Video Transcript: Lesson 9 Lack of Purpose

Well, hello, and welcome back once again to Christian leaders Institute, so glad that you are pushing on here in the great cause of revitalization. Boy, it is a, it is a biblical burden. It is something that the Lord has laid on the hearts of many, and hopefully you too, to see his church, this community of grace, to thrive and to grow and to be the full expression of the kingdom of God, wherever you are, I am so delighted that I have brothers and sisters like you out all over the world, who are trying to do the very same thing I've been trying to do, what an encouragement you are to me that I'm not in this alone. We're all in this together and all for the glory of God. And I pray that He will bless your efforts, He will bless my efforts as we seek to see his church grow in character, and in size, and its influence in the world. So let's hop right in. That's my prayer for you. It's my prayer for all of us. So let's hop right in today. And we're going to be talking about the fourth underlying cause. Just as a quick review, we've already talked about the love of God grown cold, or the love of Christ grown cold, we've talked about traditionalism. And also getting stuck on preferences being a preference driven church. Let me throw in one quick story on the preference driven before we even move ahead. I was just reminded of this, right after the last session was finished taping, though two years ago, I was we're going through revitalization. We had a couple leave our church, and it was in the beginning of the week. And when they came to speak to me about it. They said, Well, we're leaving. And I said, Well, what's the matter? And they said, well, the worship here, it is too traditional. We are seeking something that would be the more contemporary modern kind of worship. And to be honest, our church is kind of in the middle, it's kind of blended. Like, okay, well, you know, they've kind of already made up their minds. There wasn't much I could do about it. Well, at the end of the week, another couple had said another family they were leaving. And I have to say just quickly, we're very fortunate we didn't have a lot of people leave through this process. Very, very few. We had a very humble congregation that was willing to deal with this. But we did have some people not want to be a part of it. And if you're going to have revitalization, you are as well. So back to my story. So in the beginning of the week, I had a couple say that they were leaving, because our worship was just too traditional. They were looking for something more contemporary. Later in the week, towards the end of the week, I had another family come in. And he said they were also leaving. And I and I said why is that? And they said, Your Worship is way too contemporary. There's way too modern, we want something more traditional. And as you can imagine I just burst out laughing. I'm scratching my head like, are you serious? Are you kidding me? And I wanted to get a phone on my desk. And I said, which would you please call this other family, I'd love to pay for dinner for you two to get together. And then to talk about your different views on our church and what you're looking for? Well, you know, that never happened. They went their separate ways. But you know, that's the problem with a preference driven and kind of, you know, catering to something very particular that we want, it really is a no win situation. So you're gonna run into craziness like that, I'm sure. And sometimes, you know, when people have very legitimate and valid things to say, we need to be humble. And hear it because God might be sending them into them into our offices to have this many conversations. But then at the same time, there's just times I don't know how else to say this. Just people just need to walk if they're not interested in repentance and renewal and health and vitality. I guess I guess they're just not ready for it right now. And that's not a burden. I don't think you should really worry about or, or carry with you too long. Just because if you're following the Lord, and you're doing what he's calling you to do, not everybody's going to jump on with you. And as you're digging through these underlying causes. These are some deep seated, sinful ways of thinking. And it's going to be hard for people to work through that and process that so it's, it's not going to be surprising as you start digging away at this and you start revealing the sin that is in the camp, that people are gonna say, I don't want to be a part of this, like I, you know, you know, or, or things start changing and like, I don't like that it's probably going to happen. In fact, I guarantee it's going to happen. But you know, just keep your eyes on the Lord. It's his church, your his, your his servant, and he's your master and be faithful to Him, in everything, be faithful to Him and don't disregard obviously the needs of people in your your faith community, but never lose your focus on the Lord and what he's calling you to do. All right, well, that's a good introduction to this last underlying cause we're gonna address which is churches that have a lack of purpose. When I was thinking about this lecture, I was reminded of my wife and I, who we often like to go out to eat. That's one of the things that we can do that we just both enjoy doing. And we get away from our kids for a little bit. And we just get some time and we enjoy good food and great conversation and laughing and just traveling around and seeing different things. So one of us will say the other Do you want to go out to dinner tonight? Maybe it'll be a weekend and the other one is always a yes. Yeah, I'd love to. And often we'll get in the car and start driving. But we don't even know where we're going. It's not like we've picked out the restaurant we want to go to. So would you want to go north? Or do you want to go south? Or do you want to go over here, you know, we've got a couple towns that we'll go to. And we'll kind of just meander along the way. And sometimes we'll end up at a place and it's like, oh, this was so, so great. I'm just so glad we came here. And once in a while, we just end up at a place and was like, I really wish we kind of went somewhere else. And we just really didn't have a purpose. We just kind of were just aimlessly driving around until we got hungry enough or whatever, or something kind of looks good enough that we pulled in. And I wonder if that is how a number of churches operate, that there's really no clear purpose. They're just kind of driving around. They're just going around doing their thing. But if you said, well, where's this going? What's your purpose? What's the significance? What's the biblical command behind this? So it'd be like, I don't know. But this kind of looks okay, I guess we'll just stop here and do this thing. And then we'll maybe try over there. And we just kind of start off not even knowing what it is that God has called us to do. I think churches in this category, they just exist, to exist. They exist just to exist, rather than they exist, to proclaim the gospel, to bring forward the glory of God, to see lives transformed for the Kingdom. And again, Thom Rainer, who wrote the book An autopsy for the deceased church. He describes churches like this, he says, as, as operating without a vision for gospel ministry, and he writes about their systems at church that have no purpose and then ended up closing. And he said, The church was not really a church. It had no purpose. None of the members talked about fulfilling the Great Commission. None of the members spoke about carrying out the great commandment in the church. None ever came close to speaking with a burning passion about making a difference in the community. The church was purposeless, they were engaged in activity called, this is the way we've always done it. None of the members asked what they should be doing. They were too busy doing what they've always done. And so I think this is just a really important one for us to talk about. And later in lectures, we're going to talk about really developing your model for ministry, which is clarifying a mission and a vision, those sorts of things. So you're really dialed in on who we are, what is God called us to do? How are we going to do it with the we're there, there's really a map out in front of you, instead of just kind of driving around aimlessly wandering, where you really have very specific way of understanding what it is that God wants you to do. Now, churches that just exist to exist. They really their motivation in ministry is just to keep the doors open. Well, we don't want the church to shut down we don't want to, you know, have everything end so we're just going to keep doing this. So there's church next Sunday, and there's money in the offering plate. And we can just kind of keep on going. Now might be oversimplifying a little bit, but I think that's really kind of the feeling that's at the heart of it is motivation is just to keep things going. There's, there's no grand, you know, calling or purpose beyond just we'll meet again next week. Now scripture, of course, has a vastly different purpose for the church than just to keep the doors open. In fact, the church did not have any buildings. For the first 300 years or so of its existence. They were just meeting in homes and you know, things like that, or hiding in secluded places, either the church, so there was no such thing as well, we're just doing this to keep the doors open. There were no doors. The church was all about its vision for ministry, in the purposes of the kingdom of God, that's all it was. So I don't think they really struggled with this a whole lot, maybe the way that we do today. So what does the God's Word say about the church? What is its purpose? Why does it exist? Well, Jesus says that we are to be the light of the world, the goodness, the holiness, radiating the presence of God and the light, you know, shining, you know, knowledge, you know, of the knowledge of the kingdom of God, and the glory of God to all the world. That we're to be a city on a hill, just a shining again, example, for all the world to see what it is to be part of the Kingdom of God. The purpose is to be sent out into all the world not just to say on that hill, but to being to go out with just like light that spreads out to every corner of a dark room, we're supposed to go out into bring His message to every, every person in every corner of the world. We're supposed to be witnesses for Christ. Jesus says this, you will be my witnesses, you will go out into the world, and you will bear witness you will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about me and who I am. The Church stands witness to the glory of Jesus Christ. And we think about it if the church isn't going to be a witness to Jesus Christ, who is there is no witness, right? This is our purpose to stand as witness for Christ. Paul talks about that we're ambassadors for the kingdom, that we are sent as representatives out into the world, and we carry with us the values and the ethics and the love and the character of the king, who has sent us forward, we're ambassadors, and the world gets to know the Lord because they know us. And scripture says that we are the body of Christ, you know, the we are, you know, the hands and the feet, we we come together and we to the power of the Spirit, we do the work that God would want us to do in the world. So this, this is, this is our purpose. This is why we exist. Scripture is very clear. I mean, these are very specific kind of targets that we have in front of us, it isn't just driving aimlessly and trying to be like, well, this is kind of okay, or, well, I guess maybe we should do this. Scripture says, This is exactly what the church is to be. And for this, Christ died and has given His Holy Spirit to the church, so that we may be these very things. Now we'll just stay on the slide for a second. And I believe that churches and ministries in decline, have grown content for the church to be something other than this, other than this list on the screen. churches that are in decline have become content, that the church would be something other than this. I purchased illustration used a few times and I think it's just so wonderful. It gets to the point of this. There's a man in the car and it's out in the country, and he's driving by a barn and he sees a kid. He's got a bow and arrow in his hand and along the side of the barn, there's all these bull's eyes painted all over it. And there's an arrow in the bullseye of every one. And he thinks, man, this kid must be quite, quite a, you know, quite a shooter quite a hunter, you know, I mean, every shot on this barn is right in the middle of a bull's eye. And so he pulls over and he asks the kid, how did you become such a good shot? How do you always hit the bullseye? And the kid said, Oh, it's really easy. So the kid gets his, his arrow, he puts it on the bow, he pulls it back. He lets him fly in and it goes into the side of the barn. The kid gets a can of paint. He goes up to where the arrow is. And he paints a bullseye all around. And of course, his arrow lands right in the middle of, he paints the smallest Bullseye right where his Arrow tip has landed? I mean, is that what churches do? Like? We, we, you know, we say, well, whatever we're doing now, I guess that's like, supposed to be our purpose. Instead of saying, Who are we? What's God called us to do? In our location in our generation? What are we supposed to be about? What is the universal call for all churches? Instead, we just kind of say, well, this is kind of what we do. So I guess we'll stick with this. Right. So I think some good questions for you to be thinking about and questions for me to think about, and I've processed through these and I continue to process through them is, what is our mission? What can we do as a church to fulfill our mission more effectively than we are right now? How is this year going to be different from last year? What is God calling us to do here? And now? How are we effectively bringing the Gospel into the world? How is our community different because of our ministry, and this isn't just outreach and evangelism, but it's also making disciples kind of within our congregation and training them and then sending them out and the way we love and we care for each other. This is all part of the purpose of the Kingdom of God and for a local church. We have to have a clear purpose, we have to know why we exist. We have to establish a benchmark and say, This is why we're here. And then to judge everything off of that. Now the good news is, and we'll get to this later with when we talked about mission and vision. The good news is again, the Bible spells it out, we don't have to invent it, we don't have to create this, the Bible is is is so beautifully lays it out for us what we are supposed to do, and what we are supposed to be. And the problem with all this is that once the church loses its gospel centered purpose, it ceases to function as the body of Christ, and ultimately dooms itself to irrelevancy and its own demise. So basically, once the church loses its God given purpose, it stops to be the church. If the church isn't doing the work of Jesus Christ, it's not the body of Christ really anymore. I mean, in a functional way of speaking, it's, it's kind of like you're, you're out over here doing your own thing. Imagine the owner of a company, then he tells an employee to go do something that'll help the company, and the boss comes back, you know, later in the day, and the employee, instead of doing what he's asked to do, he's been kind of doing figuring out his own thing, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the company. He's been kind of doing his own thing for his own purposes. And we'd say was that a good employee that the employee helped the company? Is the company any better would say no, and chances are, that employee isn't gonna be around too much longer, right? Well, we don't want to be that kind of church. We don't want to be those kinds of Christians that, you know, we were just kind of off on our own and and once we stop being the body of Christ, once we stop declaring the gospel, once we stop living it out, our views become irrelevant, like, what's the purpose like, we're just now like, some other social club or a gathering of people or, you know, just some kind of a nonprofit organization that seeks to do like general good in the world. And the world is littered with all different kinds of social clubs and organizations and stuff. There is only one group of people in this world that has been charged with preaching the gospel, sharing the gospel, growing in the Gospel, bearing the kingdom of God into this world. It is the church. And if the church isn't going to do it, nobody else is. And we should never, ever accept a substitute for that in ministry ever, ever, ever. We cannot cease to function as the church Right. Because as soon as we do, we've lost the very thing that makes us distinct, we've lost the very thing that empowers us, we've lost the very thing that causes us to, to keep on going. Alright. Enough of that, I think you get the point. Right, we have to have a purpose. So I just want to wrap up with like, just a couple of thoughts on how do churches lose direction and purpose. Because my guess is when every church starts off, whenever a church you know, begins, or there's a group of people, it's all about vision and mission and kingdom of God and, you know, city on the hill, all that kind of stuff. So how did churches lose direction and vision. And so I'm going to put this one squarely on the shoulders of leadership is leaders who have been charged with keeping the church to keep the course to keep navigating in the right direction. I really think this is a leadership issue, and so on, I think one of the big things and I can speak really about the United States here, in particular, I'm not sure about this dynamic and other places, and that may be true for you as well. But there is a really real problem we have with short, pastoral tenure, which is means how long does a pastor stay, at a church, or we might even say like in your governing body of elders, or deacons or trustees, whatever they're called in your church, where there's like, constant turnover in these sorts of things. In the US, the average pastoral tenure is three to four years. That's the average, which means about half are less than that. So half to more than half are three years or less, three, four years or less. That is devastating, absolutely devastating to the to, to the health and the direction of the local church. So imagine my church, I'm there a couple of years, well, I leave, and it takes the church another year or so to find another pastor, which is probably about average. So then the next pastor comes, and he's going to probably start undoing a number of the things I was working on, right. Or it's just going to take him a year or so to get settled in for people to know Him. And then that person is there for two or three years. And maybe the church is starting to gain a little bit of momentum, and then guess what they leave, the church is now vacant for another year. And so now they're really kind of not progressed any further than when I would have left. And now we're talking about like, maybe a five year span, that the church is not moving forward at all from the time I left, and this cycle repeats over and over, and over and over. So there's like a revolving door in the pastor study. And there's no consistency. There's no investment, there's no likely, no set direction. And I know a number of church, revitalization consultants and coaches who say, they will not work with a church, unless the pastor has made a commitment to be there for a long haul, you know, for to get through this whole season of revitalization. And I'm speaking directly to pastors. But if you're a senior leader in your church or ministry, I'm speaking to you as well. But really pastors Listen up, in order for revitalization to work, the pastor needs to give himself fully to Christ and his future to the people of that church. Fully. You can't do this in 18 months. You can't do this in three months, sermon series. I have been at my church 12 years. And I'd say we've been seriously in revitalization. Seven. I have no sense that even where I'm at now, this would be a good time to leave. That this would be a good time to have another opportunity. Because we're still in the process. There's still that more needs to get done and if I would leave now and not that everything rides on me, but as a senior leader in the church, if you know the shepherd, if I would leave now. It would just have would just have negative consequences would have negative impact on where they're going, they would be slowed down. It would take time for a new pastor. And depending on what that Pastor thoughts, you know, when they would get going in the same direction. So if you are serious about doing revitalization, I would just plead with you to consider staying where you are making a commitment to that place. And there was a time when I was going through revitalization. And I'd already been there five years or so. And the church was thinking, how much longer am I going to be there? I had said, I wanted to go through this. I wanted to go through this long haul revitalization and, and they said, you know, they wanted their buy in and their ownership and their involvement. And they said, Well, if you're willing to stay around here, to see us through all of this, we'll we're game, we'll do kind of whatever. And that was such a turning point, because they knew I wasn't looking at like the next rung of the ladder or a church on the other side of the state that was going to do good. And I was going to jump ship, when they knew that I was deeply invested, not just in revitalization, but in the revitalization of the church that we were at together. I tell you, that really changed the way that we interacted and their trust in me, it also took a lot of pressure off trying to come up with a solution like, Okay, let's do this right now. Like, it just gave us some time to breathe and to think and to discern and process and roll things out the right way. So lack of purpose, I think is directly related to short pastoral tenure. And in a very, very similar manner. There's this constant change of ideas and direction, kind of like, what's the next best thing I touched on this a little bit of pastor has his ideas of doing something and well, then the next pastor comes in, he has a different idea. And then the next pastor comes in, he has his idea or, or maybe your as leaders, you go to a conference, and then this sounds great. And then the next two years, you go to a different conference. Well, we're doing this differently. People just get so worn out, it's like the next great thing, the next great thing, the next great thing, and I know when I would introduce things, people would say like, like, here we go again, he's like, you know, every three years, there's like the next thing. And we tried, the next thing is actually the thing they tried about 20 years ago. And it just kind of keeps cycling over and over and over. And it's really really hard to build up any kind of speed or, or momentum. A number of years ago, my wife and I went to Hawaii and we visited the island of Maui. And on Maui, there's a famous trip, car trip you can take called the road to Hana and Hana is kind of like at the end of the island. And the road to get out there is anything but straight. It's some crazy number like 250, hairpin turns to get out there and all these switchbacks it is the most meandering road you've ever been on you could ever imagine. And I think of like the road to Hana versus a highway by my house where I can get on and it's just like a straight shot, and I can get up some pretty good speed, you know, the road to Hana, you're always going like 15 miles an hour. Now, it's obviously very beautiful drive, and you don't want to rush it, but it's like, if you want to get somewhere in a hurry, that'd be the worst road in the world to be on. Because it seems like you're just kind of never getting anywhere. And so this is this constant restarting is is is really a difficult thing. And so not only is it I would say having pastors stay in positions of leadership, but also having your leaders commit to, to a pathway that so so that when they would rotate off, or when a pastor leaves, that everybody is still in agreement of like what we're doing. My hope is this, you know, I got hit by a bus tomorrow and, and I wasn't, you know, the Lord took me home and I wasn't leading the church anymore, that the church would know, we've got a plan mapped out for the next several years. I mean, we hold it loosely in our hands. You never know what the Lord is going to do. But we know who we are. We know what God has called us to we have a general idea of how we want to do that. We've got some plans in place. And so whether or not you know, I'm there or I go to a conference next, you know, I get hit by a bus or I go to a conference next week and I get jazzed with a bunch of ideas like we're, we have momentum we're on that highway we're we're building up speed we're kind of going in a straight line. So I think the change in leadership and pastors in governing teams or boards, constant change of ideas, and, you know, I've been in churches where in the span of, you know, six or seven years, they have like four different mission statements. I mean, who can keep up with that, right? I mean, and they're not that complicated, figure it out, do it. Stick with it, you know, stick with it. Come up with a plan. Stick with it. All right. We want to avoid people getting frustrated and giving up because they're not going to care about the next thing. It's hard enough to get them to buy into one thing right? Rather than always changing directions.