Here’s more from Michael Frost’s book, Exiles. Remember that Frost considers followers of Jesus in North America today to be exiles, strangers away from home in a foreign land. What are your thoughts about this quote?
"Our churches, under the guise of doing the work of Christ, are inadvertently sucking us away from the very people that Jesus would want us to hang out with… Read the dangerous stories in the Gospels, and then tell me that Jesus wants you to be so busy with church activities… Exiles have figured out that churches don’t value people who won’t turn up for every meeting, attend every event, and locate all their significant friendships within the congregation… Exiles have realized that they are to practice the presence of Christ right under people’s noses, where the wonderful aroma of Jesus can be sensed." (pp.63-64)
Sounds like an endless loop, Rob. How can we redeem the organization, the institution, of the local church? What architecture, what structure of leadership can we practically devise that keeps us from becomming a committee-run, budget-bashing behometh while still pursuing our ultimate aims?
True, very true.
I remember Reggie McNeal making a similar comment in “Present Future” about church work as servicing spiritual seekers and Clapp in “Peculiar People” comparing ministers to organizational managers.
The hope that we ministers keep in this ugly and somewhat true analysis is that our management service just might better prepare others (multiplication) who will live well in their contexts. That is, if the organization is not taking up all their time.