What is Church Anyways? - Part 5
Ξ March 18th, 2006 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Theology |
Don’t you think it’s interesting that we have a nice list of how to do church in 1 Corinthians 14 and while there are specific items in that text that are not apart of our services, we have armies of people doing things like coffee, nursery, and kids ministry. I’m not saying that these are unnecessary ministries, but it’s interesting that people are happy to labor to achieve elements that didn’t make Paul’s list yet there are items on the list that are completely overlooked by church leaders. This is just a sort of interesting thought. I thought I’d mention it.
This brings me to the spiritual gifts. Sadly the spiritual gifts have become an unwelcome guest at many Christian gatherings. I personally believe we are missing out on SO much that God has for us because we write off the gifts as being for other people, or even people from a different time. The fact is that we have access to these gifts to be able to witness signs and wonders every bit as amazing as those found in the Bible. We are just unwilling to pursue them. Why? Probably the best answer to this “why” is that we are terrified of losing control. Pastors are afraid of not being able to keep the service under a certain length. Parishioners are afraid of God making them do something that will make them look funny or feel self conscious.
This is another pitfall of a service that is trying to be all things to all people. We are trying to please everyone. We want to be elementary enough to the new folks and deep enough for the regulars. We want to have a little something for everyone while at the same time; we don’t want to run over the maximum service time we have set in our heads. Because we just don’t know what the spiritual gifts will bring on a given Sunday, we just leave them out so our time doesn’t get out of our control and so that we can be sure that no one will feel uncomfortable and complain about what we allowed to take place.
Some of the spiritual gifts simply don’t work well in large groups. In a large group you just can’t really be apart of what’s going on everywhere in the room. What goes on at one end of the church is often lost on the people who are across the room sometimes totally unaware of what’s going on. So you might say, “ah well God just wanted to encourage that one person this week.” Well, sorry to say, but I don’t think so. At least, I don’t think this should be the norm. It is very clear in 1 Corinthians that the gifts are for the ecouragement of the church. I’ll go a step further to say that this is especially the case when we are in a group setting.
The other issue with personalized ministry in Sunday service settings is availability. Often in large meetings prayer ministry will begin at the end of the gathering. Sometimes there are people who are the verge of walking to the front for some prayer but who can’t bring themselves to go. They often feel quite insignificant as they look and see all the leaders praying over other people. Sometimes they manage to go down for prayer, sometimes they just decide to blow it off and wait for a time when they don’t feel quite so insignificant.
Enter the small group. In a small group it’s far harder to kind of slip through the cracks like that. Leaders and peers are far more available in a small group setting. Someone could directly approach you in a small group because they know you and already have a rapore with you. Perhaps they might even know that the topic at hand has some significance to you because they actually know you personally. In most cases, a smaller group of poeple better lends itself to personalized ministry.
The thing here is that I think that every Christian community should be encouraging people to exercise and seek out their spiritual gifts. Why, because these gifts are designed to edify and build up the church and without them, well there is edification that just isn’t happening. People are not being encouraged as much. There is something incredibly valuable about being singled out by God through the work of the Holy Spirit in another person. Receiving a prophetic word that is bang on is like having the heavens part and having the hand of God come down and point directly at you as though to say, “I know you, and I know what you’re going through.” Frankly it blows any human to human encouragement out of the water, and we all know how very positive encouragement from another human can be. Now multiply that…a LOT and that’s what it’s like to be encouraged by God through the manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps these manifestations don’t happen because a Sunday morning with 400 people is not a good place to single out the needs of one person and have the rest of the people respond with prayer and perhaps a spiritual gift. Perhaps we feel that if we do this for one person, then everyone will want it. (Well isn’t that the point?) Perhaps we feel that if we don’t do it for anyone, then we’re being fair.
The bottom line is that prophesy and tongues both show up in Paul’s list in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and neither of them show themselves in many, many churches from week to week. So if Paul says it should be a part of our Sunday (in that it’s a church gathering) and we don’t do it, then what is our Sunday for? We already discussed how it’s not really logical to think that Sunday’s purpose is prayer and worship because we would be doing that anyways if we were truly good at living our lives to the standard that Jesus set for us.
The small group is a good answer in todays world. They provide a more intimate setting to explore and exercise the spiritual gifts. It’s not about hiding them away from the Sunday service, but using them where they will do the most good.
Revised (edited for grammar and content) March 21, 2006