What If Church Isn’t Supposed to Be A Weekly Cataclysm?

Mike Leake 1 Comment

Chew on this:

In his wisdom, God has crafted a life for us that does not careen from huge, consequential moment to huge, consequential moments. In fact, if you examine your life, you will see that you have actually had few of those moments. You can probably name only two or three life-changing situations you have lived through. We are all the same; the character and quality of your life is forged in little moments. Every day we lay little bricks on the foundation of what our life will be. (Tripp, What Did You Expect?, 58)

This is, in my mind, one of the most helpful chapter’s of Paul Tripp’s book on marriage. Here he is making the argument that we must develop a “little-moment” approach to our marriages. And I think he is right. He goes on to say, “things in a marriage go bad progressively. Things become sweet and beautiful progressively.”

As I was thinking through the chapter I just read, getting ready for a counseling appointment, and thinking through how this applies to my own marriage, I decided to open some mail. One of the letters I received was from one of those super cool conferences that I absolutely MUST attend. Having just read that paragraph from Tripp a particular statement on that flier stood out to me: An Experience that will CHANGE YOUR CHURCH.

Why do we do this?

Given the rhythms of church life here in America, I think we are trained to think of church as moving from one big moment to the next. We move from Sunday to Sunday and Wednesday to Wednesday, with each one being a monumental moment. Think about the way we often advertise our Sunday morning gatherings. We don’t want anyone to miss out on the life-changing encounter with God….every single Sunday.

We are trained to think in big moments. We become wired to think that the way people grow, and churches grow, and pastors are encouraged, and disciples are trained, is by moving from monumental encounter to monumental encounter.

But what if that isn’t how God usually works? What if what Tripp says about marriage is also true of our church and our ministry? What if the reason why so many marriages are difficult for pastors is that we’ve been trained to think in cataclysms when our marriages thrive on the commonplace? Should we not put into the life of our church daily rhythms similar to that which should be in our marriages?

What would this look like in practice?

In What Did You Expect?, Tripp gives six commitments that mark a day by day marriage. I wonder if these couldn’t be revamped a bit and put into the DNA of our local churches.

  • COMMITMENT #1: We will give ourselves to a regular lifestyle of confession and forgiveness.
  • COMMITMENT #2: We will make growth and change our daily agenda.
  • COMMITMENT #3: We will work together to build a sturdy bond of trust.
  • COMMITMENT #4: We will commit to building a relationship of love.
  • COMMITMENT #5: We will deal with our differences with appreciation and grace.
  • COMMITMENT #6: We will work to protect our marriage.

As I read through the book of Acts what I see is something similar. What we read in Acts 2:42-47 looks an awful lot like having a day by day commitment to one another. This is why things like life groups (or small groups) is, I believe, vital to the health of a local church. It creates in us a day by day way of thinking about life together and less about just gathering with a group of like-minded people once or twice per week.

Marriages are built brick by brick, day by day, tiny moment by tiny moment. And I’m convinced that churches are the same way. What would it look like for us to adopt this way of thinking in our local church? What would change?

Why ‘Going Through the Motions’ Could Be Satanic

Mike Leake

emma-simpson-153970You’ve likely heard the old Christian slogan, “Fact! Faith! Feelings!” I remember when I first became a believer stumbling upon a picture of a train with those words inside each train car. The caboose was labeled “feelings” and the locomotive was labeled “fact”. And it was explained this way: “The train will run with or without the caboose. However, it would be futile to attempt to pull the train by the caboose.”

There is healthy truth in this slogan. In fact, I said something similar last Sunday when I told our congregation that we need our theology to inform our feelings instead of the other way around. That’s saying something very similar to that tract I picked up as a new believer. So there is a way in which this slogan can be very helpful.

There are times when I’m in the darkness of depression that I need to hear, “Get up, get to work, do the things you ought to be doing, and stop focusing so much on your feelings!” That’s good counsel for me in those moments. But I’m convinced there is also a way in which the just-keep-doing-stuff-until-you-feel is deadly to my walk with Christ. In fact, as I study the Scriptures I’m increasingly convinced that a “going through the motions” Christianity is potentially Satanic. Let me explain through a set of propositions.

Real ministry is tough and comes with little affirmation. It’s very difficult to measure changed hearts. Ministry is messy in a messed up world. It’s difficult labor and the stuff that really matters is often the things that go unnoticed. People seldom remember but tiny snippets of some of your sermons. Yet, this is the way God has designed for his people to grow, through slow plodding discipleship.

The outward stuff, that can be measured, is what tends to get affirmation. When a group of pastors get together we tend to measure one another based upon mostly unimportant things like budgets, buildings, and numbers like professions of faith. The outside of the cup is what people notice, that’s why the Pharisees worked so vigorously to clean it. Jesus said they were hungry for the praise of men, so everything they did in ministry was outward.

When I’m running on empty, my fool heart will gravitate towards that which results in praise. When I’m just going through the motions what I am going to be doing is all of the outside stuff that people notice and that people praise. We pastors know that if our budgets, buildings, and numbers start to fade then people are going to notice. Our inward life can crumble and collapse with little fanfare. But it’s when the outside of the cup starts to get smudges that we get the hint that we might want to tidy up our resume.

This is the point where that fact, faith, feeling thing gets really dangerous. We start running through the motions and putting all our time and energy into outward behavior. We climb on the praise of man treadmill. If people are pleased with us and celebrating out outward performance we assume that things are okay with our inward lives.

And this is how you end up with a guy standing before Jesus with a long list of things he did for the Lord but winding up in hell (Matthew 7).

The devil doesn’t care one bit about preventing us from doing works for the Lord, he cares about preventing belief and trust and union with Christ. Don’t believe me?

Notice what the devil prevents in Luke 8:12. “The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.”

Notice what Satan blinds unbelievers to in 2 Corinthians 4:4. “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

You see the enemy is perfectly fine with us doing all sorts of works even in the name of Jesus. He is perfectly fine with us going through the motions and being outwardly obedient, so long as the inner life is not captivated by Jesus. This is why I say at times telling someone to just keep doing stuff until they feel again might be helpful advice. But it also might be Satanic.

The key here is whether going through the motions is meant to get me by and keep up an appearance or whether it is to hang onto hope while our affections are disordered. It’s easy to go through the motions for a lengthy season (sometimes even filled with the praise of man) and not even realize that your inward life is out of order. When we realize, though, that we are just going through the motions it is key that we mourn this rather than minimize it with Christian slogans that keep us busy while our souls wither.

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Read This! 09.21.17

Mike Leake

From Where Does Bad Theology Come?

I thought the answer was going to be TBN.

Be Patient with Your Slow Growth

This is much easier said than done.

Will a Happy Marriage Prevent an Affair?

Wise words.

Tetzel on 7 Years in Purgatory for Every Sin

Man, the gospel is so much sweeter than this.

Four Types of Questions Not to Ask in Your Small Group Study

This is helpful. We are hoping to start small groups soon.

Suggested Steps for Going from Text To Sermon

I follow something similar to this.

Wrestling with the Biblical Text

Wow, this was really good and informative.

7 Good Reasons to Leave a Church

On some of these I might ask whether or not we ought to stay and try to transform, but I would also say these are valid reasons for leaving.

I get this question sometimes, how can I trust the Bible with so many different translations? Appreciate Bill Mounce’s answer:

Truth I’m Trying to Hold Onto

Mike Leake 2 Comments

I’m going through a rather dark season of the soul.

At times it’s just my depression talking and kind words are being filtered through a wickedly unhelpful lens. And at times it’s just that I’m enduring criticism on a daily basis for something or another. And I’m usually right there in the crowd yelling, “crucify him”. And so when my feelings are all jacked up I try my best to meditate upon things that I know to be true.

I don’t feel confident enough to write anything original today. But, I came up with this list a few years ago:

  • He knows what I need (Matthew 6:8)…even when I haven’t a clue.
  • It is His character to generously give (James 1:5)…even when I’m most undeserving.
  • He didn’t spare His Son for me (Romans 8:32)…even though I didn’t ask Him to, or desire for Him to do this.
  • He has provided the Spirit to intercede on my behalf when I don’t have the words to pray (Romans 8:26)…and even when my emotions don’t know how to feel.
  • He promises we will lack no good thing (Psalm 34:9-10)…even though I cry out that I’m empty.
  • He knows my frame, he remembers that I’m dust (Psalm 103:14)…in the times when I feel lower than dirt or more confident than I ought.
  • He doesn’t break bruised reeds, or quench smoldering wicks (Matthew 12:20)…even if that is exactly what I would do.
  • No one can snatch me out of His hand (John 10:28-29)…even if I try to leap out of His grasp.
  • He is not ashamed to call me brother, or son (Hebrews 2:11, Romans 8:15) …even when I feel bastardly
  • He has brought me near by His blood and placed me into His family, His body, His church (Ephesians 2:11-22)…even when I’m the crazy uncle.

These are but a few of the truths that I cling to. It’s a great reminder that it little matters what I write on the other side of those periods. It is as Bunyan said, “I saw that it is not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness IS Christ.”

I’m glad to have an anchor.

Praying I can deeply feel these precious truths once again.

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*These are worded in an individualistic way because I have found that to be most helpful. If I say “us, you, them” then I don’t personalize them and I assume that the promises are for someone else.

Originally appeared here.

Photo source: here