The Church: Protect It or Advance It?

Are we to be caretakers or pioneers?

In my work with churches, I have interacted with both pastors and deacons. In some situations, there was misalignment between the two. In digging beneath the surface conflict, I came to see that each had a different view of the church. Many pastors look at the church as something to be expanded while many deacons look at the church as something to be protected.

Should the church be expanded or protected? Should both be done? How do we do that?

I think you can see this contrast most clearly in a common statement, a statement that most pastors have heard at one time or another.

Highways and Hedges Baptist Church has called a new pastor, Johnny Newcomer. Fresh out of seminary, where he pastored a church while getting his degree, he comes to Highways and Hedges with great enthusiasm and ideas for church growth. The church grows under his leadership and Pastor Johnny grows in popularity. However not everyone is thrilled, especially after he announced his plan to reach out to the community by offering TeamKid on Wednesday nights and using the church van to pick up children whose parents were not part of the church. The issue comes up in deacons meeting and the discussion becomes heated. Motives get called into question. Lines start to become drawn.

Toward the end of the meeting, the chairman of the deacons, Brother Long, makes this statement: “Preacher, we were here before you came and we’ll still be here after you leave.”

· What key values are being expressed in this statement by Brother Long?
· What might a preacher’s response be to this statement? What key values might he have expressed?

When a pastor and a deacon are committed to different tasks, they inevitably adopt different values, as listed below:

Protecting
God’s people inside the church
Care
Tradition

Advancing
The lost outside the church
Growth
Innovation

Are any of the above listed values bad, sinful, evil, or otherwise unworthy of the Gospel? Of course not, they all have their place in any church that is committed to the Great Commission task of making disciples. Are any of these values always good or always bad? I think the reality is that each of the values can be taken to an unhealthy extreme and thus become bad for the church as well as the kingdom.

Discussion Questions

PROTECTING THE CHURCH

(1) What do these verses say about the need of the church for protection? Acts 20:28-31; 1 Timothy 6:20; 2 Timothy 2:14; 1 John 5:21

(2) From what were the Seven in Acts 6:1-7, commonly referred as the first deacons, protecting the early church?

(3) From what should the church be protected?

(4) “To protect and to serve” was the motto of the Los Angeles Police Department during the old Dragnet series. How do those two verbs relate to each other?

EXPANDING THE CHURCH

(1) What do these verses say about the need of the church for expansion? Matthew 16:17-18; Acts 6:7; Acts 9:31; Ephesians 4:11-16

(2) “The best defense is a good offense” is an old adage from the world of sports. How does it apply to the life of the church?

PROTECTING AND EXPANDING WORKING SIDE BY SIDE

(1) What are the dangers associated with both the advance and protect emphasis?

(2) How can we affirm both the protection motif as well as the expansion motif? How we could have “safe growth” and “fruitful protection”?

(3) How could Pastor Newcomer affirm Deacon Chairman Long’s desire to protect the church without compromising his own commitment to the growth of the church? What about the other way around?

The Leaders in the Church

Tom McGehee with Wildworks identifies three types of leadership styles. Since everyone is a leader, think about in which category you might fall. First, there are anxious leaders, with an internal focus. This leader is driving by urgency and seldom wonders why things are the way they are. The approval of others drives their decisions. Second, there are ambitious leaders, who have an external, goal-driven focus. They are always looking for the next “great” idea that is going to transform everything, for the “answer” to all the problems. They make decisions based on results or at least wishful results. Third, there are aligned leaders who instead of looking within or looking around look up and focus on God. This leader makes decisions by surrender and seeking God’s will.

Anxious leaders only want to protect the church. Ambitious leaders only want to expand the church. Aligned leaders put themselves in God’s hands and do both.