Joel Young Blog.com

“We must lower the bar of how we do church and raise the bar on what it means to be a disciple.” – Neil Cole

Today as I read through the book Viral Churches by Ed Stetzer and Warren Bird I ran across this quote, and I’ll admit that I was a little thrown by it. I’m not the kind of guy that ever sees a good reason to “lower the bar” on anything I do. If anything, I’ll do the opposite because of my pure hatred for mediocrity. But the more I pondered this quote the more I saw the wisdom that comes from such thinking.

I’ve heard Neil Cole speak at different church planting conferences of the last couple years, and I think the philosophy that Neil has adopted is one we should all consider. Church needs to be more about following Jesus and the mission he has given the church, and less about what we want it to be or what we’ve told ourselves it has to be. Simply put, if we’re not carrying around unnecessary baggage we will be able to reproduce more rapidly and have a far greater impact in this world.

So, what does it mean to “lower the bar of how we do church”?

Does it mean that we stop caring about quality? Nope.

Does it mean that we become loose on our doctrine and preaching/teaching? Never.

What it means is that we take away all the unnecessary things about the way we do church. Things that should be in an open hand that we cling to tighter than bark to a tree.

Things like facilities that “we can’t live without,” but only use 10% of the time.

Things like the endless list of programs “we have to offer or no one will come”.

Things like Hollywood caliber production equipment that “we need to reach the next generation”.

Things we’ve convinced ourselves that we need to do church the way we have convinced ourselves it should be done.

As I’ve said many times before. I don’t think all of these things are evil, but why do so many of us view them as “necessities” in our churches? We can’t, or won’t, imagine life without them, and are often unwilling to set them aside for the opportunity to become more effective in the mission Jesus gave us as His church. I’m not saying that we can’t have facilities, or programs, or try our best to create inviting atmospheres. What I am saying is that we need to more carefully consider the priority we give to the mission of the church and the priority we give to the means by which we carry out that mission. Fall in love with the mission, not the means.

So, in light of the quote that started this all allow me to pose a few questions. What bars deserve raising in how we do church, and what bars need lowering? These are questions we can’t afford to ignore.

It’s funny how God works on people with the same message at the same time. We’ve been exploring a lot of the book of Acts at Horizon lately, and I was blown away to see this post from my friend Mike this morning. Here’s a quick excerpt:

“Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.” (Acts 8:4, NIV)

The apostles were the “church staff.” They didn’t leave Jerusalem when the persecution broke out, but the people of the church did.

Here’s what jumped out at me when I read these verses. It was the people who were doing the ministry. The members of the church were the ones preaching the gospel wherever they went.

It was the people. Not the leaders. Not the staff. The people of the church were empowered to do ministry. They were the ones sharing the gospel. They were the ones winning people to Christ.

If you’re a part of The Church, you need to go read the entire post.

“An Acts 8 Awakening” – Mike Edmisten

This Sunday as I was preparing myself to preach I arrived at Horizon’s worship facility quite early. I ran over my sermon notes, prayed, and in tried to find some time to just be quiet. As I often do, I found myself staring out the huge wall of windows in the front of our building. As I peered through the glass I couldn’t help but wonder about my point of view at that moment. I was seeing the world through the lens of the church. I thought about the people who were driving by and wondered what their relationship to Christ was like (or if it even existed at all). I thought about the priorities in their lives, the things that occupied their time, and though people were speeding by in their cars I sincerely wanted to walk through the doors right into the road and have that conversation with someone to see what there life was really about.

What I came to realize through this short episode of people watching is that is that I view the world through the eyes of the church all the time, but I don’t often get to view the church through the eyes of the world. Maybe that’s because I’m too close to it or have a biased opinion since I’m a life-long church boy, but whatever the reason viewing the church through the world’s eyes is not my natural perspective.

I imagine people drive by our church building and formulate opinions about us and the way we do things (much like I did from the inside). For better or worse they form an opinion of Christ and/or his church based on their natural perspective, and their lives are a result of that perspective.

What I’ve realized is that change only comes when we are able to shift our perspective. The church will never become what the world needs it to be unless we make it a point to look upon our work from the outside from time to time. And, no one will turn their heart and life over to Christ and if they aren’t first able to change their perspective on what really matters.

I don’t have a super spiritual challenge to go along with this other than to pose this question. How do we do that? How do we change our perspective on changing the world’s perspective? How do we get real about what we’re doing? What will stop us from becoming narrow-minded, ineffective churches?

I don’t have all the answers, but I know we need them now more than ever.