Budgets, Programs and the Gospel-oh my

If

A nice lady, at a table next to me, wanted to share my outlet for her lap top. As she was "plugging in", her cell phone rang. I soon realized that she was pouring out her heart to a fellow church attendee about the mismanagement of her Church and its incompetent Pastor. A conversation I was well accustomed too-unfortunately.

"The Pastor has no 'business plan' for the Church" the lady said. She then exclaimed "the people with the power, who run the church, will not tithe if their agenda is not met." This is, sad to say, a common attitude of the disgruntled and misguided Christian. The lady next to me was hurt because of this "political power" struggle in her beloved Church. At one time or another, all of us, who are involved in Church, have experienced this "ugly side" of the Christian community.

These "power struggles" are not new and illustrate the corruptive power of "the love of money" as Paul say's in I Timothy 6:10: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."(NIV)

Using tithes as a "protest" is sin, plain and simple, so the lady next me was right to be upset. But this attitude is also reflective of a "consumer" mindset that has permeated the Church-the Body of Christ. (I wrote about this also in my post: "CEO" Pastor: http://thepirateway-bob.blogspot.com/2009/05/ceo-pastor.html)

In the Organizational Church (OC) the paid Pastoral staff put together a "religious service" and delivers it weekly. Most believers are blessed by the ministry, but in this "religious event" there is an expectation, that lingers just below the conscious level, that the "service" meet the needs of the parishioner, since the people putting it on are paid professionals.

It is from this un-biblical expectation we experience "attitudes" like this lady was discussing with her friend. How many times have you heard people say "the worship was too loud" or "the sermon was long"-as if the worship or the sermons are products? This "consumer" mindset put's the focus on programs and the paid professionals. It takes the focus off the simplicity of the Gospel where the ethic of love rules.

The Organizational Church must fight this "consumer" mindset. The Church-in all its forms-is first and foremost the body of Christ and we are witnesses to His Gospel. I no longer attend the organizational church. I lead a simple church-a house church. I'm not foolish to believe the HC is superior to the OC. Those of us in House Churches must fight a prideful attitude that this is the "true way" to do church. But all of us-OC or HC-who are under the headship of Christ must be diligent to live a kingdom life of love and not a consumer life of mammon.


 

 

 

The CEO Pastor: Problems From the Top Down

I got the May Edition of Christianity Today or CT as I like to tell my wife, who really doesn't care. I'm excited because this is my 4 week trial. If I'm not satisfied, I just write cancel on my subscription and return it. No questions asked. And I get to keep the May issue FREE-I like that.

I recently had some "guy time" with a couple of close friends. We went on about two perpetual problems that churches and pastors deal with ad infinitum-Money and Health. It seems as the need for money goes up the health of pastors go down. So I'm reading the magazine and sure enough these problems pop up.

Check out these the articles: (Church Pink Slips
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/2.15.html and Caring for the Caregivers
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/3.16.html)

I wasn't surprised to read that clergy are more likely than laity to report excessive job demands, criticism, feelings of loneliness and isolation. I've been there. I've experienced the trouble from the pulpit as a youth pastor and from the pew as a board member. Money problems lead to stress and heartburn for me. Talk about money at any board meeting and watch the temp rise. But money is the filter by which ministry flows-budgets; building programs; pastoral staff; attendance and giving; debt and growth-it all revolves around money.

I was reading these articles and recognized a common way-of-thinking about the Pastor and the Church-an attitude that is built in to the Traditional Church model which goes something like this: The Pastor is CEO and that the Church is a Corporation. (Read the CT articles, they even use these terms). I could never get my head around this idea but it is real. This organizational-top down model works well for the corporation but not the church. The CEO is driven by the values: Performance-Production and-Profit and unfortunately so is today's Pastor-here's how:

Performance: Pastors are evaluated for their ministry performance and their salary is negotiated by a church board.

Production: Pastors are expected to produce effective programs, recruit volunteers, increase attendance, generate contemporary worship services and preach relevant sermons.

Profit: Churches are nonprofit organizations for sure but they need a stream of revenue to hire staff and maintain an annual budget. This means keeping a certain number of people to sustain church operations.

Frank Viola writes in his book Reimagining the Church "the clergy profession is little more than a one-size-fits-all blending of administration, psychology and oratory that's packaged into one position for religious consumption."(pg 161)

As an aside: Frank Viola http://frankviola.wordpress.com/ and Neil Cole http://cole-slaw.blogspot.com/ have written extensively on the subject of the Organic church and Traditional church models.

My friend Sherry was worried that I was judging the church-I assured her we are the church not the structure. God blesses pastors and those who worship in all kinds of structures and the Traditional Church will always be around. It's not going anywhere and there are wonderful churches out there. My point is, the CEO mentality creates impossible hurdles for pastors to jump. The traditional model may still remain but the attitudes and beliefs can change.

A return to a kingdom way-of-thinking is needed. We could reset our thoughts on what the body of Christ is-a gathered people under the headship of Jesus-not a flow chart. I'm all for praying and caring for pastors who are stressed. But let's add to our conversation how the mentality of the CEO Pastor actually nurtures the problems of Money and Health.