Church & Business I
Went to a great party last night and got talking to a really wonderful couple who are in what I would call a “biga-Church”, because it is not yet a “mega-Church”.
They have been there for many years, and we had some conversations on money, unjustifiable amounts of money exchanging hands on the speaking circuit, tithing etc.
They expressed their concern that their own Church has recently joined a ‘network’ is changing direction at a rapid rate.
Noticeably, changes have occurred in the governance structure (providing the Senior pastor absolute power), his wife has been promoted to associate Pastor and draws a comfortable salary despite working the hours of a volunteer, and most worrying the Senior Pastor now seems to be preoccupied with “making a name for himself”. Equally, they expressed concern at the lack of financial transparency in the Contemporary Church. (For the record, these people are still entrenched in and committed to their Church).
They expressed bewilderment as to “How can the Church get it so wrong?”.
I have been reading this article and pondering this and other questions below:
http://www.ministrywatch.com/mw2.1/pdf/Reflections_WordFaith.pdf
How can Churches “get it so wrong”?. Are the Pastors starting to follow in the footsteps “well meaning and ignorant?” or are they like ‘Marjoe Gortner’ and ‘Reverend Ike’ who see Church as a Business and have a personal interest in adopting a model with a guarantee of success?
What do you people think…?
October 24th, 2006 at 12:15 am
I have been pondering some things about Mega or Bigga church for a while. I think the rise of Mega/Bigga has more to do with culture and how people connect to something. 80,000 people gather every Saturday at college football stadiums to cheer on 22 people actively playing the game. Even the team members who are not good enough to play are there to cheer on the 22 players.
A lot of the same 80,000 fans attend a smaller meeting of 5-10,000 on Sunday and cheer on 1-2 people for an hour. Even the staff who aren’t savvy enough cheer on the 2…sounds like football.
With this demand comes the requirement of having to keep the machines rollong along. Ethics always becomes and issue when you have pressure to maintain a system dependent on large crowds. In college football, coaches are tempted tocheat in recruiting to keep up with the well established schools. The coaches head is on the line eery year depending on the teams performance and his win/loss record. It’s always a scandal when a big time school cheats and get’s caught. But a minior division 2 school hardly get’s a mention.
So I think it is in churches, the division 2 church, trying to play with the Big dogs, get’s caught up in competing. It’ s hard for a pastor or leader to reach someone whom the mega didn’t even know enough about to try to reach him, to watch that person walk out the door and go to the mega church becasue, not of their ability to build a relationship, but there way of using a method that the existing culture can connect with.
Then it becomes about entertainment/programs/ and the way you indentify in the group - team player types succeed, fanatical supporters get the tv camera and you hide out in crowd of 10,000. Just like at the football game.. you do not know any of the fans, your just there to cheer on the team, but you lose your identity while gaining the groups identity.
And the pressure to produce causes the fan to miss the point, the coach to miss the point and the busuness model to become the church model.
This in itself causes a new dilema. How do reach a culture of spectator fans? You can tune in, turn on and drop out of society and just do your own thing - be the idealist/nonconformist and have little or no effect -or try to adjust and bring some cultural compromise and be some of both - or forget football altogether.
I still love football - I just don’t go to the games any more. i gather my friends and family in the back yard to pass it around on Saturday afternoons. But no one comes. We tried tailgate parties like they do at the stadium, to increase the attendance. But it just wasn’t the same. The fans didn’t come. Tail gate parties are no fun without the die hard fanatics. Does any body really care about PURE football any more?
This whole thing has left me disillusioned with football.
October 24th, 2006 at 8:54 am
Good thoughts Kevin. Good thoughts mate.
October 24th, 2006 at 9:31 am
I agree, good thoughts Kevin. I’m sitting here relating to what you are saying….
I’m concerned for the culture that our churches are generating. It seems like people are enamoured by the glitz and glamour and entertainment and programs, and in this we have lost sight of the purity of the real thing. Then when people experience the real thing, it feels good and right to them, but the pull of the other seems to win over, because it requires less effort to spectate than it does to be a player. It’s also alot easier to be “fed” than to learn how to feed oneself (a sign of immaturity is the need to be fed by someone else).
The leaders of the entertainment/program driven movements are constantly faced with the pressure of keeping people and are also continually told by those who are succeeding in this game that success in this way is increasing God’s Kingdom and pleasing to God and bringing out the best in you as the leader. Of course, in our moments of pure motivation, we all want to please God - so I better sign up for that next conference which is going to change my life and help me be a success.
What a wank it all is…… Unfortunately we have created a culture that enjoys the wank more than the real thing…. Are we now just reaping what we have sown?
October 24th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
You know Wayne, i hear you are a former pastor. Do you mean you a former church administrator or pastor. I have been doing some unusual things church wise, Like asking people if they want to be saved with every head up and everybody looking around, their around friends after all. Altar calls with no music has been good too.
Letting the 10 year old girls give testimony about what God is doing in thier lives. I have one 10 year old who actually worships Jesus by dancing freely. Sunday morning i had her come and dannce in fromt of the church. She said she had a migraine during the service but as she began to dance in fromt of the people her headache gave up and left.
Open microphones during worship has been darned good. People actually confessed hard feelings toward one another and forgave each other. Ocasionally i preach some good stuff too. This next 2 weeks are going to be great. In order to cross pollinate i am bring a ministry friend of mine from Melbourne Victoria to indiana so she can teach here for a week. I love you Australians!
October 24th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Mega , bigga or whatever churches are simply denominations which still go to only one building.
The major point of meeting together on Sunday is to edify ,encourage, inspire ( add in your own here) each other.
The major point I want to make is that this is relational. thus the smaller the church the more likely it will succeed.
October 24th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
mmmm…personally I’m attracted to the more relational stuff, but I do feel that there’s a place for “big” and “institutional”. Earlier this year I came face to face with the importance of labels and institutions when a colleague and I were trying to make a contribution to the media about events in a country that were receiving lots of coverage…people couldn’t get their head around what we do, or why we were qualified to have an opinion (and we are - my colleague in particular, as she’s the first person to have looked at a particular issue!) Anyway, to cut a long story short - once we’d figured out how to “label” or “brand” ourselves, it was all good.
I see this time and time again when Christians are trying to speak out on an issue - a group that has a label, and has good branding, will have a far louder voice than those that don’t. When did you last see an emerging church leader speaking about refugees on the evening news?!
Plus…I grew up in a small country church, and while I’m now at a small city church, I can’t forget how good it was to go to my first Youth Alive rally, my first megachurch service, and think “wow! There’s all these other young Christians out there, I’m not that unusual…how cool!”
I suspect the issue is not about size, but about values and priorities. I think that it’s harder to hold onto good values and priorities when you’re running a megachurch, and it’s harder to build a relational culture in a big institution…but that doesn’t mean it’s all bad.
October 24th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Yes, but its not all about size. The concept of the mega church is essentially good…
But why cant we have mega-churches with financial transparency, orthodoxy, controls in place over governance and a place where the Senior pastor does not become one of God’s millionaires and just accepts a straight salary …?
The thing I admired about Steve and Terri Irwin is that despite their success and fortune, they stuck to their values, accepted a salaried position, lived in a 3 bed room house and invested all revenues into Australia Zoo and protecting wildlife.
Their income and lifestyle did not increase and their values did not change with success.
October 24th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Great post, Lionfish.
October 24th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Kevin, I used to pastor a church in Melbourne which was started afresh with a handful of people and grew rapidly over 5 years. Unfortunately, differences of opinion meant that the Leadership Team (which essentially I was instrumental in putting in place) and I could not continue to work together. The structure that I had also put in place meant that the team had the authority to ask me to move on. And that’s what happened….
We too were doing many creative things, and met on Sundays in pubs and restaurants, as well as many community involvements, in particular serving local schools….
I wish you all the best in the coming weeks in Indiana (the home state of the great Larry Bird!)
By the way, who have you got coming over to speak?
October 24th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
that’s sad, but also…kinda good, Wayne. I’m really impressed by leaders/founders that are prepared to be accountable - I’ve been involved in a few organisations founded by charismatic individuals, and I’ve never seen that before!! It sounds like it was quite a special thing, even if it backfired on you??
October 24th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
CAn you get a new subject lionfish…I’m bored
October 24th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
The last lot of posts by Lionfish:
Prosperity Theology vs Poverty Theology II
Driscoll on Prosperity and Poverty TheologyBanking on God
Tithing Debate Heating Up
“Believe” - The Mockumentary – about amway – mlm, read network church and speakers ciruit
Church & Business I, so I take it that the next post will be Church & Business II
Move on please – what’s going on with this blog…seriously why is lionfish posting all the time and not Dan or Phil? The whole thing is done to death LF –we get it, HS bad – everyone else good – money evil…no money good. Let’s look at some serious issues and some serious theological reflection, if we can’t I’m moving on
October 24th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Have a look at these cartoons by Dave walker - silly arguments online - hmmm…where do we find them?
http://gregtheexplorer.wordpress.com/2006/10/10/83/
October 24th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Greg, why don’t you join the conversation about how evil I am over on the thread about Muslims?!
October 24th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Move on Greg.
October 24th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
how the internet brings us together *ROFLMAO*
October 24th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
Dan and Phil, can you give wayne my e=mail address.
Wayne, She has asked me not to be too public about her visit. But I will e-mail you her name as soon as you e-mail me.
So Wayne, would you set that structure in place again? You know of Larry heh. He played in our region in High school and a lot of my friends run around with him. My brother in law was the Superintendent of his high school. Larry is still friends with the custodians there… dear old French Lick, Indiana. ( the town is nothing like the name leads you to believe it is).
we also have a Melbourne basketball player named Ben Allen at our own Indiana University just up the road 20 miles (???Km). Do you klnow of him?
kev
Kevin
October 24th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
oh, and Wayne. Thanks for sharing your story, i am sure it has not been a pleasant ordeal. I hear people say they want a church that is “out of the box”. Get them out of the box more than once and we see how much “box love” there is out there.
October 24th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Dan
Could you please upload my three new Posts:
“Last Days Evil in The Church: 2/4 Drumbeats, Prosperity Theology, Tithing, Make-up, Hairy armpits, ankle tatoo’s and Greg the Explorer”.
And
“Russell Kelly Rebuts Greg The Explorer”
October 24th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
That should be two.
October 25th, 2006 at 8:36 am
You have mocked me for the last time…well until the next time anyway
October 25th, 2006 at 8:38 am
October 25th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Kevin I’ll e-mail you when I get your e-mail address from Dan and Phil. I used to live in Boston from ‘83-’86 and saw the great Larry Bird play during that time. I was a huge Celtic fan then, but don’t follow the NBA so much anymore being back in Australia.
Anyway, in response to yours and Bec’s comments about the structure we had in place in our church, yes I would have that kind of structure again. However, I am at this point in time a little dissillusioned with the “organised church”. No doubt there is a place for it, and there needs to be accountability within this kind of structure. However, I would love to explore something more natural, that fits with the natural rhythms of life, that doesn’t have all the structure and organisation that requires a huge drain of resources. I have seen too many people commit themselves to the “organisation” only to find that there is a lack of genuine relationships.
Could there be such a thing as a church with no buildings, no set meeting time and place and none of the organisational structure, but built on relationships and a set of common values? I guess I’ll keep dreaming…..
October 25th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Somewhat dreaming, yeah… But not outside of reasonable possibility either. I think the church is headed into more relational direction. I was reading something from LifeWay the other day about a survey they did as to why people left churches. The majority issues were about people being so busy with jobs and education of children amd the fast pace required to just keep up anymore. Sadly, I think western ocieties are getting too fast. This is why Mega churches thrive today, but the Mega doesn’t offer you a family , kick back, relax in the presence of God atmosphere. It is welcome to our version of fast paced life… things to do… places to go atmosphere.
And I think you are seeing is probably prophetic as to the direction the church will go. People will come full circle to the basis of relationship church and relationship with god based Christianity. Already i am seeing a shift from to the simpler. The program driven is working becasue people identify with it becasue it runs parallel to their way of running life now. But it doesn’t provede relationship that is lacking in daily life.
A lot of people I know do not have the close friendships, They are associates of co-workers who go to ball games and movies together. Can you really develop trust and intimacy with a co worker or fellow spectator?
October 26th, 2006 at 10:53 am
“Can you really develop trust and intimacy with a co worker or fellow spectator?” I think that sums it up Kevin. The question is, is there another way other than the fast-paced, structurally organised, program-driven, spectator church that currently is the default form of church? The house-church model goes close, but has its down sides too. I’ll keep dreaming for now……
October 26th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
YEAH… I think we are on the same page. I really want an e-mail address from you. Here is one you can use for me akevin1111@gmail.com