What's Wrong With The Church?

Chapter Ten of “Bond of Brothers,” is my second least favorite chapter in the book, and at the same time, my second favorite chapter.  I don’t like the way it makes me feel, but it definitely makes me think.  It’s an awkward love/hate situation.  At one moment, I think I know what Wes is thinking, in another I’m convinced he doesn't know what he wants. Brother Yoder paints a dismal picture of the modern church, and at the same time, holds out hope for the future.  His complaint is that the men in the church are hopelessly isolated, insulated, and without real relationships.  Pastors are in need of friends, the brothers are less than transparent, and love is sadly lacking.  From the master generalizer, (myself) I respectfully say: NO, tain’t true.  I was glad when one of the Brothers in our Men’s group, simply said; “He comes from a different background than us.”     SO TRUE! 

Don’t get me wrong, I fully appreciate Bro. Yoder’s observations. The worldwide church is a conflicted, split personality, working against itself across the spectrum of human endeavor.  All you have to do is watch enough Christian programming on TV, and listen to enough Christian radio shows, and you will pick up on the same issues that Brother Wes is deriding.  The Church has broken off into diametrically opposed factions, who spend their time lobbing canon shots at one another hoping to sink the opposition’s vessel of reason, or at best blow up their self absorbed delusional fantasies.  He paints the picture of a soulless, empty church stumbling along like a blind man groping for the truth.  Most of us would agree with him, if we were half-honest with ourselves. Somewhere in his rants and irritation, is the theme of the book; we have failed to find the power of relationship with one another through the love of Christ. It is a bleak picture, unless you happen to be one of those healthy fellowships.  If you are one of those healthy fellowships, can you endure a thorough self-inspection?  If during the inspection, you discover something is wrong,  are we willing to repent even if we think we’ve been doing things right?  Can the Lord chastise us through the voice of an author who’s never stepped foot in our church?  Are we really alright?

This morning I gave the men a homework assignment that asked; Can we do ‘Church’ better?  I can’t help but wonder if we’ve been doing it this way for so long, we don’t really know that it’s broke?  Maybe a better question would be; is it broke?   So many of the comments this morning were right on the mark.  Is it possible for us to discern when we are messed up?  What if you aren’t messed up?  What if you are doing all the right things, how would you know?  Is the size of a fellowship the measure of its success?   Can you be a ‘mega-church’ and be a ‘real’ church?  Is a small church better?  Is a large church better?  What is the measuring stick?  If size were the issue, then I imagine a church of twelve families would be considered a failure.  Yet, in His miraculous three-year ministry, Christ moved through this life with a core group of twelve men.  In today’s world, he would hardly warrant a listing in the phone book.  There has to be a better measure of whether a church is doing the right things.

Introspection and self-critique are two different things.  Introspection is based upon your own perception of you.  Reading Bond of Brothers, and evaluating yourself by the things Wes Yoder says, will not lead to change, because you are still looking at yourself from your own point of view.  It’s easy to offer up excuses, reasons, and give yourself pardon for who you are.  You can convince yourself that you are already doing things right.  However, if we read books like this one with an open heart to embrace the good things put before us, we won’t need to focus on what is wrong with our church.  When we look at ourselves in the mirror of what Jesus did, if we truly become envious of the life He lived, we will gravitate toward what we desire instead of avoiding what we don’t like.  I am saying this, because I believe our fellowship is  genuinely open to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Can we do things better?  Yes.  Are we headed in the right direction?  Yes.   All you have to do is look how far we’ve come in the short time we’ve been a fellowship.  Is it a reason to sit on our laurels?  No.  I am hopeful for the Church.  I am more than hopeful for the church in Harrison, and I am convinced of the viability of our own fellowship. 

Brother Wes, I would like to invite you to our fellowship. We have a Pastor who is more than a friend.  Before we begged him to go ‘full time,’ he owned and worked in his own business.  He knows the savagery of working all day and then coming to church on Wednesday nights dog tired, and beat.  He knows what it is like to live on nothing, work your guts out, and then have someone ask you for more money than you have in your bank account.  He’s not the only Pastor like that. Harrison, Arkansas is filled with men like that.   Bro. Yoder,  I think when you are a man of your professional stature, you move in circles where the clichés abound, and men lose touch with one another.  Our men work hard.  We strive against a failing economy that isn’t of our own creation, to provide for our families with meager incomes.  We openly declare our weaknesses, addictions, and past addictions without fear of judgment to one another. We depend upon one another to be honest and help us grow.  Our men range from those with Masters Degrees, to those with a GED. Yet, we break bread with one another in a sincere desire to give life to one another.   Twelve-year-old boys sit down at the same table with men in their sixties.  We believe that if we ever feel we’ve attained, the Holy Spirit will stop talking to us.  We believe He put his gifts within us to perfect us.  He is the anvil against which we are formed.  I pray that we never say we have arrived, or grow tired of moving beyond the last revelation, but at the same time, I don’t accept the criticism that the Church has failed.  I don’t believe we are on life support either.  Televangelists, and Radio personalities are not indicative of who we are.  I don’t believe they are indicative of 80% of the churches in America.  In our own felIowship, I personally see God’s Spirit moving us to that place in Him where we can be truly effective.  Our men believe that each successive generation needs to know that there is more to add to the equation.  As long as we are here, as long as boys hold the promise of being men, we owe it to one another to seek to be better, to do it better, and to be more like our big brother.  PROOF:  We are reading your book as a study. 

Here at Real Ministries, and at many other fellowships in our fair city, relationship, and friendship have been our guiding principles from the very start. 

For those of you who weren’t there this morning, I asked everyone to read the chapter again and identify one thing we need to do better.  I know, it’s a hard chapter, but it should spur us on to become more like Christ.