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.

Who Am I Trying To Please? (2010 Pastors and Deacons Conference)

The first question to be asked and answered is “Who am I trying to please?” This is a question of the heart. Another way of putting it is “Who am I trying to serve?”

This question revolves around the issue of EGO. I don’t mean it in a Freudian sense. I’m using it as an acronym, a description of the heart, of the self, to describe how we either Edge God Out or Exalt God Only. What makes the difference is the state of our heart, and who we are trying to please and serve. It is either God or ourselves. I realize that some would insert “others” as a possibility but, really, pleasing others is just a veiled way of pleasing ourselves. Seeking to please others is cleverly disguised self-interest and self-service. Paul made it clear that if I am a servant of man, I can’t be a servant of God (Galatians 1:10).

As you think about this, let me suggest a mental image to help you. Imagine your life as a theatrical production, a play. You are on the stage, doing your thing, living your daily life, on the job, at church, in the community, and at home. On the first two rows, there are all the people who are important to you. You see your family, friends, neighbors, and fellow church members. God is backstage somewhere as the invisible director of this drama known as your life. And the whole goal is at the end of the play for the crowd to stand to their feet and applaud wildly.

I used to live my life with this picture as the map for my daily behavior. There are days when I still revert back to it. However, there is a better way. And it looks like this.

You are still on the stage, living your life, in all of its various arenas. The people who are important to you—family, friends, fellow church members—are on stage with you, moving in and out depending on what is happening at that particular moment. And at the end of the play, when you look out into the audience, there is only One person, the triune God. He has become your Audience of One. And all that matters is that at the end of the day, He applauds what you have tried to accomplish that day.

This raises an interesting question for both the pastor and the deacon. Who do pastors typically try to please? God? The church? Other pastors? Denominational leaders? Themselves? What about deacons? God? The church? Fellow deacons? Their DOM? Themselves?

I can’t answer those questions for you but there will never be alignment between pastors and deacons apart from each one wrestling with the question. I can tell you how the greatest Leader in human history answered it. “The One who sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone, because I always do what pleases Him.” (John 8:29, HCSB) He also said, “I can do nothing on My own. I judge only as I hear, and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 5:30, HCSB)

This decision is played on an EGO level, in our own hearts. As I mentioned, in our hearts we either EDGE GOD OUT or we EXALT GOD ONLY. When the decision is made in favor of self-service, it expresses itself in one of either two ways, or sometimes both. Pride is the first expression and fear is the second. Both of these are incompatible with a servant heart, a heart that is seeking to please God.

Jesus is our role model for leadership and He focused His heart and mind on pleasing His Father, His Audience of One. So how did He lead? Matthew 20:25-28 tells us the following:

25 But Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and the men of high position exercise power over them. 26 It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life—a ransom for many.”

In contrast to the world, to culture, to society, Jesus commanded His followers to be different. Their leadership would be of a different quality. In short, they were to serve, not be served. This is a crucial statement: if you do not settle the question of who you will worship, what you will trust in, and whose opinion you ultimately value, then you will not be able to lead like Jesus did.

The decision of whom I will seek to please is a fateful one that sends me in two directions, each of which expresses itself in one of two ways. What happens if I choose self, if I choose to please and serve man, either others or myself? I’ve already mentioned this but let me say it again. Self manifests itself either as pride or fear. Pride is self-promotion while fear is self-protection but both are about self. And pride and fear always separate, from God, from ourselves, and from one another.

Pride can be seen in when we do all the talking, demanding all the attention, requiring that others do it our way. It can be seen when image is more important than substance. You can see it when we judge the value of an idea by who said it rather than the quality of the thought. And a person of pride always looks in the mirror for someone to praise when things go right but out the window for someone to blame when things go wrong.

Fear is more subtle. Pride is fairly obvious to see but I want to make sure that you understand that fear is just as self-centered as pride is. It’s still all about you. It’s more covert than overt but it is pride all the same.

Being more subtle, let’s make sure we note some of the characteristics of fear. It is evidenced in hiding behind our position, withholding information. Fear shows its head when we try and intimidate others or when we discourage or avoid honest feedback. (Pastor, whom do you seek out on a regular basis for feedback? Deacon, when was the last time you asked the church to evaluate your effectiveness?) And finally we see fear perhaps most clearly when we hoard resources and seek to control everything in the environment.

We do not please God when we operate out of pride or fear because we are operating out of self-pleasure. However, when we seek God’s pleasure and adopt the heart of a servant, we see two exactly opposite results. The first is humility. This is not a goal to strive for but an attitude to maintain; it is something lived but never claimed. The second is godly confidence, a frame of reference that rests assured in God’s nature, goodness, purpose, plan, process, and provision. Those who have can be transparent and take off their mask, and they proceed in faith one step at a time. In these two ways, we EXALT GOD ONLY

All of these things, along with the desired alignment with one another, take place in the heart . In the final analysis, we need to ask, “To whom does my heart belong? Who am I trying to please?” Frequently we only come to know that we have heart problems through a heart “attack.” Maybe God is trying to give you a spiritual heart attack so that you can realize there is a spiritual heart problem. God wants to change our hearts from self to Him and others.

I think He’s changing hearts right now. What will keep them changed? What heart “habits” can keep them healthy? How did Jesus maintain His heart for God? First, He practiced solitude and silence, the two things the world doesn’t want to let us have. How are we going to follow Him without them? Second, He prayed to the Father, an Abba prayer. Thirdly, He applied Scripture to daily encounters and situations. Finally, He lived His life in relationships with others.

This is how you will keep God as your Audience of One. If you’re not careful, others start taking their seats in the auditorium. And God won’t share that place. You will see Him excuse Himself because the Lord our God is One, and we must love Him that way.

So let’s examine our hearts right now. Specifically, let’s consider how pride and fear have done their nefarious work of separation. Bow your heads but mostly your hearts with me now. Ask yourself these questions.

What about separation from God? Have I ever been…
· Too ashamed about my failure to talk to God
· Too arrogant to think that I need to pray
· Too afraid of the answer to ask God the question
· Too full of my own agenda to wait for God

What about separation from other people? Have I ever been…
· Too pride-filled to say I need help or I am sorry
· Too fearful of criticism to take a stand
· Too fearful of rejection to say No when No is the right answer
· Too fearful of losing control to share information or power
· Too convinced of my own opinion to consider conflicting information
· Too focused on accomplishing my own agenda to see the needs and dreams of others
· Too starved for recognition to express joy for the success of others

What about separation from myself? Have I ever been…
· Too busy fixing problems and others to look at the mess inside
· Making too many excuses and too little repenting
· Too sensitive to the opinion of others to listen to my own heart
· Looking more for external causes than for internal problems
· Ignoring my basic needs for rest, relaxation, and reflection
· Too afraid of failure to take a chance

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