How does your church fare in this regard? Would a disabled visitor feel welcome, able to fully participate in worship and church life? What does your church need to do better?
Ed Young, pastor of the 20,000 congregant Fellowship Church, was recently accused of keeping financial secrets from his congregation by WFAA, a Dallas/Fort Worth news organization. Among the report’s claims are that Young owns a private jet and has a 10,000 square foot home valued at $1,500,000.
Oh, he also reportedly makes a million bucks a year from the church.
Suffice to say, the claims put forward by WFAA have been summarily rebuffed by Young and a few of his church’s board members. You can see Fellowship’s side of the story in the 25 minute video below. The truth seems to be that they lease the plane because of Young’s international speaking engagements and tight schedule, and the home is closer to 7500 square feet. The salary? Not so much.
Regardless of who is right in this circumstance—and from what I can gather from a token amount of internet research, the facts seem to be stacked in Fellowship Church’s favor—this presents a great opportunity to discuss an issue that I think is becoming increasingly important in the Internet age: how should a church handle critics?
Most churches over a certain size and age have had to face a PR nightmare of some sort. Maybe not on the scale of Fellowship’s, but a nightmare nonetheless. Perhaps, it’s something as simple as a bad reputation, or perhaps as terrible as a high profile scandal. More likely, the pastor is just really good at incensing a very vocal and disagreeable crowd.
That’s when blog posts, newspaper articles and gossip start. Pretty soon, googling the church’s name brings up the church’s homepage as number 1 and number 2 is a slanderous news or blog article. In the case of Fellowship, they chose to directly answer the criticism, but other churches ignore the naysayers.
How do you think a church should respond to critics? Do you think that Fellowship did the right thing in this situation? How have you seen churches effectively handle criticism?
A recent conference on the future of evangelicalism raised some interesting questions about a longstanding, if sometimes controversial, aspect of the Christian faith: denominationalism. Blogger Trevin Wax liveblogged much of the conference; his recaps are well worth reading to get a sense of how the question of denominations is being approached by the church today.
At the core of the issue of denominationalism is a simple question: is it a good or bad thing that the Christian church is split into so many different denoninations? Answering that question requires addressing many other issues as well, such as how a denomination might help or hinder individual churches’ ministries, and how members of different denominations should (or should not) work with each other.
…congregations, regardless of size, tend to only take on part of the total ministry that God intends for the church. They tend to “specialize.” Evangelical churches in general tend to specialize in, unsurprisingly, evangelism. And while necessary, that’s not church, that’s para-church. There is something a bit wrong when something that chooses to call itself a church is acting more like Young Life than anything else.
Narrow definitions and limited experiences do not stretch us into the people that Jesus came to make us into. Even though we are all called at different points to different specialties (gifts, ministries, vocations – insert your word here) in the church, God has also called us to be first His in ALL aspects of life. We need to experience others who are specialists in aspects that we have, but may not concentrate on. We need their perspective, and we need to learn form them.
Is your church part of a denomination, and if so, has that association been a help or a hindrance to its ministry? Do you see a tendency to over-specialize in individual churches, and does a connection to many other churches under a denominational umbrella help to keep that in check?
Of course there are—no matter how well-dressed they are or how sincere in their worship, everyone in the church struggles with sin in their personal lives. Lust, anger, greed, jealousy… we know for a fact that these sins plague us all, and yet it’s all too easy for us to look at the congregation gathered around us and imagine that there’s nobody out there who has these “issues”… or even worse, to feign shock and surprise when sin comes to light in the church.
This devotional from Delve Into Jesus asks us to imagine how our churches would respond if the congregation knew all of your secret sins:
If all those gathered at your church on a Sunday morning knew of these sins, would they be as gracious as their Lord who suffered and died for these very sins He forgives?
There would certainly be a great deal of hushed whispering between friends in empty hallways, but most of it would consist of feigned disgust and manufactured outrage. We all know from personal experience that sin remains an ongoing problem after we give our lives to Jesus, yet many remain incredulous that anyone at their church could be battling any given particular sin. It makes them uncomfortable but at the same time it’s interesting and curious. And so, in order to maintain the pretense that everyone in their own circle of friends, at least, would never indulge in that particular sin or vice, they reassure one another that it’s a heinous sin to which none of them would ever fall victim. When this phenomenon gets really bad, as I’ve seen on a few occasions, the whispers escalate into staring glances and loud talking which halts abruptly when the person who is the topic of conversation walks into the room. The people being stared at and talked about are not oblivious – they know exactly what’s going on and what’s being said about them behind their back. It won’t take long before these people move on to another church where they can battle their sin in loneliness and anonymity.
There is only one acceptable motive for talking about someone else’s battle with sin, and that is to ask, “How can I help?” If there is something tangible which we can do to help, then we have an obligation to offer that help. An offer of help does not in any way suggest that we condone the sin. It’s entirely possible to demonstrate great love and compassion even as we let the person know that what they’re doing is at odds with God’s will for their life and that we want to help if we can.
The proper response to sin when it crops up in the church is to offer love, prayer, and help—not disgust, outrage, or smugness. When sin appears in your church, which reaction is more common?
When I was growing up there was a distinct order to how the congregation exited the sanctuary at the end of the service. After the closing prayer—before anyone dared to sit down in their pews—the pastor would exit down the center aisle and take up his post at the exit. While the pastor was still in his landing pattern, the worship band would start to play. Only with the music playing were we allowed to relax.
After that, we’d grab our things and get in line to greet the pastor and shake his hand. We’d finally get some face time with the guy who we had just listened to for the better part of an hour.
The last two churches I attended were megachurches, and the closest I ever got to talking with the pastor was passing one of them in the hallway.
““I do miss having a pastor at the door shaking hands in the ‘check-out line,’” Lauren Green told Grossman. Green, a religion correspondent for Fox News, began attending Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City to hear Tim Keller preach. Keller doesn’t record his sermons to broadcast in other locations, but he scurries between several different sites in a grueling Sunday ritual that leaves him little time to interact with members and visitors. By contrast, Green and her family shared a close relationship with their long-time pastor when she was growing up in Minneapolis. But she acknowledges that this model appears to be a quaint and outdated today.”
I have to admit that I miss that “quaint and outdated” interaction with the pastor too. Frankly, I think it’s healthy for both the pastor and the congregation to have that meet and greet time. For the congregation it remind them that as much as they might respect their pastor, their pastor is a real person. Not a celebrity or a distant talking head.
Likewise, for the pastor, that end of the service ritual is a connection to the reality of why they preach: to transform the lives of their congregants.
Does your pastor still shake your hand before you leave? Is it easier or harder to get a chance to talk face to face with your pastor? Any other thoughts?
I recently moved and am in the process of finding a new church. In doing research and visiting churches, one thing that’s surprised me is how is how each church seems to have a target demographic: student, young professional, middle age, kids, no kids, asian, black, white, etc.
You name it, there seems to be a church out there for you. Oddly enough though, most—if not all—of them purport to value the diversity in their congregations. Do you think that churches should target specific demographics?
I’ve been in churches that do it every week and others almost never. They all have their reasons, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on how often we should celebrate the Lord’s supper.
How often do you think Christians should celebrate communion?
Let’s say a person became a Christian some time ago and just never got around to finding a church. They read still read their Bible and pray, but they’re not a member or even an active “visitor” of any organized body of Christ. Are they still a Christian?
Is Church attendance required to call yourself a Christian?
Here’s an answer from the ministry of Faith Facts:
Yes, at least in a very technical sense. Salvation is not dependent on actions. God judges one’s heart.
But let’s be honest. The Bible says that we are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). If you say you are a Christian yet do not attend church regularly, how can you say that you really love God sufficiently?
Jesus emphasized the importance of his church. The Bible further emphasizes that regular worship, Bible study, fellowship with other believers, and service to one another are important. Likewise, the Bible warns against willful and persistent rejection of God (Hebrews 10:26).
Much has been written about church websites (good and bad) and the different ways that Christian organizations do ministry online. What level of internet presence does your church have? A simple website? An elaborate web presence that makes use of Twitter, Facebook, and other trendy tools?
And whatever your church’s level of internet engagement, is it serving the church effectively?
Is it appropriate for Christians to attend worship services for a different religion?
I think few Christians would object to the idea of learning about or reading up on another religion, but is there something special about a dedicated worship service that makes it spiritually unwise for Christians to attend? Is there a clearly identifiable line between attending such a service, and participating in the worship?
