Futureville by Jethani Skye

Author:Jethani, Skye [Jethani, Skye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2014-01-27T16:00:00+00:00

THE DIVIDE

By ignoring the doctrines of our highest and specific callings, the contemporary church has also found itself employing a leadership model that looks more like a corporation in which a single visionary leader determines everyone’s work. Drawn by the efficiency and success of corporations, many pastors think of themselves as CEOs of an organization. They articulate a mission, set goals, rally people and resources around themselves, and finally align them all to accomplish a single task. This model would look familiar to Eusebius and would probably be affirmed by him. In it the church leader is the individual hearing from God, and the work of the institutional church is what ultimately matters. Whether a person is a nurse, farmer, architect, or shopkeeper is irrelevant, as long as she is onboard with the church’s vision in her free time and contributes to it. A person’s value, in this model, is determined by how closely she aligns with the institutional church’s vision and mission.

Often the mission articulated in this model is rooted in Scripture and part of our common callings, such as the call to “make disciples” or to be “witnesses of Jesus Christ.” Who would disagree with the importance of these works? Still, when these callings are untethered from our highest call (communion with God) or the specific vocations Christ has given to each of his followers, it can do great damage. When this happens, the institutional church’s work soon becomes all-consuming, and many Christians develop a suspicion that the church’s leaders really only care about advancing their institution’s agenda. They begin to feel like the leaders are using them rather than loving them.

I have been guilty of this. For years I served as a teaching pastor at my church, but then left the pastoral team to pursue a calling outside the institutional church. For the first time since graduating from seminary I found myself in the pews more often than in the pulpit, and it changed my perspective. Working as an editor for a Christian magazine, traveling more often, and juggling a young family left little flexible time in my schedule. There was simply no way I could participate in everything the church was asking me to while also fulfilling the specific calling I believed God had given me to pursue outside the church.

Within a few months I understood how most of the people in my congregation felt, and I came to see how insensitive and guilt-inducing many of my past sermons must have been. For years I had called them to give more time, money, and energy to the work of the institutional church in sermon after sermon with little or no understanding or affirmation of their specific callings in the world. I had inadvertently created a secular versus sacred divide in which the “sacred” calling of the church was pitted against their “secular” callings in the world. I never said this explicitly in a sermon, but I often implied it.

Months later, when I was invited to preach

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