Who's Teaching?

Thank you.

I hear you on this. Let me also offer up a prayer that things aren’t too ugly in your corner of the Body of Christ right now. Admin leave is…well…rarely a good thing.

Guess that depends on what you would define good as.

T,
Good insights, as always. I’d just say that for the most part, the people who are making those decisions never really decided to “join a family”. There’s no real commitment there … they are typically just there with the “what’s in it for me” attitude. Sad.

For the Kingdom,
Fred
fredmckinnon.com
TheWorshipCommunity.Com

I think this post is right on.

People don’t commit to churches anymore. In fact, people don’t really commit to much at all. Culture says you’re allowed to change your mind about everything. It’s just really sad to see. Especially since it’s usually the same people who don’t commit to a church who don’t serve within (or with) the church either. Spiritual growth is pretty difficult with a non-committal mindset.

I think there’s a lot to be said for your perspective. And I’m not trying to disagree with it. It’s very frustrating for our church when we have a guest speaker, as we know that if word gets out ahead of time attendance drops.

This is part of the package deal with having an engaging & powerful communicator.

But, I think that the family we belong to is much larger than our particular group that meets on the weekend. I think that people should get plugged in & engaged with their church…but always able to leave/attend/engage elsewhere without thinking they ‘left.’

If that makes sense.

Thanks for this post. For some reason we (church leaders) have reinforced the idea that church is service that consists of music and teaching. You did a good job of pointing out that it is so much more.

Very well put. Some great reminders here!

I guess I see your point, but if the reason for going somewhere else is because someone else is teaching, that’s a completely wrong reason in my mind.

I don’t think we can explain too much what church is and how each person is it.

Tyler,
As usual you make some very striking remarks. I know that I myself have certain teachers that I enjoy more than others, do I base my attendance on that? No…I have people that I love to be with and spend time with on Sundays. And you know what? I always seem to learn something from all the speakers if I engage myself. I am sometimes in very dry periods where I feel far away from God, I just feel like I need to continue to be with these people if I hope to find my way back, which usually does not have anything to do with the teacher, but with my friends, and their acceptance of me. Thanks Tyler…

Way back in the 1980′s I was on the staff of a church where some people had been burned by the Senior Pastor so that they would only be in church when he didn’t preach.

“There is nothing new under the sun”.

Alan

Oh absolutely this isn’t anything new, just has hit closer to my life lately and I felt the need to provide a theological perspective as to why it is wrong. It’s sad, so sad that the church becomes about this.

Thanks Debbie.

I’ve always liked the youth ministry model. They spend time being taught and singing, but also spend time in small groups and socializing, all in the same dedicated time.

That’s something we’ve lost in “Big Church”. We come in, sit, listen, sing and leave.

I suggest reading the works of Frank Viola to understand how far off base churches can go when they don’t focus on Jesus.

ReImangining Church is wonderful on this topic.

I think that the fluctuation in attendance based on who is/isn’t speaking is a pretty damning piece of evidence that we have over inflated the worth of the sermon. It always plays a central role, but last I checked, we don’t come to church because like or dislike something, but we come because Jesus has created an alternative community.

As such I think what you say about church as family is particularly important and something that is missed out on too often. Attendance has more than just an effect on ourselves, but our attendance and involvement(or subsequent absence) effects everyone in the congregation.

For our church plant, we’ve cut against this by not having a primary teacher. We have three people who rotate and a fourth who also speaks every once in a while because we don’t want our thing centered around a personality.

Great post Tyler.

I’ve heard Frank speak and read portions of several of his books. Love some of what he has to say, some of it is tough for me the nail down because he often loses me with how unpractical some of his ideas are. But yes, as it relates to this post, I do think he has some great thoughts on church.

Tyler-

This post is a bit confusing to me. You start by saying, “Let me first say, that when choosing a church I believe you should absolutely go to a place where the teaching/preaching resonates with you.” But later you imply that people should stay even though the speaking doesn’t allow one to worship. Corporate worship is the backbone that strengthens a person so that they can “go and do”. When the heart of that is removed, the entire body becomes unable to function properly. It sounds to me like that is what may be happening here. Then it becomes ones duty to find a place where they can worship meaningfully so that they are fed and can continue to reach others for Christ.

Sorry you are going through this difficulty, but please be respectful and understanding of the needs of all in your church. I’ve experienced a similar thing with absolutely devastating results. The family was horribly split, and ten years later it is still not back to health. Hopefully enough people will remain so that your ministry can continue; hopefully those that do stay won’t condemn those that opt to worship somewhere else. Something this big can have lifelong consequences.

I disagree with the posts implying that thoseo who opt to leave are not committed to the church family. Committment has nothing to do with it, brokenness does. As in human families, sometimes bonds are permanently broken. At those times, it is in everyone’s best interests to move on to another church. Otherwise, with time, those who are unable to truly worship at the church may simply stop coming altogether…. forever…. anywhere….

Just to be clear I said that sometimes people choose to be at a church where the teaching does not resonate with them. And really my big point is that if church becomes more about people getting their fill from the teaching, I think we’ve missed the point of what church is.

Tyler said “if church becomes more about people getting their fill from the teaching, I think we’ve missed the point of what church is.” To me, this is the crux of this discussion. We’ve turned church into being about whether we can get our jollies when we’re together. Not to downplay the importance of worship, but there’s something wrong when we worship a God who says the story isn’t about us as individuals and then we decide on whether or not to leave because our tastes aren’t being fulfilled. There’s some form of deep irony in that IMHO.

I will keep my comments brief. I believe the heart of this issue lies in that we (the big “C” Church) have no clue what what it means to be the Church. In stuffy theology language we have a faulty ecclesiology. Is the gospel essentially a message that we need to tell the people of the world so that they will “get saved?” Or is it a way of life, a liturgy if you will? I think that it is pretty clear that the enlightenment driven belief that it is a message just is not holding up. Therefore, my question is very similar to Tyler’s, what does it look like to be formed into Christ people more by a commitment to a “family” rather than by the consuming of a message, music, church service, etc. Good conversation, Tyler . . . even though we have never met.

Please explain/show where you find the Bible indicating that a local church is a “family”. I thought it was considered to be a “community” and if that’s the case, then I don’t believe I must ALWAYS go to the same place within the community.

Essentially a family is just a tight-knit community to me.

Using the same Starbucks analogy, how can anyone experience tight-knot community if they go to a different Starbucks each time? How will they ever really make deep friendships that provide accountability?

I agree with you, Bobby. I go to church to experience and worship God (a vertical relationship). By doing this, I am then prepared to go into the world and share with others (a horizontal relationship). If at church I have some relationships with others in my church community, it is a bonus and one I believe God looks favorably on. But, I clearly believe this model is what we have been commanded to do.

You might look at when Jesus says those who do the will of the Father are his brothers and sisters, or how much brothers and sisters are used as the metaphor of relationship in church in the epistles as a start. Both family and community are used to describe the relationship of the church community.

Furthermore, if fidelity to a community/family is not important, why does Paul emphasize expelling the sinful man in Corinthians. The point is that if he refuses to take Jesus seriously, he is cut off from the relational part of the church. That is, church is about us in relationship to each other as it is about ourselves in relationship to Jesus, because the metaphors of union to Christ are always collective and not individual.

point for Turver!

I agree about the metaphor of brothers and sisters in the relationship of the church. I simply don’t see that the meaning of the church is a single congregation. I believe I have brothers and sisters in Christ that I have never met that are in a number of churches on Sunday mornings worshipping.

In my human life, I have a number of cousins I have never met. This does not mean I have no relationship with them. They are my flesh and blood and I wish the best for them.

In my church life (the church universal), I share a relationship with many brothers and sisters that share a common faith. Which church I actually attend has little to nothing to do with it.

But which church you attend has much to do with the effect that you have on those involved in that church. That is – we are social beings and the dynamics of a group change with the shifting of individuals. If not for fidelity to a community, we lose out on the familial and relational aspects which make a church community a church community. The sorts of things that only happen from spending a lot of time with the same people. To float around may not harm us or seem to harm others, but it moves us away from being known by others in any deep manner, and to me that’s a major aspect of the importance of fidelity to community.