As a pastor, I have come to see that some things are very controversial among my own colleagues. Here are the top three:
1. The Church’s Role in Politics
2. Seeker-Sensitive Methods of Doing Church
3. Women Pastors
I would put them in that order too. Talk about these topics, and be prepared for a divided crowed. Talk about these issues passionately and in one hour you will know who loves you and who does not! Stay away from talking about these things and you will live long and prosper but be labeled a coward.
Among pastors, the issue that we often ask ourselves is this: “How Do We Do Church?” Now and then I like to break away from my own church and visit other churches. Some I visit one time and others I tend to visit more often. Some churches are more “liturgy,” meaning, “traditional” in its forms of worship. Such services are simplified – hymns, announcements, offering, preaching and pau (service over). Others are more involved – Countdown or pre-service music, praise and worship, video of up coming events and church highlights, announcements, song, dance, drama, message, another dance, end of service. And they get all this done in ninety minutes!
It is accurate to say that not every church is the same when it comes to liturgy. I believe God has given pastors the freedom to be creative, different (apart from compromise) and to function using their God-given resources and tools. Although churches can function differently and ought to because doing so exhibits variety and God is a God of infinite variety, all evangelical churches must exhibit GRACE toward others who are different.
I firmly believe that one of the more prominent “grace killers” among evangelical churches is an overly critical spirit about how other churches function. When I sit down over lunch with a pastor from a traditional church, I hear from his lips all the evil and compromise about another church that’s more post-modern. When I am with a seeker-sensitive pastor, I hear from him the problems of the traditional church and how they are behind the times and still stuck in the mud.
Very rarely do I hear a pastor gracefully defend and lift up another pastor and give praise to how the Lord is mightily using him in the context that he was placed in. This is sad. Above all else, our churches should not become “grace killers.” I will confess, I can be just as guilty!
Now do I do church a certain way? Yes. Based on what my understanding of the Bible is, I operate within that context. But so does the pastor down the street from me who operates his church much differently.
As I read the bible, I notice that it does not give too many “hows” of doing church. I have gone to churches where I thought to myself, I would never think of doing that. Then at the end of the message, the invitation is given and people come forward to give their lives to Jesus. I walk away humbled, rejoicing and praising Jesus that He did not put me in charge!
Every gospel preaching church has its strengths and weaknesses. But pastors who criticize other churches tend to forget about their own church weaknesses. And yet, maybe they are so critical of others because they do see their own church weaknesses in how other pastors do theirs.
In my humble opinion, to say that “my church’s liturgy is biblical” and the one down the street from me is not, is a “grace killer.” In the end, it is not the Spirit of God you are quenching in that church, it is the Spirit of God you are quenching in you.
