If I Only Could Only Say ONE Thing

With all the talk recently about revamping and improving the church, and also the fact that I think we are circling the drain with regards to the Nurture Ministry, I think I’ve more than said my share. I still think that everything I said is important. After all, this is a complex issue that cannot be resolved with something as simple as a New Work Plan. However, I acknowledge that amongst the deluge of my feedback/complaints/constructive comments, there must lie ONE thing that is at the heart of everything else I’ve been trying to articulate.

And I need to find it.

You see, the fastest way to make sure no one notices anything you say, is to say everything. So if I am to ever be able to put my point across, I need to nail down my message.

A few things spring to mind. Firstly, I feel that there are a few things we are doing wrong. Our leadership fellowship (or rather, the lack of) is a glaring issue. We don’t seem to have very clearly defined values, or else we declare one set of values but live by another. The way we push for evangelism is very worrying. And our lack of a working communication model which is adhered to.

Hongli feels increasingly distant, and I think he’s never looked so glum before in church. And that’s worrying, because if there’s no communication between the leaders, then what sort of communication can we expect to ever be filtered down to the masses? I want to pose a challenge to our leaders to be able to have lunch together once a month, and NOT discuss work at all over lunch. I want to see how much of a challenge that is. Yet there is something seriously wrong with such a gathering, if the only topic they can revert back to after the awkward silence kicks in – is to discuss church matters. Of course, its fine to share church experiences. I’m not saying “church” should be a dirty word on such occasions. But if the conversation invariably revolves around the same issues as the meeting agendas, then the lunch has become a working lunch. And that’s really sad.

Our values. We talk about the importance of prayer. Yet our leaders repeatedly fail to show up for our prayer meetings. And its not a case of missing one or two. I think they’ve missed most of the year. We ritualistically mouth the words that our leaders are seeking God together when planning for our future, but all that goes on when they meet up is to discuss amongst themselves. Ask any seminary student and he’ll tell you that there are 2 fundamental ways to seek God – through the Word and through Prayer. Its so simple that I don’t know how else to put it. How is God ever to be moving in the church when the leadership pays merely lip service to our values?

Evangelism. I don’t know how to say this without making it sound bad. But I find how our church pushes for evangelism to be very annoying. And I think its putting the cart before the horse. Evangelism is a natural out working of a love for God. If we don’t spend any time at all teaching people to love God, how are we going to get them to tell others what it means to love God? Instead of nurturing people in their understanding of God, and then providing them with avenues to evangelize, we instead try our level best to get them to go evangelize, thinking that the experience will let them know God and love God. Yet the point is conveniently missed, that experiences generates only good feelings. It is the hard work of study and careful nurture that develops a deep and abiding love.

The last point is probably more of an admin problem. A proper communication model allows the leaders channels by which to be accountable to their sheep. Too often we operate on a need-to-know basis, whereby the involvement of the people merely rests with activities which they turn up for. I guess we need to learn from people in the service sector. As leaders, we need to be accountable to the people. This doesn’t mean simply ensuring that you don’t dip into the church fund to pay for your lunch, or confessing to the church after you do. This also means paying the price of inconvenience to keep the congregation up to date on the strategies and the reasons for the things we do. (My own hunch is that its not merely a question of convenience. IF we were to ever do so, the congregation would be horrified at how haphazardly our decisions and ministry emphasis can be set and then subsequently changed.)

So that’s abt it. The things that I think need fixing in our church. If we can sort them out, I’m sure there’ll be more things to complain over. But at least I could shut up about these things. Grins.