With the departure of Joe and Megan Hill, the lifecycle of Lafayette Community Church has come full circle, and if we are being honest, we are a church that needs to basically begin again all over from scratch—with the one exception that we already own a building.
But before, I get into what “starting over from scratch” looks like, I want to first express my appreciation for Joe and Megan.
Appreciation for the Hills
My appreciation for Joe and Megan is extreme. From the first time I met them years ago, they have together helped me to become a better version of the pastor God is calling me to be. Additionally, their presence in our church has made us a more prayerful, caring, and community-minded church. They have led Core Groups, Megan has been a coach, Office Manager, and Connections Team coordinator, Joe has been an Elder, and Eloise has been the church encouragement machine through her incredible powers of hugs and smiles.
Additionally, you might not know that over the past 12 months, Joe and Megan have invested countless hours to be an encouragement to Jen and me. The four of us have met generally three times every week to chat and encourage each other.
A Sad Separation
Nevertheless, through the past year, it has become increasingly clear that God is leading us in slightly different directions regarding church ministry. God has put a burden on their heart for a new ministry vision, and though that vision has not yet been made clear to them, they see God leading them into a phase of ministry exploration. Jen and I are sad to see them go, but we are eager to see what new ministry God leads them into.
What it Means for LCC
With their departure, we need to be honest with ourselves that the eldership infrastructure of LCC has evaporated. Joe and I were the last members of the Elder Board, and now it is back to just me. Additionally, after the past 18 months, all our metrics like membership, attendance, viewership, and finances, have reached extreme lows.
For many churches, this would be the point in time where they begin to consider “closing down.”
However, when Jen and I moved to Lafayette, we made a commitment to each other that we would stay here for 20 years investing our lives in the work of church planting, reaching the unreached, and pastoring the people God brings to us, and we still have 5 more years until we hit 20, so the two of us aren’t ready to close down any time soon.
Mission Clarity
So, since we are at an extreme low point in the life of our church, and since it is basically time to start all over again. The first thing we need to do is re-establish clarity around our mission and what it is that God is calling us to be and to do in Greater Lafayette.
Our mission has always centered around four basic themes or core values, and we have no intention of changing them:
God Comes First
Our primary goal as a church is to be a place where people can encounter God’s presence and be motivated to put him first in their lives. Our primary strategy for making that happen is to hold Sunday worship gatherings. At our gatherings, people who want to put God first will worship him with their whole heart through singing songs and serving others. They will seek to be encouraged and challenged by God’s Word so that they will reflect him even more in their week ahead. Also, at our gatherings, people who don’t yet know God will find a family-style environment where everyone is welcome.
Community
As a church, we realize that building healthy relationships and maintaining a commitment to each other is critical not only to our own well-being but also to our calling as Christians. The Bible speaks repeatedly about the importance of unity, the commitment Christians should have to show real love to one another, to speak the truth in love to each other, and to confront sin when needed. Confronting sin is never pleasant, and that’s why a solid commitment to stick together in community is so important for us to grow into the people God wants us to be!
Growth
From the beginning, we have affirmed that spiritual growth, practical growth, and congregation numerical growth are all intertwined. A church that grows in numbers without the underlying spiritual growth is a “bubble” church that can pop any time spiritual concerns come into conflict with the comforts of the people. A church that thinks it is growing spiritually with no numerical growth is generally fooling itself. People who think they are growing spiritually without it making a practical difference in everyday life are also fooling themselves. God has called us as people to become more like Jesus, and until we all reach perfect unity and perfect maturity looking like Jesus in this world, we have more growing to do!
Ministry
When we use the word ministry, we simply mean investing our lives in the other three core values for the benefit of other people. Ministry is helping other people put God first. Ministry is helping other people find healthy Christian community. Ministry is helping other people grow spiritually and practically. Ministry is helping the church to grow numerically too.
However, Ministry also flows beyond purely “spiritual” concerns, and this needs to be a major new area of focus for us as a church.
In the past, we talked about “being a blessing” to the people around us.
We talked about “inviting people” to come to a church event.
But Scripture is clear that ministry goes beyond getting people saved, baptized, and educated in the faith. Ministry involves looking like Jesus in the midst of this broken world. It involves being salt and light.
Consider this:
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. — Matthew 5:16 NIV
This is a passage that we looked at just a few weeks ago in a Sunday message, and I’m struck by the fact that one way Jesus wants his followers to “put God first” involves just doing things the world sees as “good.”
Now, I don’t think he means we should live according to the world’s value system, but I’m certain he is saying that when Christians live out the life of Jesus, much of what they do will be undeniably “good” and when people who aren’t Christians see the “good” done by Christians, they will end up in one small way or another giving glory to God for it.
Therefore, our Ministry needs to include living good lives and shining a good light in this world.
Ministry Moving Forward
Up to this point, there’s probably nothing in this post that conflicts with the value system of any of the people who have stayed in our church or any of the people who have left our church over the years, but divisions in churches usually take place in response to the specifics of the ministry direction that church takes. That’s why it’s important for me to address the ministry direction I feel God is leading us to take as a congregation of people trying to live like Jesus in this broken world.
Consider this passage I read in one of our Vision Dinners a few years ago:
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. — Isaiah 58:6-11 NIV
This promise was given by God to the people of Israel, but there is nothing about it that limits it only to the people of Israel. When God’s people, whoever they are, “do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk” when they spend themselves “in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed” then their “light will rise in the darkness”!
For years, I have struggled to fully understand what passages like these mean in the context of our current world, but during the past year, my eyes have been opened to “the needs of the oppressed” like never before, and I’m convinced more and more that in order to properly do ministry in the context of a broken world, we need to do a better job of understanding the broken systems in our broken world, talking about those systems, and directly interacting with the “yoke of oppression” wherever it may exist in our society and in our world today.
I think I’m ready to take the risk to “spend myself” in behalf of the needy and to trust God to keep his promise that our “light will rise in the darkness.”
However, I think we should be clear about what this will mean for the ministry of our church.
First, as a church, we will need to acknowledge that our broken world has systems of oppression baked into it such as these:
- Racism (structural, individual, or implicit) is a real and current problem in our world. People of color especially are dealing with a yoke of oppression that Christians can recognize, talk about, understand, and address.
- Capitalism is an economic system that has generated great prosperity in our world, but it has also led to great inequities. It is based unashamedly on greed, and Christians are specifically taught by Paul to view greed as a sin akin to sexual immorality or murder. Therefore, Christians should be the first to see unrestricted capitalism as an intrinsically un-Christian economic system. That doesn’t mean Christians should oppose capitalism, but it means that Christians should be consciously aware of the greed inherent in the system and prepared to address the oppressive yokes created by that system.
- Climate change is real; it is already leading to the deaths of many people around the world; and humans are accelerating it. We were given the mandate by our Creator to have “dominion” over the world in his image, and therefore whatever is happening in our world is under our jurisdiction. If the climate is changing in negative ways, Christians should see it as their duty before God to address it. We might disagree on methods, but God has put the nurture of this world into the hands of people. Christians should be at the forefront of both science and activism to addresses climate change for the good of the whole Earth.
Additionally, there are other issues of justice and morality that have divided people into political camps. These devisions further exacerbate the issues. But Christians are uniquely positioned to address these issues because the true moral issues straddle the political dividing lines:
- The Sanctity of Life is a moral issue that crosses political lines, but the secular political world is divided into camps that focus on component parts instead of the bigger picture. Christians are called to something higher. We consider that all lives are precious to God from womb to tomb, and therefore, we should willingly promote organizations, policies, and actions that consider life to be precious, whether the specific issue is abortion, gun safety, healthcare, daycare, the death penalty, or public health measures.
- Politicians and public figures are only humans as are all the people in our lives whether we agree or disagree with them. The secular world establishes alliances with likeminded people. They excuse the misbehavior of those in their own camps, but attack the people in other camps. Not so with us! As Christians, we do not align ourselves with political parties or earthly authorities. We have the freedom to call a sin a sin wherever it is. We have the moral responsibility to identify sins and moral failings so that we can avoid them in our lives and so we might lead others into repentance. But regardless, we do not have the freedom to vilify people, blame them, idolize them, revere them, or treat them like either gods or demons. Christians must be those who speak truth in love. We must be the first to express cordiality, consideration, compassion, and love alongside truth whether doing so in person or through digital media.
If it is not clear, I’m dreaming of a church that rises above the social divisiveness of our day. We will be people who use liberal-sounding words at times, but our actions will shine a light in this dark world. We might use conservative-sounding words sometimes, but our actions will shine a light in this dark world. We will not align ourselves with any earthly power or authority, and we won’t shy away from addressing any earthly injustice or immorality. We won’t be “political” in the sense that we want other people to solve the problems, but we might sound “political” since being salt and light in a broken world requires we intersect the policies of our society.
These are not “political” issues in the sense that they are meaningless to Christians. These are issues of justice and oppression that are central to what it means to be a follower of Jesus in this modern broken world. These are the issues where Christians can be salt and light not because we took a specific “position” on an issue, but because we stepped into the midst of the issue to meet the hurting people where they are and address the problems they are facing.
Starting Over
Therefore, as a church, we are going to do the basics well. We are going to worship, grow, and fellowship. We are going to do the ministry that provides spiritual blessing to people. However, we are going to do a much better job of being the hands and feet of Jesus in this world. We are going to do a better job of talking like Jesus would about the issues in our society. And we are going to do our best to let the light of our good deeds shine before others so that they would be drawn to giving glory to God because of us.