I Had A Relapse

We had our very first attempt at an "official" meeting and it already suffered from mission-drift. My notion of this church we're planting in Northwest Indiana has been coming together lately.  I've been studying and meditating on what a pastor's role truly is and should be in light of all the assumptions of that office I've abandoned.  The first thing that came to heart was that the pastor is to be an equipper (obvious) but what does that mean and how should it be done? Then there are all the questions of church in general.  Last month, I began to sense some breakthroughs and some clarity.  I was so excited by all this that I fell into old, comfortable habits and assumptions.  I thought that if the Lord is clarifying things for me, it must be time to gather people together and pass on this great direction.  So that's what I tried to do... tried and failed. There is no doubt that I could have done a better job of what I did.  It turns out that things were a whole lot more clear and precise in my mind then they were coming out my mouth.  I could have been better organized with the thoughts I did share.  Poor communication was not the problem with this little gathering though.  In fact, I knew as soon as people started arriving that I did not want to go forward with this "meeting."  I could feel the expectation and the anticipation - people were sitting around our kitchen table and wondering, "when are we going to get started?"  I've experienced the exact opposite, but in this area and among these people, the easy thing to do is have a church meeting.  People were uncomfortable just being together with no agenda items beyond getting to know one another and enjoying each other.  That part of a gathering is the necessary "first part," where we eat chips and make small talk, but the real deal is when we put our chairs in a circle and someone starts a Bible teaching.  That's what they wanted - those were the expectations - that's basically what I had promised in my invitation - and now I could feel the pressure to make good.  So I did.  I "called the meeting to order" and we went into the living room with the chairs organized loosely into a circle. I'm not disappointed because I rambled or because my two littlest kids, as if somehow commissioned by God to make sure we didn't get to high-minded about ourselves, wreaked havoc throughout the living room.  The problem was that the whole thing was built upon arrogant and incorrect notions of my (the pastor's) role.  My old understanding of the pastor's job told me that if God shows something to me, it is because he wants me to speak on his behalf to the rest of the people.  How arrogant is that?  As if the Spirit speaks clearly to me but then needs me to make things clear to others. No.  This church is built upon the belief that God speaks directly to people - all the people.  He uses his intimate knowledge of them (see Psalm 139) to custom-craft a message in their language.  The whole purpose of that gathering needed to be about getting to know one another and comparing our personal "notes" on what it means to be a follower of Jesus without all the props and trappings of the churches we've left behind. We're not at the place of having church meetings and getting organized and mobilized - a la Acts 2 and the early church.  Our mission is John 2. We need to be hanging out together, going to social functions together before our "time" for public ministry has come.  And if we do find ourselves in the middle of some need, be willing to play an invisible role - filling a gap before anyone else even knows it's there. I'm learning a great deal about mission and staying on mission from this issue of Next-Wave.  Once again, take a look at the story that the Spirit is telling through each of the articles in this edition - even better, join the conversation with some comments of your own! You can contact Scott by email at scottjbane@gmail.com