In AD 324, Constantine the Great defeated his rival claimant to the Roman throne. After deciding that Rome was a poor location for his capital, Constantine choose the city of Byzantium for the seat of government. Straddling the connection point between Europe and Asia, Byzantium was the perfect spot for managing the European, Asian, and North African territories of the Roman Empire. There was a catch: it was too small.
In AD 330, the city was named Constantinople. An enormous building project began to enlarge the rather small metropolis, with armies of workers, craftsmen, and artisans. The new emperor was in a hurry, and passed his urgency on to his subjects. In their haste to fill the city with works of art and beauty worthy of an emperor, officials sent collectors throughout the empire gathering statues, columns and carvings from all nations. It was faster to take and transport these works than to carve new ones entirely. The scavenging was so efficient that Saint Jerome, writing in the same city years later, was to describe Constantinople as a city clothed in the nakedness of the Empire.
In the 1980’s a similar phenomenon took place in the free enterprise world of finance and business. Head-hunters, people charged with scavenging top-tier talent from industry and business, recruited the brightest minds in their fields in order to place them with other companies. Pillaging one company in order to serve another was just business as usual in a time when personnel demands out-stripped supply.
The trend continues today in the North American Christian environment. Churches choose not to raise up the next generation of church leaders, preferring instead to hire another church’s pastor. Mission agencies invest in workers, nurturing and growing tomorrow’s leaders only to see another organization with deeper pockets hire those apprentices away. Pastor search committees start with applicants from outside the church first, and only look within if there is no other option. Mentoring and apprenticeships, once a staple of producing a continuous flow of skilled workers in any field, no longer has a place in the North American church. And each church looks to dress itself in the nakedness of another.
Unlike fourth century cities and 80’s-era businesses, churches should not look to advance themselves at the expense of another. Churches, agencies, and ministries have a responsibility to serve their people in a fashion similar to Jesus’: invest in the lives and potential of those who are present and willing. Train them, mentor them, nurture them until they are prepared to fill the shoes of elder leaders who have come to the end of a long faithful journey. Churches and leaders must devote themselves to the task of making sure their people, their offspring are capable of standing on their own two feet when the call to God’s service comes. The Christian community’s failure to do this, to invest and nurture, seems to have guaranteed that the call will never come because their people are not ready.
While serving their people, these organizations also have a responsibility to serve the entire Christian community. Christian ministries and agencies must recall that we are one, linked in our faith and in our position within the family of God. Pillaging the staff of Ministry X in order to fill a position at Church Y ultimately hurts both. Ministry X will need a new staff member and Church Y has taught its members that none of them will ever be good enough to lead a church. Both ministries are jerked off course as new parts are massaged into place and new gaps are slowly filled. Is it any wonder tenures are down, pastors are scarce, and leadership structures are aging?
Whose clothes are these, and where did I get them? And whose clothes are you wearing?
Wow. That’s a brain-full, Jeremy!
I love that line, “clothed in the nakedness of the empire.” That kind of sums up the way we do things, doesn’t it?
I’ve seen criticism (which I think is largely justified) of the Walmartization of the church – large churches growing by draining the blood of smaller churches. But this is a unique perspective in applying that principle to leadership.
I don’t think that there are many churches or organizations who put a priority on training their next generation of leaders. The assumption is that when we need new leaders. we’ll just post the job and wait on resumes.
Lot’s to consider here.
I can take no credit for the line about nakedness. Talk to Jerome for proper credit. As well, to be fair, I must credit author Justo Gonzales for my data.
A dear pastor friend of mine recently died, and his church is continuing to function because he worked so hard to train those under him. They lack a paid pastor, but worship continues, the word is preached, and fellowship happens.
Jeremy,
You have captured why I am so adamant about the need for intentional discipleship in our churches. God will raise up leaders for his church from within if we will commit to doing our part in making disciples. This is something we are sorely lacking in the Dakotas, but something we are working to correct.
Lacking in the Dakotas, Jeff?
We’re lacking it across American Christianity. I think Scripture supports a level of full-time pastor-teachers, but I think most leadership in a church should be internal-grown. What amazes me with this subject is this: In all missionary situations, the teaching, books, and experience sides with get indigenous (local, same culture) leadership in place as quickly as possible! Yet we act like that doesn’t apply to America. We take the view that leadership should be imported to churches. I like what someone said on the “borrowing sermons” discussion: treat yourself as the research assistant for the congregation to learn.
Those of us that are “professional” (yes, John Piper thinks we shouldn’t use that term) ministers should see ourselves as consultants/advisors in a lot of ways: help the church find the people internal that can be doing the work, train them, be the resource they need.
There’s a lot to be said for Jeremy’s line of thought here. I like it.
I hate to overgeneralize. I only have Arkansas and the Dakotas as practical experience, and I got chewed out once for overusing “we” in a Sunday school class (someone took a real dislike to my including everyone in a statement, but I don’t remember what).
Kidding aside, I know it is a larger problem. One of the things that excites me about places like Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, ID is that they have developed a wonderful roadmap and process for discipleship that has produced lots of leaders from within. It is something more of us need to learn from and bring to our own backyards. I admit that the process will be slow (I am in it right now) because people can’t and wont change overnight.
I know it’s a fine line to walk: we can often see that something is a major pattern, but then get blasted for generalizing from it.
I’m actually a little surprised that it sounds like as big of an issue in the Dakotas as it is in Arkansas. In Arkansas, there’s plenty of ‘cultural’ reasons for being a church-goer, and it dilutes the commitment level. Without some of those cultural expectations up in the vast wasteland that is anything north of the Ozarks, I would have expected more commitment but fewer people.
Learning and growing….
And yeah, the process is slow. Changing Baptist churches is the one thing that makes glaciers seem fast.
That is funny and sad and true all at the same time. As for the more commitment but fewer people, that is somewhat the case. The problem stems from the fewer people part. There are still fringe folks here in the north. People who come to church once in a blue moon after four people besides the pastor have mentioned that they missed seeing them. People who come when they need something done. People who come when they have nothing else to do. People who come and just hang out in the background and wonder why they aren’t “getting more” out of church. You name it.
Why seek to change a Baptist church (at least radically)? Why not use these old work horses as the major resource for starting churches — in their own style and with their own “traditions.”
I have children and they are quite independent. I love them and support them and they are doing there own thing and doing fine — with some occasional support and well-placed words of wisdom.
They don’t sing my music, or read my books (except for a modern version of my Bible). In my opinion: change is over-rated. Why not take a path that is a “win-win”: God is glorified and everyone is happy–though not clones.
Frank,
I can only speak to my own circumstance (again not wishing to overgeneralize), but the reason we are seeking to change things is because we are ineffective and unable to reach our community as we are currently operating. We were started as a “missile church” that ministered to Southern transplants serving to build the missile defense network and maintain it. Those people aren’t here anymore. The missiles are gone.
If we want to survive and yes, grow; we have to do things differently. The folks in the church are driving the change; they aren’t wanting to keep doing church just for the sake of doing church anymore. This isn’t about music or programs or books; this is about learning how to make disciples in the place where God has planted us and doing so biblically.
Sounds like a great plan. But your just one church. I don’t make the assumption your church is typical.
I allow for the possibility all older churches are dying and ineffective as you describe yours. One way, not the only way, to keep being effective is to sponsor and support new work.
Dan Barnes, in a recent post about ageism, gave some practical points that relate to this subject. My approach is often philosophical, and Mr. Barnes outdid me in his real-world suggestions.
Don’t say that. Dan will just get a big head!
I always have you to keep me humble Dave.
I try, Dan. I do my best!
In Iowa, (and other new work states, I’m guessing) there is a problem in getting people to some and serve our churches (cold weather, far from home, low pay, whatever). But a few of our churches have found local men who have grown and become leaders and made them pastor. Raising up a leader within the church has generally worked pretty well.
A church that my church planted a while back lost its pastor. One of the men in the church was near retirement from the Post Office and had been taking seminary classes. He is now the pastor and that church is doing very well.
He has credibility in the community. They know him. He is the town pastor.
There is no cookie-cutter approach, but home-grown leadership does have a lot of advantages.
I think there is a problem with the way we view the ministry from inside. Simply put, we use the coorporate model to work our way up. No one starts at “the big church”, so you have to start small. Many pastors start in Youth Ministry as the “first step” and then they move forward to the small church. After a few years, they begin to seek a larger church and so on and so forth. A few exceptions, like Rick Warren and Mark Driscoll planted a church and it grew to be a mega-church, but most of us expect to have to “pay our dues”. As long as we as pastors and future pastors have this mindset, the issue will continue. At least in my opinion.
The interesting thing about Constantinople, for me, leastways, is that it preserved the Greek language, and when the study of Greek was revived in the West it was revived by those who fled the Fall of Constantinople to the Turks. Also Constantinople was a source of some of the other groups who claimed to be the church. For example, the last commander of the last roman Garrison in Great Britain was the son of the Novation Bishop of Constantinople, and after his return to Constantinople with the withdrawl of the last garrison he succeeded his father as the Novatian Bishop of that city. Could this also be the reason why the Celtic churches of Great Britain retained a contact with the churches of the Middle East, when they would not fellowship with Rome? Celtic Christians kept alive the study of the Greek longer than Rome did.