in Paul’s admonition, only relational issues.)
What is the church’s primary activity? Whatever leads to mutual edification. And, yes, as a commenter pointed out, mutuality is necessary for maturity.
Admonish One Another
Eric (from “A Prilgrim’s Progress”) wrote a post last week called “Able to Admonish One Another.” He is commenting on the following passage from Romans:
I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. (Romans 15:14 ESV)
By the way, “admonish” (or “instruct” as the ESV translates it) carries the idea of teaching someone with the goal of changing something about them – primarily their behavior.
Eric concludes his post with this:
The church gathering is not a show. It should not be a ceremony. Rather, the bible describes it as a time when God is glorified through our building one another up in Jesus Christ. This is something Paul tells us that we should do for the good of the body. It is what we all should do.
So, let us actively admonish and be admonished. In doing this, we all grow closer to Christ together.
I agree with Eric’s post. I’ll add just one thing. Paul had never been to Rome. While he knew a few of the Roman Christians, he did not know them all. He had never met the majority of them. But, he knew that they were able to admonish (instruct) one another.
How did Paul know this? Did he know that they were educated or well-trained? Nope. It’s much simpler than that.
Paul knew that the Roman Christians were indwelled by the Holy Spirit.
In the same way and for the same reason, I’m convinced that any Christian is able to admonish (instruct) any other Christian.
Person of Peace
Felicity Dale (from “Simply Church“) has been writing a series of posts on Luke 10. Her latest post is called “How do you recognize a person of peace?”
She says:
A person of peace offers you hospitality. What does that look like in today’s society? You may not get invited into a home (although in my experience, that is not uncommon). Let’s say you have just started a new job, and after you’ve been there a few days, the lady in the office who everyone seems to revolve around says to you, “Some of us from the office go out for drinks on Fridays after work. Â Would you like to join us?” Â What has she done? She has offered you hospitality. Â She’s opening up her circle of friends to you.
Lately, our church has been talking about missional discipleship – although we don’t necessarily call it that. What is “missional discipleship”? It is going outside the walls and boundaries of the “church” not only to evangelism but even more to make disciples. It means meeting people where they are in their own environment and help them grow in maturity in Christ and then help them disciple their friends and neighbors and co-workers, etc.
Thus, the idea of finding a “person of peace” becomes very important. What do you think of Felicity’s description?
More Ethiopia Posts
If you’re not tired of reading about Ethiopia missions yet (and if you are, then just skip this post), here are a few other posts about Ethiopia:
Danny writes about the trip that we took together in these posts:
The Church that meets at Alaba Prison
My First Assignment: Preaching in the House church in Zobechami
Also, two weeks before Danny and I traveled to Ethiopia, a group of more than twenty traveled with Dave and BeckLynn Black to Burji, in the far south of Ethiopia. Here are some of their reports:
Jon with “Removing the log from my eye”
Kevin with “Back from the End of the Earth”
Ben with “Lesson #1: Wonder Working Weakness” and “Lesson #2: Sacrifices Worth Seeing” (perhaps he’ll post more?)
Unity Begins with Christ in Me
Dan (from “The Ekklesia in Southern Maine“) wrote an excellent post called “Unity in My Terms.” Dan describes how easy it is to seek unity on our own terms, instead of accepting people as they are.
But, as good as Dan’s post is (and it is good – read it), his wife Stephanie (from “Dead and Domestic“) stole the show with her comment on Dan’s post. Here is part of the comment:
If we’re going to BE the Church, then we have to tear down the walls we’ve built. We have to wash the bitter taste from our mouths and LOVE our brothers and sisters regardless of our beliefs or interpretations of scripture. Our SOLE focus should be Christ and our goal should be growing in Christ together.
So, according to Stephanie (and I agree), the picture that I’ve attached to this post does not show unity as Scripture describes it. Instead, it shows people finding unity on their own – linking hands with one another. To show true unity, we would need a picture of everyone holding tightly to Jesus Christ and Him alone.
Learn Greek
This afternoon, I got an email from my good friend Dan (from “The Ekklesia in Southern Maine“). As he mentioned in his post “Weekly Update: 08.01.10“, Dan is contemplating starting a Greek study group. So, in his email, he was simply asking for suggestions and encouragement.
Similarly, my good friend and fellow world traveler Danny (from “learning…“) (not to be confused with Dan, which I did in a comment on Danny’s blog) is also planning a Greek study group when he moves to Virginia in a couple of weeks. (But, I’m still in denial about that move, so I don’t really want to talk about it.)
What about you? Why not start a Greek study group yourself? Even if no one joins but you, you can learn (or learn more) New Testament Greek. Begin with an introductory grammar, or if you know a little Greek, begin with a book like 1 John.
There are so many resources available (either for purchase or free online) to help anyone learn Greek. Also, if you get started and have some questions, send me an email… I’ll be glad to help.
If you know Greek or you’re learning Greek (either on your own or in school) leave me a comment. Also, if you’re interested in learning Greek – and are interested enough to put some work into it and study – leave me a comment also.
Let’s encourage one another as we study the New Testament together.
Things I Didn’t Learn in Baptist History Class
In the 16th Century, many magesterial Reformers could not understand why the Anabaptists would not attend their church meetings. So, some Swiss Anabaptists wrote a response. In Baptist History class, I learned about many of the Anabaptists’ concerns – such as believers’ baptism. But, I never heard this:
When such believers come together, ‘Everyone of you (note every one) hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation,’ etc…When someone comes to church and constantly hears only one person speaking, and all the listeners are silent, neither speaking nor prophesying, who can or will regard or confess the same to be a spiritual congregation, or confess according to 1 Corinthians 14 that God is dwelling and operating in them through His Holy Spirit with His gifts, impelling them one after another in the above-mentioned order of speaking and prophesying. (From “Answer of Some Who Are Called (Ana-)Baptists – Why They Do Not Attend the Churches”)
Interesting…
(HT: Jon)