Thursday Thirteen #7: Thirteen Required Attributes of Any Church I (Might Eventually) Attend

Time to look at the glass from the oppo­site direc­tion, i.e., half full.

Last week, I shared thir­teen of the things I do not miss about the insti­tu­tional church. This week, I’m enu­mer­at­ing, in no par­tic­u­lar order, thir­teen of the attrib­utes or char­ac­ter­is­tics I con­sider manda­tory in order for me to wor­ship reg­u­larly within an orga­nized com­mu­nity of believers.

1. Pur­pose — Wit­ness­ing and wor­ship­ing must be the pri­mary stated goals of the com­mu­nity and the focus of its activ­i­ties, as opposed to social inter­ac­tions.

2. Rad­i­cal inclu­siv­ity — This require­ment pretty much rules out any resump­tion of cor­po­rate wor­ship for me and, frankly, that is really disappointing.

A faith com­mu­nity must espouse and live out the prin­ci­pal of rad­i­cal inclu­siv­ity, not just give lip ser­vice to the con­cept. There must be an inten­tional, delib­er­ate, con­sis­tent wel­com­ing of per­sons of all races, col­ors, ances­tries, national ori­gins, gen­ders, sex­ual ori­en­ta­tions, faith back­grounds, mar­i­tal sta­tus, fam­ily com­po­si­tion, earn­ings brack­ets, social strat­i­fi­ca­tion. Never again will I spend time among a group of peo­ple who talk about how they to be per­ceived as warm, wel­com­ing and embrac­ing … and then walk right by the Sun­day morn­ing vis­i­tor who looks a lit­tle dif­fer­ent … on their way to the cof­fee pot next to which their friends are stand­ing so that they can gos­sip with those friends … about the unusual-looking visitor.

What would Jesus do?” That’s what every­one was ask­ing a few years ago. In many instances, I don’t think the answer is that hard to dis­cern. He would wel­come the odd-looking vis­i­tor and escort him over to the cof­fee pot. He’d sit at the same table as the vis­i­tor for the potluck din­ner and then he’d stand up and intro­duce his new friend to the crowd. He’d fight for his new friend … for his right to be accepted in his different-looking state, for his inher­ent worth as a human being, and for him to be treated as the equal and peer of each per­son in the wor­ship com­mu­nity, includ­ing and espe­cially the beau­ti­ful “in” crowd or pop­u­lar clique.

3. Com­mit­ment to social jus­tice — An orga­nized com­mu­nity of believ­ers must have an unequiv­o­cal plat­form, i.e., it must stand for spe­cific, artic­u­lated prin­ci­ples that are based upon the Bible as its mem­bers under­stand it. And the orga­ni­za­tion must be will­ing to accept the con­se­quences that flow from express­ing that plat­form. Didn’t Jesus say that believ­ing in him was going to sub­ject his fol­low­ers to per­se­cu­tion, pit­ting even fam­ily mem­bers against each other?

4. Vari­ety in wor­ship struc­ture — There’s no need to wor­ship the same way every Sun­day, month after month, year after year. There are infi­nite ways in which to struc­ture a wor­ship expe­ri­ence, lim­ited only by the imag­i­na­tion of the person(s) design­ing the wor­ship time.

5. Inspir­ing music that enhances the wor­ship expe­ri­ence — All dif­fer­ent styles of music should be employed because it is, like people’s reac­tions to it, infi­nitely var­ied and diverse. Why sing the same old songs over and over when there are so many to choose from?

6. Bible stud­ies for folks of all ages and lifestyles — In my opin­ion, any social activ­i­ties offered to a wor­ship community’s mem­bers must be sched­uled only after Bible study oppor­tu­ni­ties have been offered for every­one. That means that If you live it, they will come.peo­ple who must work all week to earn their daily bread need a Bible study oppor­tu­nity sched­uled out­side their nor­mal work and wor­ship hours. The church’s lead­er­ship has to under­stand that and work within those parameters.

7. Bible stud­ies focused on issues of social jus­tice, per­sonal devel­op­ment and con­tem­po­rary issues — There’s noth­ing wrong with Bible stud­ies designed for women who have a tra­di­tional mar­riage and want to focus on improv­ing it — unless that’s the only Bible study offered for the women in the community.

I want my church to lead me on a Bib­li­cal explo­ration of the issues con­fronting the world in which I live so that I am equipped, when hav­ing lunch with my col­leagues, for instance, to speak about those mat­ters from a Chris­t­ian per­spec­tive. Implicit in that require­ment is the con­comi­tant man­date that such edu­ca­tional pre­sen­ta­tions be accu­rate, fair and balanced.

8. Rel­e­vant, thought-provoking ser­mons — A “fresh style, uncom­mon clar­ity, the abil­ity to pro­vide solid doc­trine upon which peo­ple can base their lives, and an abil­ity to link his ser­mons to his hear­ers’ needs” are the attrib­utes ascribed to the preach­ing of Charles Spur­geon. If I were to learn about a modern-day Charles Spur­geon in my geo­graphic area, I would go lis­ten to him/her preach.

9. Lead­er­ship with integrity and by exam­ple — If you can’t trust the pas­tor, who can you trust?

10. Sound man­age­ment — The insti­tu­tional church is big busi­ness. Yet many churches oper­ate as though they are not just small busi­ness, but not busi­nesses at all. That is a major mis­take. The same prin­ci­ples that apply to run­ning any for-profit entity — includ­ing, but not lim­it­ing to fis­cal, per­son­nel, admin­is­tra­tive, sup­port issues / divi­sions — are applic­a­ble to orga­nized reli­gion. If you have paid staff, they must ful­fill their job duties com­pe­tently. If they don’t, there must be con­se­quences. It is utterly rep­re­hen­si­ble to deal with staff mem­bers in an inequitable man­ner before they also mem­bers of the con­gre­ga­tion. It is unfair to all con­cerns and an abuse of the author­ity and trust placed in the lead­er­ship by the

11. Account­abil­ity — The lead­er­ship is respon­si­ble and account­able to the com­mu­nity as a whole. Full dis­clo­sure of all aspects of the min­istry is required.

12. Dis­ci­ple­ship and Com­mu­nity Rela­tions — With apolo­gies to Kevin Cost­ner, et. al.: “If you live it, they will come.” That’s my the­sis. If the lead­ers of the wor­ship com­mu­nity are active in the com­mu­nity at large, set­ting an exam­ple by the way they live and serve, folks will want to find out what is so spe­cial about the orga­ni­za­tion they rep­re­sent. Yel­low Pages and news­pa­per adver­tise­ments, web­site, and other out­reach means are fine. But the best way to make dis­ci­ples is by mod­el­ing the love of the Divine for oth­ers. Sim­ply, if you have some­thing and other peo­ple want what you have, they will inquire about how to get it.

13. Love of the Divine — We can read the Bible, preach, attend stud­ies, sing songs, etc. from now until, lit­er­ally, the last day the earth exists as we know it. But unless the com­mu­nity of believ­ers exists because the mem­bers are fol­low­ers of the Divine, what is the point? That must be the priority.

Your thoughts? Leave a comment!

Thurs­day Thirteen

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