First, a little history.
We moved to Idaho when I was four. We began attending the congregation that my grandparents were at. My grandmother was a secretary for the pastor. I don't really remember too much about this time, because I was very young at the beginning. I do still have one friend from then, but overall I was a bit shy and withdrawn. By the time I was about 10, I was starting to be more interested in books than people. When we had been there for about 6 to 8 years, my parents had some good connections within the congregation. Then we realized that the pastor was definitely untrustworthy, especially where finances were concerned. I don't know who first drew our attention to this, but from my (limited!) understanding, it was an ongoing problem. My grandma was able to tell us more about it, and she soon quit her job as a secretary there.
We next went church hunting in the area where we were living at the time, which is where we are now. We found a nice, little place and started to attend. I was old enough at that point, and I volunteered in the children's church. My mother played her flute. But something just didn't work out. I know the least about this place, because we weren't there for very long. My father says that the young pastor was uneducated and his children were out of control. Our family met another family who taught their kids at home here. They were not particularly well received in this congregation, which may have contributed to both of our families leaving so quickly.
We had 'home church' meetings with this family and two or three others (depending on availability) for the next year and a half or so. Then, when some of the other families began to discontinue coming to the meetings, the first family invited us to a church they had just found. It had about 50 attendees and was meeting in an elementary school. We were very excited about this new opportunity. We became full-fledged members. We attended that church for about 8 years, I think. Up 'till the end of this year, anyway. I started this blog about when we first began to seriously consider never going back.
Nascent congregations are usually terrific places to be for the first few years of their existence: you still know almost everyone who attends and no one is very uptight about the order of service or the exact music. However, in our society now, growth is the ultimate goal. If your numbers do not grow, you are obviously doing something wrong. Once growth happens, suddenly there is a staff, multiple programs to attract new members, and a definite hierarchy is set in process which relies on fallible human integrity. Too often compromise is one of the first new members of a growing church. This relates to the consumer mentality I've read about, where churches will do whatever it takes to get more members.
My father was elected to the stewards board about 5 years ago. After he had served a year, my sister was diagnosed with leukemia. He resigned from the board, because he simply did not have the time to devote to anything extra at the time. She died 2 years later. After a year or so, they re-elected him to the board. Our congregation was growing phenomenally, and we had been given a small building by another congregation that could no longer use it. Of course, the next step was obvious. We needed to build our own building! So we did. We moved into it a year ago.
After we moved into the new building, the staff began to put pressure on the board of stewards. My father resisted this effort, and finally wrote a letter stating his objections to what they were wanting, and offering to resign if they decided to persist. In his opinion, the staff wanted to spend a significant amount of money in a way that they had promised the congregation that they wouldn't. He felt they could not do so without first discussing it with the congregation. That idea was resisted, because the staff realized that such a request might not be very well received. He then had to leave for China on a business trip. While he was gone, the board and staff held a meeting and officially accepted his resignation, in the process portraying him as a trouble-maker.
My mother was at home, and she received phone calls from some of our friends who knew what had happened. She became a bit upset about the whole thing, and when my dad returned (a week later) he told all of us children that we were not going to be attending on Sundays; at least not until he had a chance to speak to the pastor and assistant pastor and see if he could straighten anything/everything out. I took myself off the lists for things I had been volunteering for, and we have only been back as a family one time. My dad received a phone call from the pastor, and as he thought that was a good sign, he went back one other time.
He has not received any other communications from anyone from the staff or board to my knowledge. They seem perfectly fine with letting us go in order to keep face. The other family who introduced us to this congregation had already become a bit disenchanted when they were again slighted.
It has only been about a month since we were pretty sure we were gone for good. We were originally thinking about looking for another place, but we have been reconsidering that in the past few weeks.
I keep saying 'we,' because my mother in particular is very open with me about how they are tending, and I am also old enough to make my own decisions along these lines! Always guided by older and wiser heads, of course.
We began the first efforts toward once again meeting with other like-minded families last Sunday. Singing, brunch, and good conversation! There wasn't anyone my age around, but I'm now able to converse with adults, so I had a good time too. We discussed the 'church format,' including the cookie-cutters for 'pastors,' 'Sunday school,' 'sermons,' and 'fellowship.' The only one of those words you will find in the Bible is 'fellowship,' and the rules there for how and when you have to have it do not coincide with the church format most congregations follow.
In a typical church you come in, sing, greet other people, listen to announcements, give/take an offering, listen to a sermon, greet other people, and leave. How does this line up with what we ought to do?
Singing: We (now I mean the two parents of the family we had brunch with and my parents and my self) all agreed that this is our favorite part of any church service. The power and unity found in glorifying God together is greater than just about anything else on this earth. My mother, for one, would be perfectly satisfied with heaven even if all it was was one eternal song service. But heaven is a subject for another time.
Greet other people: Okay, so this -- both after singing and after church -- is supposed to be your 'fellowship' time. It may be just us, but haven't you ever felt that 5 minutes a little tight to take kids to Sunday school, refresh your coffee so you don't fall asleep during the sermon, and have a meaningful conversation with all six people who are sitting around you -- especially when they are most likely complete strangers? And then, after church, I don't really know anyone who isn't straining to go home and eat something! It's dinner time, doncha know!
Listen to announcements: These usually have to do with committees, events, and other functions that the 'church' feels obligated to provide and you feel obligated to attend. I'll expand on this a bit later.
Give/take an offering: There are many different reasons we give money.
- We are supposed to support those who minister to us.
- We feel obligated.
- We want to give to missions and support people who are struggling.
- We want a tax break -- okay, that's a bit tongue in cheek.
The tithe, or tenth, is from when God told the Israelites to give the temple a tenth of all their produce every year. In 1 Corinthians 1:7 it says 'So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.' There is no room for making people feel guilty if we feel they are not giving enough. We are neither required to give a tenth, nor limited to that. As for missions, is this really an effective way to give? Sometimes people may give just so they don't have to think about it. Once they have tithed, it's no longer their problem. Personally, I appreciated the fashion in which this was approached at the congregation we left. They had two stationary boxes where you could place your gift. However, this did not eliminate all problems: when there are people who put their names on the offering they make, there is a record of amounts and who gave what. This is supposed to be for tax purposes, but even a congregation is still a human organization, and humans with human feelings and prejudices are placed in positions to know more than they probably should. My father tells me the tax break is insignificant, so I can certainly see why people would choose to honor what Jesus said about giving in private.
Listen to a sermon: The position of authority that a pastor has in a traditional format is not justified anywhere in the New Testament. The roles of elders and deacons are outlined, and Timothy is represented as a young pastor, but I do not believe that he is described the way a modern pastor would be. Our type of pastor seems to be a sort of relic from the Catholic Church. Too many times a pastor is placed in between the congregation and God. With counseling sessions, it is even possible to 'confess' to your pastor! I think -- and I know this is an ongoing problem throughout the world -- that people use church services and the sermon as a replacement for personal Bible study. They sit and listen to a pastor who will teach on a text or topic, tell a few jokes, and philosophize with a bit of worldly wisdom everyone can relate to.
Again, as soon as the service is over, everyone hurries home to relax, watch football, and recover from dressing up.
And Sunday school! Take the children away from their poor, exhausted parents, let them smear glue all over themselves, feed them candy, and tell them a cute little story about how the animals went in two by two. Everyone knows children have to have the Bible in teeny-tiny little doses, or they won't understand it. Now, in my family, my mother has consistently read to us straight from the Bible almost every day of our lives. As a result, my siblings come home and can explain exactly how the Sunday school lesson was oversimplified or even incorrect.
Back to the events and committees. In every cookie-cutter church, there is a trend to have a committee or group for everything and everyone. I think this is an effort to have everyone involved in some kind of ministry and to make up for the lack of fellowship on Sunday morning. There is the youth group, which is usually led by a twenty-something who is either fresh out of college or still in school. I have even heard youth group characterized as an escape from you parents! You can imagine how well that went over with my parents. Now the church is taking on a semblance of public school, becoming a place where you can know better than your parents. Children and youth should learn how to respect adults, not regard them as a burden. Youth group may provide a valuable service for those whose parents are not Christians; but I can't help but feel that they would be better served by finding mentors among adults than by joining in a large group of typically uncontrolled teenagers.
There are committees and study groups for college aged young adults, young married people, women, men, single people, people with kids, people without kids, people who like to ride motorcycles, people who like to eat donuts, and just about anything else you can find in which you are different. Doesn't this seem to promote a type of division? It's great to have things in common with other people, but a balance is needed. I happen to attend a not-in-college-but-not-married group myself, and the father of the family we had brunch with had a great way to describe this kind of a group. He called it 'the Great P of I.' Any guesses? That means 'the Great Pooling of Ignorance,' and it just about describes how I feel most of the time. I have some fairly good friends in this group, but the very description of the group displays how very unbalanced it is in terms of experience and knowledge. "Hey, lets all get together and talk about things we don't understand. A couple of self-help books, and we're all set. So, do any of you understand this passage? No? Huh, me neither. Let's move on." Argh!!!
So the consensus was that our system is seriously messed up. But, can we change it? Mr.-whose-house-we-went-to-for-brunch pointed out the verse where Jesus says not to put new wine into old wineskins, or both will be lost. One lesson we gained from that parallel was that God still values the people who are in this system. In no way do I mean to imply that they are not valid, saved-by-the-grace-of-God Christians. It is simply that, especially in view of our experiences, we wonder if there is a better way.
We are going to continue to make an effort to regularly fellowship with other Christians. Thankfully, we have an abundance of Christian friends who are not dependent on our attending with a certain congregation. I'll let you know how it goes.
So, instead of lots of little posts, how about one big one?
With great expectations (and amazed at the length of this!),
Heidi
