No business would be run this flippin’ way

How many times have I heard those outside the church look at us and say “No business would be run this flippin’ way”? (Actually never. They always use much stronger language) And yet when the very same people become Christians they join this terrible organisation and get fed the church response of “Ah but we aren't a business we are the church” as though that excused us all of our shortcomings and our stubborn refusal to obey John 17 and Ephesians 4. 

Please hear me rightly, I am not suggesting that we should become a business, but that, where appropriate, we should be business like in the way we work. For those who dislike this analogy I will give you a nice biblical phrase: 

'We have to be good stewards of the gifts God has given us'. 

It could be very simple things like the action we took as a church three years ago when we closed down our offices and rented space in an office block run by a black pentecostal church. This meant that we shared phone, photocopying, heating, lighting, tea and coffee, and computer broadband costs etc. But it also meant that we grew to know, understand and love each other much much more and began to do more together too. 

I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to do a survey of the duplication of effort of the churches in any city. I doubt it, but just imagine what might be flagged up when we reflect on youth work, children’s work, homelessness, the elderly and in-firmed, church staff, the list goes on and on. A year ago I was approached by three different church leaders in the same week asking if I knew anyone who could be their treasurer. None of the churches had huge accounts or massive outgoings or income and their books could have been done with a hour or so of work a week. I suggested to one book keeper I know thats she could start a business keeping the books for a dozen or so small churches. Then there is the legal knowledge required to run a church today, employment law, planning permission, health and safety, food hygiene, charity law, performance and copyright laws, child safety, vulnerable adult policy, tax and national insurance and on and on. Small businesses struggle with this stuff, the church can often try to ignore it because we don’t have the time or expertise. A city wide church can not only do these things, but help other faith groups and charities with their knowledge.

Flippin Staff.

Then there is the huge question of church staff. Many very small fellowships today have no full time leadership. 

Often the more traditional denominations have one minister between several churches. An old friend of mine who is an Anglican vicar told me that he had 7 rural parishes to look after and had one curate to help! Other slightly larger churches have a minister who has to live on the breadline because they can’t afford to pay him or her. Perhaps they have never read:

The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 1 Tim 5:17

These ministers usually have to put out the chairs, preach the sermon, arrange the sunday school, visit the sick, and unblock the kitchen sink, and that’s just their day off. 

I met with a pastor of a church which could no longer pay his salary and asked him what he wanted to do next if he had to leave that church. He told me that he wasn’t a pastor he was really an evangelist, but he would have to apply for a post as a pastor if he wanted a paid job in the church. The commercial equivalent would be a local building firm needing a brick layer but hiring a gardener because he was good with a trowel.

IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN! 

I have met thousands of church leaders from just about every kind of denomination and theological persuasion, I can honestly say that very few were people who would get jobs in senior leadership in industry or commerce. Of course the standard reply is that ‘these are holy men and women set apart for an other worldly job’, which presumably means that they are so heavenly minded that are no earthly use. The church today almost despises leadership. So many churches are ‘democratic’ in their structure, but the bible is very clear:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. Rom 12:6-8

God expects leaders to lead with zeal. Not with one eye on the next elections. No army going to war would hold elections to see who the leader should be. That leader would have to be selected, trained and given responsibility in keeping with their ability. And, as Paul says, we are in a spiritual battle:

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 2 Cor 10:4

Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Eph 6:11f

However, I don’t doubt that many men and women in full time church based ministry are called to serve with their amazing, God given, gifts and passion. They are just serving in totally the wrong roles. I suggested to the friend I mentioned above whose church couldn't pay him, that taking a post as a pastor when he was an evangelist might well be a reason that his church had declined to the stage that it couldn't pay him anymore! Another friend of mine who works in Canada is a wonderfully gifted prophet, but felt that he should plant a church. Over the last decade or so he has planted a church which grew very quickly to hundreds of adult because prophets attract people who want the 'now' word from God. However, as fast as his church grew it fell apart because prophets are awful digital church leaders. After the church failed, he got very despondent, but after a time he tried again with the same rapid growth and decline and subsequent depression.

Can we not see that if the average minister has burned out in under 7 years we might have got something fundamentally wrong!

A city wide church (whether its where we are today with different things called churches working together in a kind of unity, or where Jesus calls us to be one day, as one church with congregations and small groups across the city) can release men and women into their God given ministries. They might be elders, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, miracle workers, administrators, leaders, exhorters, mercy ministries, children's workers, youth workers, cheerful givers, musicians, entrepreneurs, cleaners, preachers, or servers in all kinds of fields. In Croydon today I estimate that in the 240 churches there are about 200 paid workers. My guess would be that 150 are employed as a pastor/minister/priest with various titles from 'Bishop' to 'Oi you'! The rest are mainly children’s or youth workers with a hand full or so of administrators. What could the church be like if we released even these people in their true gifting?

When men and women are functioning in the gifts God has given them in a church which Jesus is building, with true leadership and complementary ministries around them, 

they don’t burn out the burn bright!

Today we have small churches struggling and mega churches not really worried about it, in the spirit of “I’m all right Jack, pull the ladder up” as my Grandmother used to say of smug people. Neither model is the biblical church that Jesus is building. Size does matter. It enables the church to be in the city, for the city, but not of the city. The church can let its light so shine before men that they see our good works. We can be the ekklesia that changes culture and the salt that cleanses society. We will be the army of God that takes spiritual authority in our cities and becomes the thin place where the Kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven.