I was asked 15 years ago where I felt the church in the west was headed and I said that I believed that the big will get bigger, the small will continue either in sheer irrelevance, or because they have found a niche and a sense of identity outside of the dominant imagination, while those in the ‘muddled middle’ will scrabble around trying to imitate the big guys to appease the consumers, while also trying to focus on discipleship for the committed core. That’s a very tough space to inhabit and one that I believe will become increasingly difficult. Middle sized churches – get big fast or your days are numbered.

There is an old phrase in surfing that says ‘The best surfer is the one having the most fun’. Going back to the focus of my original post it suggests we should reject all economic measurements of success and simply focus on the joy and exhilaration that comes from being engaged in an activity that involves adventure, risk, fitness and a definite attunement to nature. When we are in the water enjoying a perfect offshore day with a few mates then surely we have got to the core of what this surfing thing is really all about?

Maybe we need to find a similar phrase to embody the soul of what it means to be a community of Jesus followers?

One of the struggles for us in the world today – and a nuance I have intentionally avoided in the first few posts – is that we have no choice as churches other than to adopt and embody a certain level of business practice. Incorporation demands a constitution, paid staff demand resources and organisations need to abide by codes of practice. Unless we choose to meet in homes, off the grid completely then we are forced to comply with some minimum demands and administrative expectations. Lately the findings of Royal Commission has meant that churches need to improve their safety protocols around children and this has in turn required seminars, risk assessments, police checks etc. 

So while I have offered a criticism of the enterprise model I am fully aware that to some extent I am having to operate within some of its constraints – I am having to consider budgets and attendance and constitutions, because these things are part of the whole in this 21st C world.

That said we can choose our paradigm. We can choose our imagination and expression of church.

We can allow the business mindset to shape and form all we do, or we can choose a different metaphor and conform to the minimum administrative / bureaucratic requirements necessary.

I can’t see the idea of church as enterprise anywhere in scripture. If you can then show me. Seriously – if I’m missing it then just point it out. I can’t see goals of improved attendance and budgets anywhere in the NT. I can’t see senior pastor as CEO… and while ‘executive pastors’ sound sexy they don’t exist either. I could go on.

The communal NT metaphors are of flock, family and body. These are all organic and must surely inform us as to how the church is to take shape.

A flock speaks of a community with an overseer – a shepherd who cares for them and guides them. A body speaks to the need for interdependence within the community – for each part to do their work, while the family idea speaks to the idea of church as a group of brothers and sisters who behave quite literally like family towards one another. The individual roles of leaders are the apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher and the elder and while some are initiatory roles and some are consolidatory roles these too could have been expressed in 1st C business language if that was appropriate.

My contention is that these metaphors and language must be our starting point for identity formation rather than the pragmatics of how we can make this thing grow/work/zing/fizz!

So… Why can’t we just go back to this?

Surely its that simple…

I sense that for some its because their identity is tied up in the creation of a ‘winning product’ – a church brand that others will consider successful and will prove itself in the marketplace. Let’s be frank and say that those are not the strongest motives for being a church leader… I know – I’ve done it. If that’s you then its time to do a rethink of your role and your call to ministry.

Others are simply trapped in the system and can’t see a way out. If they stop casting vision, and stop calling people to give, then funds dry up and jobs get cut – most likely their own. Its as simple and as straight forward (and as butt-ugly) as that.

So maybe its time for some to break free from the chains that tie us to the machine and to begin to serve Jesus just because it is who we have been made to be. Maybe you can do that within the constraints of your church structure – maybe you need to actually make a radical change.

Maybe you need to resign. Take a sabbatical. Call bullshit. Get fresh perspective

Not kidding…

Think about it.

Maybe even pray about it… remember prayer?… 

Maybe there is a way forward that releases you from the burden of performance and into the joy of simply being a community of faith focused on Jesus. 

I said to Danelle recently that the two decades in which I surfed the most have been my teen years and my 50’s. Who would have thought! But I am enjoying it far more now than in the 80’s because I am in it simply for the joy of surfing, the camaraderie of the other blokes in the water and the connection with the ocean. I’m not out there trying to catch every wave, or be the best surfer in the water. I don’t care about that. I just love surfing and who I am when I get to do it. 

Maybe its a similar shift that has happened in me with ministry, because the same is true to a large extent of how we function in church work these days.

We do it firstly because we are called by God. Even on my worst days when I want to give it all away – when I am over the struggle of Christian leadership – I cannot escape that sense of God’s finger on my life saying ‘this is what I made you for – suck it up and get on with it’. I am most alive when I am being the person God made me to be and as I’ve reflected on what that involves it includes several primary expressions and these are somewhat in order of priority.

• Being with people outside the church either in the water, in my home or in the workplace. My vocation is that of a ‘missionary’ so this is where I ‘feel God’s pleasure’ to use Eric Liddell’s phrase. I rarely feel as ‘alive’ as when I’ve just had a significant conversation with someone who isn’t a Christian about the richer things of life. This is partly why I could never be a full time pastor again – that role kept me away from these people.
• Leading a church community – I love guiding a bunch of people to discern what the Spirit is saying to us. Most often that process happens within our core leadership team – and to some extent with our whole church – but its good and brings me joy. My job is to lead the process – sometimes to speak into it very directly and with strength and sometimes to sit back and listen to those with more insight.
• Teaching / Preaching – For as long as I can remember God has enabled me to find ways to make truth accessible and I just love doing that. I enjoy taking a passage of scripture that initially looks either bland and dull or like gobbledegook and being able to convey it to people in a way that helps them get it. 
• Mentoring / Coaching Men – meeting with blokes usually 1:1 to have authentic conversations about life and faith. 

In my role as ‘senior’ pastor / team leader or whatever the terminology is these days there is also a certain amount of administrivia and organisational stuff that needs to be dealt with, but this is done with the absolute minimal effort possible as it isn’t the stuff I want to invest my best time in. I do what I can and some of it gets left undone because I just don’t care enough. Fortunately Danelle is gifted with admin so she has done lots of this stuff that I find myself avoiding.

I write about this because unless those leading churches choose to operate with a different paradigm then nothing will change. People may leave if they don’t like our methodology, but we won’t learn new ways to be the church as family rather than enterprise.

Maybe you need to lead differently. 

Funny thing is I don’t think anyone is running seminars for this kind of thinking…