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Investing in Community, Not Commodity
I wonder how many times you have bemoaned the tendency of people to treat church like a hobby or like some kind of plaything. Maybe you have wished out loud that folks you know would stop playing at church. Perhaps you have put language to work on behalf of this view from a ministry platform whereby you have encouraged people to move from being consumers to being committed.
We should aspire that people invest themselves in the church as Jesus’ glorious and eternal building project and advance the case for service and sacrificial living in the lives of those entrusted to us in our church families.
Observing this trait and encouraging healthier patterns of belonging in the local church is no bad thing. In fact, we should aspire that people invest themselves in the church as Jesus’ glorious and eternal building project and advance the case for service and sacrificial living in the lives of those entrusted to us in our church families. All on the same page so far? Hopefully.
Now, imagine if I was to ask you if you are as guilty in the opposite direction. I don’t mean that you should ask if you are actively discouraging people from that kind of taking spiritual responsibility. What I mean is this:
Supposing you or your church ministry are guilty of doing the same things with the people entrusted to your care as you might express frustration at seeing in the lives of those entrusted to your care. Are you tending to those people as a community or are you treating those people as commodities?
It strikes me as impossible to be leaders who might hope to see any sort of healthy Biblical community when there is even a trace of this in our hearts. When we are stuck in the same consumer mindset as those who frustrate our hopes around them shouldering kingdom responsibility then should we be surprised when those entrusted to us demonstrate some reluctance? If people feel like commodities is it any surprise that we struggle to grow a sense of community or commitment in our churches?
Tools of growth rather than trophies of grace
The increase in tools to collect metrics and statistics for churches has raised an interesting pastoral complexity. These tools that make the pastor’s job on one level easier present the adjacent risk that they might make the pastor’s heart harder. That is not to say that numbers are bad. There is a whole book of the Bible with that title. The parable of the lost sheep invites us to vigilantly observe the story and circumstance of the ‘one’. If we are looking for a Biblical equivalence we might consider David’s census and what that revealed about his heart.
What would it look like to make evidence of grace our chief evaluation of those in our church?
Ultimately it is not numbers that get our hearts into trouble but rather the need our hearts might have to be validated or affirmed by the number of people who attach themselves to our ministry. If we value the statistic over the story or growth overseeing evidence of grace then we have fallen into the same glory pit that David did.
So that is a big picture warning but if we choose to zoom in a little closer to the point perhaps of uncomfortable exposure we might find something deeper and even more personal.
Means to an end rather than emblems of mercy
God in his mercy has given us people to mean something to us in family and friendships. It is a kindness that he gives us people with whom to share things in common. That is the nature of community. Yet through busyness, carelessness, or blind ambition we can very readily make those around us victims of what we view as success.
We run the risk of distorting things whereby we spiritualize our approach treating people like commodities given to us by God.
We run the risk of distorting things whereby we spiritualize our approach treating people like commodities given to us by God. When we do that rather than seeing them as a measure of God’s compassion for us and as designed to receive an expression of our care we are on damaging ground. If we are not watchful this heart attitude makes for distant shepherds and creates a trail of failed friendships.
There may be lots to dwell upon about how we express leadership and how people experience us. So maybe three starter questions to help us process:
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What would it look like to make evidence of grace our chief evaluation of those in our church?
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When my ambition for ministry creates an ambivalence towards the lives of people what heart work am I willing to do?
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How can we mold our view of belonging to see people as people to love more than people to lead?