Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: bad ideas

  • Worship Is All About God

    Worship Is All About God

    Bad Ideas I Learned from Good Leaders #3

    “But that’s true!” some of you are thinking. And you’re right. The statement is true. Its usage can be a bad idea.

    I’ve rarely heard this statement from someone who was actually trying to make worship about God. To those of you who use it in that way, my sincere apologies. More frequently, I hear it as a church leader’s response to complaints about the worship service.

    Now let me make an excursus on complaints. If you are a church leader, you are inundated with complaints. You get tired of hearing complaints. You want people to come help or just shut up. This is not unnatural.

    But on the other hand, the people in the congregation have grown used to mediocre leadership by people who are overworked and tired, or who have simply turned their church activity into a dead routine, doing the same thing over and over.

    So people basically give up. The habitual church goers will keep on going, because that’s what they do. The church leadership will go on doing what they do because they have always done so. Both will piously utter the line: “Worship is all about God.” They do this to tell those on the other side that they ought to do it their way.

    I discussed this issue of church work in my first post in this series, Ask Them to Implement Their Own Suggestion. Some of what I suggested there applies here.

    Let me suggest another view. For us, worship is all about God. For God, worship is all about us.

    I came to this conclusion while doing an extended study of Leviticus. People tend to skip over Leviticus. If they’re reading the Bible in a year, they try to get through it as fast as possible and probably remember very little. But when I studied the book with the three volume Anchor Bible commentary (unfortunately out of print) written by the incredibly good scholar Jacob Milgrom, I started to learn differently. Dr. Milgrom made the comment, and I paraphrase from memory, that the tabernacle rituals taught in Leviticus were a training ground.

    It was not that God is going to be injured if we fail to follow a particular ritual. God can handle many different things in worship. Both Judaism, in creating the synagogue service(s), and Christianity in creating our own worship practices now worship God in ways that are very different from those prescribed there. But God wants to accomplish something in us through our worship, and it’s defined in Leviticus, “Be holy for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44,11:45,19:2,20:7,20:26,21:9).

    And for those Christians who might complain about my basing all this on Leviticus, it’s quoted in 1 Peter 1:14-16: “Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

    One of the things I learned from this study was that it is, in fact, very much about God, and not our desires. That applies to the church leadership, who want to keep everything under control so they don’t have any unpleasant surprises. This applies to the members, who often prefer to have things that entertain them and make them feel good, rather than things that challenge them.

    The question to ask yourself is this: Is the worship service I conduct (if you’re a leader), or attend (if you’re a member) preparing me to be holy before God? If you’re place in this week after week isn’t changing, probably not. If you are simply warming the pew, probably not. But equally, if you are simply a performer entertaining the pew sitters, probably not. I don’t think God is going to accept the excuse that the people wanted to be entertained.

    If you’re going to claim that worship is all about God, then take action as thought that’s the case. If it’s all about God, as God demonstrated in the words of Leviticus, the purpose is to make that holy people. That means worship has to point people to God, help people connect with God, be aware of God’s presence, understand God’s gifts and God’s grace, and let God get to work.

    If the main purpose is getting the same back sides into the same pews next week, then worship is not about God.

    Perhaps we ought to change that.

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • If You’re Nice, Diversity Will Take Care of Itself

    If You’re Nice, Diversity Will Take Care of Itself

    Bad Ideas I Learned from Good Leaders #2

    I’ve heard this one from so many people that I would hardly know who to blame for it if I wanted to blame someone. I’ve been told that if you will just be nice and positive, you can ignore the differences in your congregation and everything will take care of itself.

    This is incorrect. If you ignore the diversity that is present in your congregation, you will likely encounter a number of problems.

    1. You will find that people will have differing definitions of the boundaries and thus create conflict in the church unnecessarily.
    2. Different people offer different gifts, and if you fail to discover these gifts, there will be missed opportunities.
    3. Problems in the surrounding society may cause division in the church unnecessarily.

    If you don’t believe me on any of this, read 1 Corinthians. Here we have a church with division, and Paul tells them that God has brought them together from differing backgrounds, with different talents, and made them into one body with different gifts. Read especially 1 Corinthians 12. As a follow-up, read Romans 14, or even better Romans 12-14. (I’m not a good proof-text person. Read a few chapters!)

    Note here that I’m not talking about some sort of quota system or diversity inclusion. I believe in inclusiveness, but in this case, I’m assuming what I’ve seen in most churches, and that’s a variety of people already present. The problem is that they are carrying out a one-day-a-week religious program because the church has failed to incorporate them into a single body, the Body of Christ, to have an impact on their world.

    To accomplish this, it is necessary to actively acknowledge the differences among the members of the congregation. These differences should be recognized not for the purpose of a select group of individuals asserting superiority over others, but rather to appreciate the diverse gifts that have been gathered, value those gifts, and collaborate effectively by utilizing all available resources.

    Diversity in any organization is valuable. It allows us to accomplish things that none of us could achieve on our own. The problem is that many of us are so focused on our own strengths and weaknesses that we fail to recognize how others operate and what they can achieve.

    This could be as simple as finding the nerdy young person who doesn’t seem to fit in socially, but who, unknown to you, has a talent with electrical systems and would be able to run your sound system better than anyone else. That young person, being socially uncomfortable, is vanishingly unlikely to volunteer. They probably assume they’ll be pushed aside or ignored for no better reason than that they have been pushed aside and ignored over and over.

    This “different” person doesn’t need you to change their personality. They need you to let them be who they are and do what they are gifted to do. To do this, you need to have a clear understanding of what is a moral difference that is a standard for the church and what is a difference of personality. Too often, we treat Christian discipleship as a personality change.

    Don’t figure that you have to make the Jock do lots of hours of detailed Bible study. God may well have called them to a straightforward understanding of their faith and to be a good, kind, fun loving, and active person. And don’t expect the Nerd to be ready to engage in all those physical and social activities that you think are so essential to life.

    Oh, and don’t expect everyone who gets involved to be ready to serve on a committee. They might be quite willing to take direction but not to spend seemingly endless time discussing.

    In addition, there is value in being clear about the core beliefs of your church (or any other organization for that matter). This is not so you can go hunting for heresy. I recommend a short list of essentials, the common beliefs that unite this specific group. The purpose of clarity is to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.

    Let me recommend a couple of books to help learn about and deal with diversity, whether in the church or in the community. I commend both of these books for making diversity a value rather than a burden to be borne or a duty to be carried out diligently.

    The first I already mentioned in the first post in this series, Perfectly Square by Dolly Berthelot. This book is short, illustrated, easy-to-read, and fun. It’s not particularly directed at churches. That’s a good thing. Your church is not perfectly square either. Church people are people. There are thought questions and discussion topics listed in the book. It’s good for group reading and discussion.

    It is also not a prescription for programs, but rather it is aimed at changing attitudes and opening up new ways of thinking about the differences we find all over.

    The aim is to recognize these differences and profit from them as a community rather than making them a cause of discord and division.

    The second is a book explicitly for church groups. I Know We’re All Welcome at the Table, but Do I Have to Sit Next to You? Now there’s a long title! But this book provides ideas and courses of action that a community group can use to begin to deal with those people we don’t want to deal with. The focus is on people and groups we may already have identified, probably stereotyped in our minds, and determined that we dislike or worse. How can you get back together.

    My suggestion here is that to really lead we need to learn how to work together, and use all of the diverse gifts and resources we have in our congregations in order to impact our communities.

  • Ask Them to Implement Their Own Suggestion

    Ask Them to Implement Their Own Suggestion

    Bad Ideas I Learned from Good Leaders #1

    I’m never going to identify which leader I learned these things from, because I have deep respect for all of them. Many of them helped me ditch bad ideas of my own, though doubtless I still have a bunch!

    The bad thing I learned is this: When someone makes a suggestion for some project in the church, you immediately ask them to lead out in executing that idea.

    There is a very good point involved here. Actually two very good points. First, a person who goes to the trouble of suggesting someone is likely fairly passionate about it, and are likely to be diligent in getting it into action. Second, there are numerous people who will tell pastors and other church leaders all the various things they think “the church” should be doing. They have no intention of serving. They just want to complain. “Why don’t you take the lead on that?” will often either slow down the complaints, or in some cases even get someone moving.

    That’s the good side.

    The bad side is this. Your church is probably already an example of the 80/20 principle: 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. (Well, you might be more like 90/10, but why be negative?) Most of the good ideas, the ones you should want implemented, are coming from that busy 20%. After all, the 80% don’t really want to go to the trouble of meeting with the pastor to present an idea.

    The 80/20 principle is self-sustaining. The 20% are the workers in the church because they’re the ones with initiative and creativity. Some people aren’t like that. Some people are willing to serve, but they don’t have the imagination, the initiative, or perhaps the knowledge of the church to locate a task and involve themselves with it.

    Since the 20% generally have those characteristics in various (but substantial) measure, they tend to imagine that the 80% aren’t serving because they’re lazy, apathetic, or don’t really care about their church. Some of them may have these problems. But more of them likely are waiting to be identified.

    In my book Identifying Your Gifts and Service (Small Group Edition), I suggest that church members and leaders need to observe one another to learn about gifts and help others find a place to serve that utilizes their individual gifts and also fulfills their needs. Yes, they are serving others, but that service is also of benefit to them, provided they are allowed to use their gifts in positive ways, rather than just being put to work.

    Here’s a summary of the points I make about this in that book:

    1. Listening: Group members identify each person’s gifts based on observations and what they believe the Holy Spirit has revealed. ​ This involves a group discussion where each person shares what they see as the gifts of others. ​
    2. Expressing: Each individual expresses their understanding of their own gifts. ​ This step involves self-reflection and sharing with the group. ​
    3. Examining: A survey is provided to help individuals think about their gifts and areas of service. ​ The survey is designed to stimulate thinking and challenge assumptions about one’s gifts. ​
    4. Fitting: Group members discuss and clarify God’s call on their lives and how their gifts fit into the church’s needs. ​ This step involves prayerful discussion and focus on how to use identified gifts effectively. ​
    5. Unifying: The group examines how individual gifts align with the church’s mission. ​ This step involves the participation of church leadership to help integrate members into appropriate areas of service. ​

    The book emphasizes the importance of listening to the Holy Spirit and to one another, and it provides practical exercises and discussions to help identify and utilize spiritual gifts within the church community.

    A Look Ahead

    One of the key elements in this process is recognizing church members as diverse individuals. They don’t all have the same gifts, goals, personalities, education, or general approaches to life. Learning to recognize these is important. Next week I plan to write about this as a bad idea I learned from otherwise good leaders: Don’t get stuck on expecting one personality type in members of a congregation.

    I will reference there the book PERFECTLY SQUARE. You can get a head start with this lovely little book that’s a quick read.