I've had a lot of ideas in mind about what I should blog about next. I try not to blog too much. For some reason I feel pathetic when I do. Anywho, this blog post probably will step on some people's toes. It will probably offend others. It'll confuse some people. But the following comes from some conversations I've had with people recently that all kind of link together.
I've been a part of a variety of churches. I've talked about churches different people that I know attend. I went to a Christian college so I got to hear all about how the church should be. I had a conversation recently about churches that are anomalies. Typically churches face this "demon" where every ministry becomes focused on the people who attend the church and they neglect the community. They serve themselves and forget to love their neighbors. I've been a part of churches like this.
These anomaly churches are ones where they focus so much on serving their community/neighbors they neglect the health of their own people. There are no bonds that hold the church together. There is a serious disconnect and hurting people within their congregation are left neglected. I've been a part of churches like this.
Obviously neither of these are healthy. And obviously I'm not the only one noticing these issues. What can someone in my position (my position being I'm not part of the "in" group with the leadership) do about it?? Do we just leave these churches to find a new one?? If we don't step up and say something, who will?? Will anyone else ever notice these things?? Are we being blinded but things we WANT to see, that we are ignorant to the reality of our churches?? I mean, obviously no church is perfect. Let's get that out on the table. Sure there are churches with tens of thousands of people, but they have issues too.. How do we balance health within the congregation with ministering to the community. Obviously some churches have figured it out within their communities. But what do you do when you have blended communities? What do you do when you have seriously broken communities??
Or you can ask the question my friend did: Which is the lesser of two evils?? Would you rather have a church that's too inwardly focused, or one that is too outwardly focused??
Or could we "blame" it all on the personalities of leadership team?? Someone I was talking to actually brought up the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator which is a personality test dealing also with our decision making process, that all Grace College students have to take in our freshman year. It's funny to me because once we all know what we are, and what all of the types are, we classify and "judge" others because of what they are. I'm an ISFJ which stands for Introvert, Sensor, Feeler, Judger. No it does not mean I'm a critical sensitive shy girl. It means so much more about how I process information. Ok so all that, now going back to church leadership, what if everyone in leadership had at least 2 of the same letters?? That might not make sense but what if everyone started out with IN (introvert, intuitive). They "look at consistency of ideas and thoughts with an internal framework; Trust flashes from the unconscious, which may be hard for others to understand." I think there's something to be said about having a diverse staff. No I'm not saying that everyone needs to know their score before you hire them in order to ensure diversity. I think diversity of ideas and values should be valued. I think they should have similar passions (getting a diverse group with different strengths to execute different facets of the same vision/passion).
Ok so I don't have all the answers. Some of you in church leadership might think I'm off my rocker or have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. All I know is that there are people all over being hurt by churches. I know friends who have gone to churches their entire life, only to leave them because of the way the congregation has turned for the worse. Because they were either too inward focused or too outward focused. All we're doing is giving each other bad names and, worst of all, giving Christ a bad name.
Lord, forgive us.
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