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Church Life; Building On The
Foundation Of Jesus Christ
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By Clay Sterrett
Chapter Three
The Church is an
Equipping Center, Not a Sympathy Club
The local
church should be a place of refuge where the hurting and wounded can
come, feel accepted, and receive the healing they need. One of the main
ministries of the Holy Spirit is to bring comfort. The Greek idea of
comfort,
however, goes beyond just mere sympathy or consolation. It means to
encourage, to make strong, and to fortify. In his study of New
Testament words, William Barclay points out that the function of the
Holy Spirit is to fill a man with the spirit of power and courage which
would make him able to cope triumphantly with life. He says the Greek
word, parakalein, was used for exhorting
troops who are about to go into battle. . . it is the word of the
rallying-call to urge fearful and timorous and hesitant soldiers into
battle . . . to make a very ordinary man cope gallantly with a perilous
and dangerous situation.
John Miller, in Outgrowing the Ingrown Church, wrote:
The
local church was intended by Jesus to be a gathering of people full of
faith, strong in their confidence in Him, not a gathering of religious
folk who desperately need reassurance.
I have known believers who have spent their entire adult life getting
over past hurts. Such persons have kept their attention too long in the
wrong place
B
themselves! Indeed, the body of Christ must take time to help the
wounded in our midst and yet at the same time maintain the goal of
equipping them for a life of discipleship
B
denying themselves daily and following Christ.
Over the
years, I have known people who have left a particular church because
they did not feel loved or because they felt that proper attention was
not given them. Sometimes God has used such people to point out
deficiencies in our churches. But while we are called to encourage
everyone and especially to help the weak in the faith,
we are not called to be spiritual baby-sitters. When my two sons were
little, I would hold their hands when we walked together, especially
when crossing dangerous intersections. When they grew up to be
teenagers, I no longer held their hands; they could walk on their own,
and I expected them to take responsibility for crossing the street
safely.
Not
a Place to Continue Our Selfish Pursuit of Life
The church
is a place where God wants to conform us into his image.
It is not a place to continue our selfish pursuit of life. The church
leadership has a primary role: to equip us for service.
The church should be like a
spiritual
boot camp,
preparing us
for warfare, to endure hardship . . . like a good soldier of Christ
Jesus.
Jean Vanier commented:
Christian
communities . . . are not hiding places for the emotions, offering
spiritual drugs to stave off the sadness of everyday life. They are not
places where people can go to salve their consciences and retreat from
reality into a world of dreams. They are places of resource, which are
there to help people grow towards freedom, so that they can love as
Jesus loves them.
AThere
is no greater love than to give one=s
life for one=s
friends.
Some people
in our churches will tend to focus too much on themselves and their
problems. This is a significant problem in the body of Christ, and it
becomes evident when one looks at the best selling Christian books. Most
of them have to do with solving personal problems, e.g., fixing
marriages, healing hurts, solving financial problems, losing weight, or
feeling better about one's self. It is true that the Lord will save and
bring into our assemblies many hurting people who will carry over into
their Christian lives the baggage of the past. These folks will need
special attention from members who are sound and stronger in the Lord.
Some problems will need long-term care that will require much patience
and forbearance from the brethren. However, people's problems must
never dominate a local fellowship. When Jesus calls a man to follow
Him, he calls him to deny himself.
This is a call for every believer; there are no exceptions for wounded
people. The Amplified Bible says here, If any one intends to come
after Me let him . . . lose sight of himself and his own interests.
The people of
God are not called to be a spiritual problem-solving group, but rather
the body of Christ that will encourage people in their relationship with
God. Our primary focus should always be on Christ Himself. We will not
be able to solve everyone's problems, but we can put their hand into the
hand of Jesus. Our greatest command is to love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Some people
in conversations will only talk of their problems, their
opinions, and their concerns for others. These same folks may
then wonder why they have a hard time making friends and experiencing
joy in life. Scripture says, A fool finds no pleasure in
understanding, but only in airing his own opinions.
Whenever a
group feels compelled to solve everyone's problems, they fail to be an
equipping center, preparing people to live a God-centered, rather than a
self-centered life. People must be encouraged to begin to look more
outward: Each of you should not only look to your own interests, but
also to the interests of others.
Larry Crabb, a respected Christian counselor who has talked with
thousands of Christians in need, made this observation:
The Christian life cannot develop without a deepening awareness of what
we first recognized at the time of our conversion: self-centeredness
still runs deep within us.... Self-centeredness convincingly and
continually whispers to me that nothing in this universe is more
important than my need to be accepted and respectfully treated. Nothing
is more necessary to understand than my neediness, in all its complexity
and depth. If people were really moral, murmurs self, then everyone who
crosses my path, whether shop-keeper, pastor, or spouse, would devote
their resources to making me whole, happy, and comfortable.
People who
come into our assemblies weighed down by problems must be encouraged
first to seek the Lord, instead of attaching themselves to caring
Christians as the source of their hope and security: But seek first
his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to
you as well.
Frequently when I counsel people with personal problems, I will ask, how
is your personal time with the Lord? Are you spending much time in the
word and prayer? Almost always, their answer is in the negative. If
people who have serious financial problems would take the first step
mentioned above and seek first His kingdom, then things would
more likely begin to fall into place. The truth of the matter, sad to
say, is that many people simply will not pray or seek the Lord for His
help. If this is the case, we must still show grace and love them with
the boundless love of Jesus. We must not, however, allow such
self-focused people to distract us from God's plans and priorities for
the assembly.
Should We
Help Everyone?
The early
Christians did not try to meet everyone's needs. When dealing with the
practical needs of widows, Paul did not encourage unqualified support
for all widows; rather, he suggested several practical
stipulations: the widow must be over 60 years of age, faithful to her
husband, a doer of good deeds, and without supporting relatives.
We will not be able to help all people who come to us, and we should not
feel guilty when we do not. I frequently get phone calls from people who
are simply going down the list of churches in a phone book asking for
money. I try to be discerning, but rarely help. I do not get distracted
by such calls. Many of these needy people only want a
a
quick fix;
they do not want the larger solutions to their problems.
People do
need flesh-and-blood involvement and reassurance; however, many who come
to our churches will become disappointed or disgruntled because they are
not coming primarily to seek the Lord Himself and his plan for their
lives. Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains:
Many people seek fellowship because they are afraid to be alone.
Because they cannot stand loneliness, they are driven to seek the
company of other people. There are Christians, too, who cannot endure
being alone, who have had some bad experiences with themselves, who
hope they will gain some help in association with others. They are
generally disappointed. Then they blame the fellowship for what is
really their own fault. The Christian community is not a spiritual
sanatorium.
Christians
must always balance compassion with discernment. Just because we see a
need does not mean God is personally calling us to respond. Joseph
Stowell, former President of Moody Bible Institute, wrote these words of
wisdom to Christian leaders:
Some of
our parishioners are like bottomless buckets. We pour ourselves into
them, feeling like that ought to fill them up and the next time we look
into their bucket, it's empty again. I finally realized that some people
who have problems have them because they learned a long time ago that
when they were in difficulty, someone would pay attention to them and
they would feel loved and cared for. The problem
was only a means to an end.
These
individuals can never be helped. They will consume your time, possess
your energies, and manipulate you. When you tell them you've finally
decided that you can no longer help them and try to send them to another
counselor you think can help them, they will usually resist, saying they've
been to that counselor before or they've tried people like that before
and you're the only one who can help them, and that if you don't help
them, no one will ever be able to help them. I've even had people tell
me that if I wouldn't help them, they were going to commit suicide, the
ultimate manipulative stroke to keep their thirst for attention
satisfied at the well of our schedule.
We must have
a realistic, God-focused attitude toward the unlimited problems some
people seem to have. We will often be called to give sacrificial help
of our time and resources. However, we must ultimately point people to
the Lord and take the attitude of the ancient king who exclaimed,
If
the Lord does not help you, from where shall I help you?
Attention
on the Head
If we look at
a person's natural body our attention is usually drawn to the head.
That same focus of attention should be true of the spiritual body. Our
main purpose as the body of Christ should be to draw attention to the
Lord Jesus Himself. While it is true that a church is a place where
personal needs are often met, the complete peace that our souls long for
will never be found merely in the fellowship of God's people. True peace
can be discovered only in God himself: Find rest, O my soul, in God
alone; My hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; He
is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
The church should be focused more on God than ourselves. A. B. Simpson
once stated:
Whenever
the church becomes self-conscious and self-centered, she fails to
accomplish her real divine calling. Her highest glory is to be seen
only in the revealing of the Lord.@
Our churches
are pervaded with common complaints. Most of these members' complaints
have to do with the lack of attention that is shown them. Some members
will complain because people never visit them or invite them into their
homes. Others will feel ignored and left out of the
in
group. Some
members will become upset because the pastor seldom or never visits
their homes. The root of this problem is a failure to focus on Christ
as the Head of the body. R. J. Rushdoony reproved self-centered
thinking:
No one is
called to be a passive Christian, to be courted, waited upon, or soothed
by the pastor and church. Passive Christianity is a contradiction in
terms. . . . The church is Christ's
army. Its purpose is not to provide breakfast in bed for all members,
and a social lift for the unsocial, but a faith for life, preparation
for battle against the powers of darkness, and a strategy of life for
victory. The ineffectiveness of the modern church is partially due to
this passivity.
The early
Christians were not absorbed in plans and programs to keep everyone
happy and interested. These Christians were absorbed with the King,
Jesus Christ, and the kingdom that He was establishing in the hearts of
men. May this be true for us as well.
CHAPTER THREE
NOTES: THE CHURCH IS AN
EQUIPPING CENTER, NOT A SYMPATHY
CLUB
.William
Barclay, New Testament Words (SCM Press Ltd., London,
England,
1964), pp. 220-221
.
John Miller, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church (Zondervan
Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 1986), p. 20
.
Jean Vanier, quoted in Ralph Neighbour, Where Do We Go From Here?
(Touch Publications, Houston, TX, 1990), p. 113
.
Larry Crabb, Men and Women (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand
Rapids, MI, 1991), pp. 53, 76-77
.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together , translated by John
Doberstein (Harper and Row Publishers, New York, NY, 1965), p. 76
.
Joseph Stowell, Shepherding the Church (Moody Press, Chicago,
1994, 1997), pp. 197-198
.
A.B. Simpson,
AThe Church
in the Heavenlies,@
published in The Best of A.B. Simpson, compiled by Keith
Bailey (Christian Publications, Camp Hill, PA, 1987), p. 99
.
R. J. Rushdoony, Chalcedon Report, May 1981 (P.O. Box 158,
Vallecito, CA)
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A NEW
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