The Ecclesia Network

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Can Your Church Be the Church That Doesn’t Hurt People?

Like many, I came to church planting through the route of dissatisfaction and hurt. The angry young man. I grew tired of asking the same questions, banging my head against the same walls- tired of feeling hurt by the system and tired of seeing people I loved leave because they had been hurt.

So, when we planted a church in Portland, OR in 2004- I and the others I planted alongside of secretly, inwardly, held the idea- even if we outwardly disavowed it- that we were going to be the church that got things right.

It’s not so much we thought we were better or somehow the pinnacle of ecclesiastical evolution- it was simply that we thought we could learn from the mistakes of the churches we had come from and just do it differently.

It seemed so easy.

We were going to be organic, non-programmatic, we would listen, learn, love… and though we took careful pains to warn people as they came into our community that community hurts, we believed: we would be the church that would never hurt people.

Though we took careful pains to warn people as they came into our community that community hurts, we believed: we would be the church that would never hurt people. Click To Tweet

Of course, we were completely wrong.

I first started getting an inkling of this when I noticed that though we saw many people coming into church and coming to Christ or coming BACK to Church or back to Christ through our community, we saw just as many for whom we were the last stop on the way out. They had grown up in the evangelical church, many were even pastor’s kids, and they would come to our community as this last ditch effort. We met in a pub, were not happy clappy, were not trying to be slick or production-oriented- for a lot of them, we were something still Christian that they thought maybe they could stomach. We even had some explicitly tell us “This is my last try- if this doesn’t work, I’m out.” I mean, no pressure, right?

And time and time again, though we saw many stick and find what they were looking for, we saw just as many turn around and walk out the door again, some with real anger towards us, or towards me. And in trying to pin down why this would happen, we’ve never come to any real conclusions, other than that some people are just going to be hurt, no matter what you do- their issues with God and with church are going to bubble up. Which church in inconsequential- it could be any. And quite often, it’s going to be yours.

But it hasn’t always been simply that some people were setting themselves up to be hurt- sometimes it was us- our choices, our actions. In dealing with people, with couples or individuals or even staff members, we made choices with the best of intentions that ended up alienating people, confirming their worst fears about church… hurting them.

It wasn’t what we intended, we meant well, but we stepped wrong and someone else ended up getting blown out the doors.

There have even been times when we knew- we knew- going into a situation-  there’s potential here for great hurt, and we as elders would circle up and discuss- how can we do this with the minimum amount of pain? How can we do this right? Only to have it blow up in our faces, to have our decisions and choices hurt people we loved very much.

My darkest moment in church planting was coming to the realization that no matter what I did, I was going to contribute to the hurt, the brokenness and pain that people had around church. I just was. We just were.

My darkest moment in church planting was coming to the realization that no matter what I did, I was going to contribute to the hurt, the brokenness and pain that people had around church. Click To Tweet

We always wanted to be a part of people’s faith stories. It’s just that we wanted to be a part of the good bits- the place where people came to Jesus- not the place where they rejected Him. The place where people found community and had their faith in followers of Jesus restored- not the place that got to drive the final nail in the coffin.

And after instance after instance of seeing people leave- angry, hurt- of trying SO HARD to bring the least amount of pain to people through some really hard situations and instead finding ourselves somehow, inexplicably bringing the maximum amount, I came to the hard but good realization, that we don’t get to pick which part of people’s stories we get to play. Yes- we get to pick whether or not we will act in love, with kindness, like Jesus to the best of our ability- I get that. But I’m telling you- there are times when I have felt and when you will feel as though we were in a tragic opera- that God was using us in someone else’s life and what He happened to need at the moment was not a soft place for them to land but a hammer and a chisel. God was going to use us to get some people where HE needed them- to a place of discomfort or even crisis. There have been times when I cried out to God- really? Really? We’re trying so hard with this person and still- it seems like all we can do is screw it up further- that everything we do just seems to make it worse. REALLY?

And if that’s all there was to this thing, I think I probably would have packed it in a long time ago…

The good news is, though there were a lot of dark moments, a lot of times when I wondered if we were going to “make it”, if what we were doing was even worth the effort it took to “make it,” there were a lot of bright moments as well- mostly centered around the times when we stopped trying to build the Church, and just rested in the joy of being the church.

As I think back to those moments of gathering down at the river or creek to baptize people, of dancing for hours after marrying two people who met and fell in love in our community, of sitting with people and untangling some of the knots that they had encountered in life or faith, even of walking with some couples through some really deep water and seeing marriages actually make it, I’m glad that God allowed me to even take part in this thing. Because though we often unintentionally hurt people, though we mess up, though God uses us in hard ways at times, He also is kind enough to let us share in the up times as well. The putting back together of what is broken and the healing of what was hurt.

And I’ve been able to see that best and brightest in seeing how the Gospel actually works in community. How rather than sitting as a lifeless proposition on a page, the Gospel is actually the tool the Holy Spirit uses most as He brings us not just to a saving place of faith in Jesus, but to maturity and Christ-likeness.

I have loved sitting with people who are describing to me their struggles with workaholism, or anger, or money, and realizing- Oh- the real issue here isn’t money, or work or whatever- the real issue is what you are asking it to do for you. To somehow save you, give you hope, give you worth. Let me tell you about Jesus.

I’ve loved sitting with couples in crisis- well, I haven’t loved that part, but I’ve loved being able to tell them- I know, I know the hurt seems overwhelming and forgiveness seems like an impossibility right now, but I want you to think hard, to remember, to meditate on what Jesus has done for you- how and how much He’s forgiven you, and see if that doesn’t open up new possibilities for you here.

And most of all, I have loved realizing that even for me, at my darkest moments as a pastor and in church planting, the Gospel has something to say. Those moments laying awake in bed at 2:30am on Sunday night after preaching- when attendance was low, and giving non-existent and I’m feeling like: “After that sermon it will be a miracle if anyone comes back next week.” And realizing- that in getting so tied up in the metrics, in resting so much of the weight of my soul and my identity on results, on what happened, on how I was perceived and received, I was asking those things to do for me what only Jesus could- to tell me I was worth something, make me whole, save me.

The Good News is that my church and their attendance, their applause, their approval are not my savior. Jesus is.

The Good News is that my church and their attendance, their applause, their approval are not my savior. Jesus is. Click To Tweet

And so my brightest moment of all in church planting was realizing that the Gospel- this good news about Jesus and His kingdom isn’t just a truth we learn at the beginning of our spiritual journey… the Good News is the transformative engine of change in the world, not just for Non-Christians, but for Christians and even for pastors. Our communities and we ourselves will never outgrow needing to hear it, and so we’ll never get past needing to preach it to them, to others… to ourselves.

In church planting, and in pastoring in this broken world hurt is inevitable- both to yourself and to those you are serving and reaching. Thank God we have in the Gospel the answer to the brokenness and hurt we inevitably experience and even in our best intentions bring to other people. Thank God for Jesus.

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5 Questions to Ask After You Write Your Sermon (But Before You Preach It)

Preaching is not the end-all, be-all of pastoring or church planting, but it’s certainly a huge part. It’s a part of the formation for mission of our communities, the personal formation of followers of Jesus, and often, a big part of someone’s journey toward Jesus.
We don’t recommend that you spend your whole work week preparing for a sermon, but… In light of its importance in the life and rhythms of your community, here are 5 questions to ask as you think about what you’ve written, and what God has laid on your heart to communicate to your community this week.

Where in this message do I clearly point to Jesus?

If the aim of the whole Bible is to point to the work and person of Jesus, then shouldn’t we do the same every time we preach? Whether we’re in the Old Testament or Wisdom literature, or the Pastoral Epistles, there’s a always a bridge to Jesus, and we should look for it. As I preach Old Testament characters, I’m often asking “Where does this character’s victories or failures point to Jesus?” “What did they get wrong that Jesus got right?” or “How, rather than being a role model for me, is this character showing me something I could NEVER do, but that Jesus DID on my behalf?” A great example is that of David- too many of us preach his victory over Goliath as some kind or moralistic hero tail- “Believe God and He will help you defeat the giants in YOUR life!” That’s not the point of the story! We’re not the hero David- we’re the cowering Israelites who need an unlikely Savior to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. (If you are looking for more on how to preach this way,  we recommend Tim Keller’s excellent Preaching.)
Always pointing to Jesus is the point of preaching- without it, at best we’re just giving people tips on how to be slightly better people, and at worst churning out Pharisees who think the point of the Christian life is to do more, or do better. Point them to Jesus instead, and encourage them to rest in HIS finished work, and then, out of gratitude, live their lives more and more like Him.

Where in this message do I speak to non-Christians?

A surprising number of sermons omit this. Even if your sermon is on some point of Christian living, if you truly are a missional community, you should expect some element of the neighborhood to be present in your gatherings, and you should preach as though they are. Even if you and your community aren’t doing the best at inviting others in to the life of your community (including worship gatherings), preaching with a view to saying something of value and invitation to non-Christians, in a careful and sensitive way, is a great way of teaching your church community how to talk about various topics to their friends and neighbors. It also shows them that your community is a safe space to invite their friends into. It doesn’t have to be an INVITATION (in the classic, come-down-to-the-altar sense)- just a simple “If you are here today, and you are not yet a follower of Jesus, or are still exploring and questioning, here’s what I want you to think about…” or “Here’s where this text touches your life if you’re not sure about Jesus.”

Where in this message do I speak to Christians?

It’s possible to get so focused on those among us who might not yet be followers of Jesus, that we forget to regularly encourage those who are following Him, or who are struggling. That’s why after I speak to the non-Christians, I always want to say something like “If you are here and you are a follower of Jesus…”. Often, I’m saying the same thing to non-Christians and to Christians, just with slightly different emphases for those on either side of the decision to be a Christ-follower. But making it explicit is always helpful, especially as sometimes people tend to tune out when they hear you addressing a group (like non-Christians) that they are not a part of. There’s a piece of the Good News in that text and in your sermon for everyone- tell them what it is and invite them to grab hold of it! If we really believe that the Gospel is not just the start of our Christian lives, but the way we live it, grow and are ultimately formed into the character of Jesus, then even mature believers and long-time Christians need to hear the Good News preached in a way that helps that to grab hold even firmly to what Jesus has done for them, and what it means now, right now today, in their lives.

Where in this message do I speak to the heart?

Sermon prep for you probably looks a lot like reading books and commentaries to help you understand and explain the text. The problem is that too often, this leads us to not just an intellectual understanding of whatever subject or passage we are preaching, but an intellectual presentation of that subject or text. And there’s probably a lot of people who are listening to you that love that- they love gaining a new insight about a text that has troubled them, or finally having something explained to them in a new way.
But that’s not the point of preaching. Gaining insight about a text, or understanding of the biblical context around a passage is good, but it doesn’t move the human heart any closer to the Kingdom of God.
In asking this question of my sermons, I’m really trying to get at “Where does the Good News of the Gospel intersect with what people are going through in their lives right now?” I want to help people connect emotionally with the issue I will speak to in the coming minutes. I want to know where what I’m preaching speaks to the deep needs of the people that are listening- where it touches our shared human experience. I can explain a text all day long, but until I access their hearts, and show them where the Gospel touches their loneliness or their grief, their joy or their pain, their desire for more or their fear of the future, I haven’t really done what I need to do.
We want to partner with the Holy Spirit in seeing hearts moved toward God, and lives transformed more and more into the image of Christ. We’ll never really get there if we’re not constantly reminding ourselves to speak not just to the heads and intellect of our listeners, but to their hearts as well.
And finally, the last question I ask of my sermon is…

Where in this message do I give people something to do right now- rather than later?

Too often, the take away from our sermons is something to do, decide or die to later. And the real question is, how many of our listeners remember that past lunch, much less into the coming weeks and months. That’s why I always strive to give my listeners something to do right now– this morning, before we end this sermon. I want them to commit, to make a plan to do something, to decide to forgive someone- whatever it is. I want to give time for reflection, space to do business with God and challenge them to do it- to not wait until later, because later it will be forgotten. What is God saying to us today, and how will we answer Him?
These questions may seem like something of a checklist- I certainly don’t mean to complicate your sermon prep process. They have been useful to me as I have strived to preach the Gospel to whoever was listening, week in and week out, and to see that Gospel message become sticky in the lives of the people I pastor. Hopefully, they won’t necessitate a complete re-write for you this week, but subtle tweaks of a sentence here or there, and maybe a conclusion that points more to Jesus than it did before.
Unless, of course, your sermon this week is “Slaying the Giants in Your Life.” If it is, go ahead and start over.

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