Church Business

The facebook status read something like this, “My Church family is better than yours.” The person’s heart was not in the wrong place. The person was simply saying that they loved their church family, and that is great. I love seeing enthusiasm for church family. However, if you have ever read my blog posts before, you know that if I see or hear a statement, my mind immediately begins chasing rabbit trails. So, I read, “My Church family is better than yours,” and I thought to myself, “You know…Churches really don’t work together that often. In fact, it is like we are rivals or competition to one another.” This then ushered in thoughts of how Churches begin to reflect business. We rarely call the people in our church 'family' anymore (which I loved about the particular post). What do we call them? Church members. What do we call people who want to potentially become a part of our church families? Prospective Members. Funny, that’s what country clubs call them too. Think about how the church is set up. At many churches, mostly Baptist, there are committees for EVERYTHING. I am, quite frankly, surprised that there is a not a ‘restroom committee’ that monitors the frequency of members bathroom usage during the service. There is even a Committee on Committees that is a committee that oversees all of the other committees. Then, with all these positions of ‘power’ available, people begin to search for means of promotion within the church. Not only is this business mind-set ruining relationships within our respective churches, it is ruining our relationships with our brothers and sisters at other churches. Just like in business, our churches have developed mindsets and strategies aimed at destroying the competition through flashy promotion, the latest trends, and of course, dousing the competition with underhanded comments and gossip. So, here’s the truth. According to scripture, we are not a business but a family. That, by the way, is not limited to your particular church, but every Scripture-affirming, Bible-believing, Christ honoring, and disciple making church in your area and around the world. This means that we should love each other as family.  We should care for each other as family. How is the world to know that we follow Christ? By how we love each other! So, let’s silence the nonsense of church rivalry. Let’s not let the fear of losing a church family member to another church stop us from working together. Let’s stop church hopping to find a church to fit our needs. Let’s get back to basics. Our job is to spread the message of the Gospel and the love of Christ to our neighbors (within and outside the church) so that they can glorify our Father. This is our purpose. We are family. Yes. That did get that song stuck in my head.

-Heath