Ministry Alignment or Entanglement?

American churches often suffer from over programming, or what I call ‘Ministry Entanglement’. It is typical to walk into a church on a Sunday morning and have three to four things to choose from, all simultaneously happening at once. We are required or encouraged to attend a corporate worship service, serve somewhere, attend a class, check out this orientation and that grief share group. How do people get it all done? Unless cloning becomes a reality and viable moral option, the answer is “they don’t”. Sub conscientiously, the average attendee is asking themselves, ‘What do they want really me to do?”….they’re looking for a clear road map….. and all we give them as leaders is a bunch of twisted arrows.

Ministry entanglement doesn’t happen overnight, but over a period of time, much like a messy garage filled with unorganized essentials, deferred decisions and stuff you no longer need. Church leaders are not proud of their over filled garage of programs, nor do they strategically set out to create a web of programs that dilute communications, sabotage budgets, over burden facilities, and take up parking spaces that otherwise should be reserved for new guests and the lost.

The question is ….. “Can’t we approach ministry programs with both the heart as well as head?”. There ARE ways to untangle the web and achieve ministry alignment without causing a church split. And there ARE new leadership rules that can be implemented so the garage doesn’t just fill up again. And there IS purpose and power of a ‘simple church’ model. The real question is….Do we want to fight for it?

Like a messy garage, we don’t necessarily like ministry entanglement, but we certainly do learn to live with it. I would challenge us as leaders to do better with the bride of Christ….better at being good stewards of our money; better at deciding what programs are really important on Sunday morning; better at managing our facilities; better at honoring people with a clear and simple offering when they come: corporately worship, hear the pastor preach, teach the children and youth, and serve the body to support those primary areas. Everything else that is good and right and noble and needed and important will naturally take care of itself through the passions and leadership of the body….not through church supported programs.

The Striving Pastor

When I think about the qualities that an ideal pastor must possess, it’s easy to get lost in the idea that only the cool, trendy and ultra creative that possess a Superman like blend of pastor, CEO, apologist, author and orator are the models of effectiveness who are equipped to handle the complexities of today’s church. They pastor thousands, while simultaneously run a radio broadcast, travel the country, Twitter and Blog. Their subtle, non-verbal message says to us “follow me”, the same words spoken by a man named Jesus on the shores of Lake Gennesaret when he called out to Peter or when He searched the eyes of a tax collector named Matthew. So who do we follow; the pastor or the One who called him to pastor?

A pastor has to resist the temptation to elevate his own personal holiness above the primary and most basic of missions: to proclaim the gospel of Christ. Oswald Chamber states in his book, Utmost for His Highest: [1]

"Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the gospel of God. The one all-important thing is that the gospel of God should be recognized as the abiding reality. Reality is not human goodness, or holiness, or heaven, or hell – it is redemption."

Paul did not say that he separated himself, but “when it pleased God, who separated me…” (Galatians 1:15). Certainly, Paul was an exemplary leader, apologist, encourager, mentor ....but he did not set out to be a celebrity, or anything except to be a slave for Christ. In rebuking the church for believing in a perverted gospel, he says in Galatians 1:10, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Paul was not overly interested in his own character. And as long as our eyes our focused on our own personal holiness, we will never even get close to the full reality of redemption.

A pastor can be a leader, a manager, a business owner, a landlord, a husband, a father, a mentor, and a counselor. He can be all these things and he must exemplify integrity, compassion, wisdom and expository intellect of Scripture. But first and foremost, having been set free from sin by the redemption that is in Christ, he must be a slave of righteousness (Romans 6:18) and set apart for the gospel of God (Romans 1:1). His proclamation of the gospel must be the main thrust; not personal holiness to please man or earn influence to be heard.

1 Chambers, Oswald. Utmost for His Highest. Michigan: Discovery House Publishers, 1995. Print