Communication Breakdown

Several years ago I sat outside of the Chapel at Bible College and struck up a conversation with a Pastor of a healthy and growing Mega-Church. He had a very charismatic personality and I liked him from the start. As we talked I began to question him about his journey as a Minister and discovered that he started out working with the youth and was involved with several other key areas of the Church before taking on a Lead Pastor's role. I was intrigued by this mans journey and asked him what the difference was between Youth Ministry and being in a Lead Pastoral role. He said to me "the only difference between the youth and adults is their age! No matter how old they are they still act a little childish from time to time!" I thought that was a bit strong, but figured he must of had his reasons for his comments.

I had forgotten about my conversation with the Mega-Church Pastor until the past few months. I realized that what he said had a lot of truth to it. As adults we sometimes still act like teenagers and little children. When we don't get our way at Church we pout and throw fits until we get some attention. We do this because in America we have things theologically backwards. We have begun to think that the Church is there for us and that we need to be ministered too constantly. We have been fed lies by the spoonful and have eaten every last morsel of it. Our selfishness affects the bodies that we represent in negative ways. We have become more concerned with what we want in the Church than what God wants from each of us in our communities and homes. People have become consumeristic and will now shop around for a Church that fits their own needs. Once a Church is found the disciple begins to think of themselves as a customer who needs to be served and made happy if they are going to stick around for any length of time. This mentality is killing the Church!!!

The Church does not exist to make people happy or to fit some type of personal spiritual blue print. The Church exists to edify God through ministering to each other and the community that each Church is in. One of the key elements that is missing today is humility. Dallas Willard in his book "The Diving Conspiracy" says that humility is the hardest thing for the modern Christian to grasp. Our lack of humility is causing us to battle with each other over order of service, music style, and levels of authority within many congregations. Our lack of humility keeps us from loving, serving, worshipping, and praying together like we should. Our lack of humility hinders God's blessings and movement among us. I don't know how you feel about all of that, but personally I am tired of the lack of humility I see among God's people.

Pride is the counterpart of humility by the way. It is an affective tool that Satan has used through the centuries to divide God's people. Our pride holds us back from getting to know the entire congregation at times. Our pride holds us back from listening to each other and loving one another more passionately and deeply. Pride was not a problem for the Church in the book of Acts. They humbled themselves and God moved in powerful ways. When we learn how to humble ourselves we will experience God in great ways also. The road of humility is not an easy road, but it is the best road that any disciple can be on.