"Patience is a fruit of the Spirit much needed by theologians."
- N.T. Wright
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The true diagnosis of weak worship is not that our people are coming to get and not to give. Not a few pastors scold their people that the worship services would be lively if people came to give instead of to get. There is a better diagnosis.
People ought to come to corporate worship services to get. They ought to come starved for God. They ought to come saying, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God" (Psalm 42:1). God is profoundly honored when people know that they will die of hunger and thirst unless they have God. And it is my job as a preacher to spread a banquet for them. I must show them from Scripture what they are really starving for -- God -- and then feed them well until they say, "Ahhh." That is worship.
-- John Piper, The Dangerous Duty of Delight
Bob's recent post, I Thirst, really resonates with me. An excerpt:
I realized after last Sunday that I am hungering and thirsting to hear the Gospel message (rather than fervent pep-talks about being a person of character, or something).
It is, after all, by means of Gospel preaching that the Kingdom of God is advanced. It is my means of Gospel preaching that men and women are effectively "revived," and it is in Gospel preaching that the Christian church fulfills its essential calling. And by "Gospel preaching" I do not simply mean the repetition of the Easter story, but I do mean the careful and disciplined application of the Calvary truths to our lives today. Or, in other words, the provision of New Testament answers to this simple question: What is the significance to me here and now that Jesus was nailed to a cross 2000 years ago? Preacher, that is not a subject you are going to exhaust in a 4-week sermon series. That is, as a matter of fact, a river of living water!
Can you hear the frustration in my blogging tone? Desperation, even?
Yes. Not only can I hear it, I feel it.
I've come full circle on the "I'm not being fed" thing.
Some thoughts . . .
1) There are some lazy, consumerist, adultolescent Christians whose "I'm not being fed" is nothing more than a whiny excuse for growing bored with their church's programs and not serving.
2) There are some mature, self-sacrificing, wise Christians whose "I'm not being fed" is a sign a church has gone off the rails.
3) We need more pastors/preachers who can tell the difference.
4) The renewal of the idea that "Christians should self-feed" is trailing the appraisal of Willow's REVEAL survey. Plenty of pastorpreneur bloggers are repeating the line, which seems to me to clearly miss exactly what the survey results appear to be saying -- people aren't growing.
5) Taking a survey that aims to gauge customer satisfaction with the church, with the alleged intention to fix it, finding results that say customers aren't satisfied with the menu, and then saying those people should eat at home seems . . . weird.
6) When so many churches are failing at cultivating authentic Christian community these days, and when individualistic, consumerist Christianity is threatening the endurance of evangelicalism, it seems a really dumb idea for churches to be urging more individualism.
7) The truth is we are responsible for each other, we do have the obligation to bear each other's burdens. This means, at the very least, that the Church, which is made up of Christians, has an obligation to feed and care for Christians. The impression is that many churches prefer to leave Christians on their own.
8) This appears to be a great irony to me: Seeker-centered churches will say that because their worship services are for seekers or newer Christians, the sermons cannot engage in as much biblical depth as would be appropriate for more mature Christians, yet what is preached in such services is typically not the milk of the gospel but a meat-and-potatoes sort of "application of the Bible." Stuff to do. Why would we expect nonChristians and new Christians to have the framework from which to really apply the Bible?
What I mean is, what benefit is a series on "How to Win at Work" if the people expected to carry out the principles therein don't really understand the point of the Christian life is Jesus? It seems to be a feeding of meat to people who aren't ready for it anyway.
9) Jesus is enough to feed everybody. Preach with Jesus as the center, and everyone will get fed.
10) The idea that churches don't exist to feed Christians is just a lie. And the preachers/pastors who ridicule the notion are being ignorant. Jesus flat-out told Peter that if he loved Him, he would feed his sheep.
11) Self-feeding is overrated. It is the whiny excuse of lazy, consumerist, adultolescent churches.
We must preach the gospel to each other, all the time. Without fail. We need to hear it, we need to ponder it, reflect on it, be moved by it to worship Christ. Pastors and preachers, why are you failing to give it to us, to all of us? It is the one thing we need. Call it milk, call it meat, call it whatever you want, but it is the cure for cancer you are telling us to research on our own when you've got it in your back pocket. It's in that Bible you use like it's Bartlett's.
Immature Christians, new Christians, old Christians, mature Christians, nonChristians, unChristians, preChristians, postChristians -- whatever! The one thing that feeds us all is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Please don't withhold it from us. And if you will give it to us each week, and shepherd us in ways that equip us to give it to others ("with words when necessary"), nobody can ever say "I'm not being fed" with any integrity ever again. You will finally get to scoff at someone's claim to not being fed. Deal?
(Cross-posted at The Gospel-Driven Church, recently listed in Transforming Sermons' The A-List of Christ-centered Living Blogs. Thanks, Milton!)
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Comments on "For I Was Hungry and You Told Me to Self-Feed":
2. Milly
- 01/17/2008 2:00 pm CST
I'm with Shrode on this on about reading it again.
I wonder if we can ever really find balance in a church.
Taking care of each other seems like a good way to start. Shouldn’t we help each other at the table?
And I think we should show up ready to be fed not ready to criticize the minister and worship team. I often find myself having to remember why I’m really doing what I do for the worship team. I want to be fed and help to feed others.
4. Damon
- 01/17/2008 2:38 pm CST
Because of situations dealing with our former church (oops) and the impact on myself and my family, I haven't participated on here much lately, nor have I personally blogged much. That said, this post made me choke out a hearty "A-FREAKING-MEN" in my cuboffice. Too many churches are seeing the bright lights of increased membership rolls and the benefits that those bring (like new buildings and staff) but they just don't see that they are choking the life out of their congregation. You can't equip your flock to survive in this cultural climate by presenting a 10 weeks series on "Your iLife: Do You Have One?"
Thank you Jared...
5. Jared
- 01/17/2008 2:48 pm CST
CT:
Jesus feeds us all.
We feed each other.
Short answer: Jesus does, we do.
6. Bill
- 01/17/2008 3:16 pm CST
Excellent, excellent post, Jared!
I vote this one for the Top Ten. You can remove the "Blessed are the aggressive . . ." post, and replace it with this one.
Go to SnapOns, Favorite Posts, Administer - just put the post id in there in the third slot.
7. writer2b
- 01/17/2008 3:17 pm CST
Hi Thinklings,
I've visited your blog a few times now and just wanted to say thanks. You have a ministry here to some of us who are disillusioned, but trying not to give up on the gospel-driven church.
Great post.
8. Jared
- 01/17/2008 3:32 pm CST
Bill: Haha. Well, I'll think about it. I don't want to dominate the favorites list.
---
writer2b: Thank you for reading and commenting. And keep hope alive!
---
For some reason I feel the need to clarify this also:
My convictions on this subject go beyond the superficial "is the weekend service for us or them?" question. When a worship service withholds theocentric worship and Christ-centered gospel teaching, it starves everyone. The "how to succeed at life and be a better person" preaching trend isn't one that feeds seekers but not mature Christians -- it doesn't really feed anyone.
9. Chestertonian Rambler
- 01/17/2008 3:49 pm CST
You're site is one I really like to argue with, to push against, and to see what (more often than not convincing) responses I get.
But in this case, all I can say is AMEN!
The older I get, the more I realize that the simple truths of Christ/forgiveness/Kingdom of Heaven/forgiveness/Christ is, in fact, the stuff that's supposed to be preached.
10. Bill
- 01/17/2008 7:06 pm CST
Haha. Well, I'll think about it. I don't want to dominate the favorites list.
Too bad. I just made an executive decision . . .
12. Crossbow
- 01/17/2008 10:04 pm CST
Even if a church does have a strong Gospel-centric message every morning, they can still fall in to the trap of thinking that Christian are not only supposed to be self-feeders, but self-teachers and self-healers, too. I knew a pastor that fell in to this mindset once, and I tried to explain it like this: a guy with a broken leg hobbles in to a hospital. The doctor takes a look at him, and proclaims "yep, that leg is broken. Here is a book to teach you how to set it, and all of the supplies to do it are in that drawer across the room. If you have any questions, I'll be on the next floor in a budget meeting with the other doctors - come on up and get me. See ya!"
The guy I was explaining it to just replied that it was so sad that the church was like that, and then grew offended when I told him the story was about him. He did eventually say that he might need to change that, but nothing changed.
13. isaiah543
- 01/17/2008 10:31 pm CST
Excellent post. Let's talk about it over a game of ThinklingsChess.
14. Dan
- 01/18/2008 12:43 pm CST
4) The renewal of the idea that "Christians should self-feed" is trailing the appraisal of Willow's REVEAL survey. Plenty of pastorpreneur bloggers are repeating the line, which seems to me to clearly miss exactly what the survey results appear to be saying -- people aren't growing.
FINALLY!! SOMEONE GETS IT!!
15. Bill
- 01/18/2008 12:58 pm CST
I remember talking with a friend of mine from church years ago (when our church was in the "self-feeder" mindset). He gave me a visual demonstration of how he felt as someone wanting to grow. (We were at dinner, by the way):
My Friend: "I went to talk to the pastors about the lack of discipleship programs at church"
Me: "How did it go?"
My Friend: [tosses a fork across the table] "Here, feed yourself"
The good news is that our church is really concentrating on discipleship now - there's a much higher focus on the bible study program and getting new classes established. They had looked at the percentage of our Sunday morning attendees that were actively in a small group discipleship situation, and it was depressingly low, so they've made it a priority. I'm really glad about that.
16. Egana
- 01/18/2008 4:02 pm CST
The Gospel is what feeds us all.
When we are hungry and thirsty, we need each other to feed us with it. We feed each other with it. It is the only source of hope and joy in this world.
Thanks you for the post. I am a visitor from Isaiah543's blog.
Egana
18. kati
- 05/02/2008 1:24 pm CDT
Hello!
I happened to stumble onto your blog today:)
I am encouraged to see that you think and care so deeply that the church be what it is intended to be; a place for believers to grow TOGETHER and encourage each other to deeper faith.
I want to humbly challenge your belief that the response of the church or the survey at large is to tell people "go feed yourselves." Though there is a tone of enabling people to learn how to grow deeper on their own, at least where I work, the staff really wants to HELP people do that. The point is not to tell them, "go do this alone," the point is to enable believers to grow.
I think perhaps what you're seeing is the growing understanding that going to church on Sunday alone is not going to really be enough for people who really want to grow closer to Christ. The church's responsibility is to give people tools so that when they are not being hand held through a message, they can still be growing on their own throughout the week.
I only say all of this because I know the heart of the staff I work with- and we are deeply committed to helping our brothers and sisters know Christ better. I just wanted to encourage you that perhaps the response isn't as extreme to the "go take care of yourselves" view as you might think it is.
Thank you for your thoughts!
In Him,
Kati
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Wow what a post. I'm going to have to read it two more times to digest it.
I said "digest". Heh, heh.