Oct 1999

• Respecting Boundaries II
• Young adults choose God at Joshua House  
• The Deception of the X-treme church
• Bioengineering  
• The Next Reformation
• Turning stones to soup
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Growth in church often flies in the face of what we might think obvious. I have experienced and analyzed that often, the harder you try to grow, the less you do. And the more you chase people, the less they want to be with you. And vice versa, the more you don't seek to keep people, the more they want to be around you. I think giving our members room to work out their own salvation by refusing to violate sane boundaries is the first step to growth and developing healthy disciples. Doug MurrenCSept. 1999

Slapping a sticker on a guest's lapel can be a crushing blow if they don't want to be known. After all, it may be that their marriage has just collapsed, they're still hung over from the evening before, or they are extremely shy because they have so much shame and guilt built up inside them. So how should we acknowledge and include new people? I recommend simply greeting visitors in a general way from the pulpit and making a clear statement that lets them know we respect their boundaries.

A typical road to commitment
The following progressive list gives us a good idea of the typical road a contemporary person might take to fullness in Christ: Disenfranchised and Disillusioned | Disillusioned and Curious | Cynical and Seeking | Fearful/Interested and Attending | Skeptical and Considering | A Decision for Christ | Questioning the Commitment | A Recommitment and Steady Devotion to Christ.

Healing cannot occur in an environment that is pushy and disrespectful. And it certainly cannot occur if we view newcomers as so many more checks on our spiritual scorecards. We must relax a bit and gently help folks move, one step at a time, along the road to spiritual maturity.

Baby boomers add to their own scheduling nightmare by their dogged determination to make sure their kids experience by age six everything the boomers experienced by age thirty-two. The cultural current is strong here. Soccer moms and dads enroll their kids in self-defense, dance, basketball, piano, and painting classes. And that's just in the fall. I know. Deb and I did some of it ourselves. I was even a Little League umpire for two years. (Now there's an experience that will toughen you up for just about anything.)

Boomer parents try hard for their kids' love...
Boomer parents try hard to make sure their kids will love them when they grow up. But I tell them: Slow down. No matter what you do, your kids still won't want to hang around with you much when they're seventeen.

Churches, unfortunately, don't help matters. Rather than encouraging families to spend time together and pursue spirituality at home, we tend to violate their boundaries by demanding excessive activity as a congregation. Commitment is measured by how often you're willing to leave your own home and show up at the church building. Too often, the by-product of this approach is guilt rather than joy and liberty. And people don't get healed in a church environment where guilt is compounded.

Does this mean we shouldn't have church?
Does this mean that we shouldn't have events at the church building? Absolutely not. But we shouldn't make attendance the test of loyalty. And we must strive to find better ways to enhance the spirituality of our people, using more effective schedules that give them room to breathe. This will mean, no doubt, tossing out a lot of tradition.

But change is necessary if we want to promote health. In some families, Mom goes to the Monday night Bible study; Dad plays on the church baseball team on Tuesdays; junior goes to youth group on Wednesday night; sis practices mime on Thursdays; then everyone splits up for separate classes on Sunday mornings and goes back again on Sunday night for the evangelism service. That kind of "centralized spirituality" works against healing because it makes people sick!

It's time we take the focus off the building and work toward more outreach and home-centered spiritual growth. My dream is to announce from the pulpit: "There's no church meeting next week. Husbands, take your wives out to breakfast. Parents, have a Bible study with your kids and take them to the zoo. Singles, meet me at the mall so we can wash cares and share Jesus with people." One day I'm going to do it, and I bet it will be far more spiritually productive than making everyone sit and listen to one more sermon by me.

"Susan, how in the world can you serve in all these time- and energy-intensive areas?" I asked. "Most people can barely manage one ministry, much less five."

Susan was already rattled by the fact that I wanted to talk with her. You know, many people believe that we pastors can read their minds.

"It is the only way I'm keeping my life together, Pastor," she stammered. "Jim and I are pretty certain we're going to get a divorce, and I'm so emotionally ray that I can hardly stand to be around the kids with all their noise and activity. Jim covers for me with them because he'd rather have me here, where we can't fight."

"Susan, I can't allow you to do this," I said firmly. "No one can serve in five ministries. And your service here at the church sounds like a way of avoiding facing some important issues at home. You've allowed the boundaries of your life, your family's life, and the church's life to be fused in a way that isn't healthy for anyone.

We want to maintain a healthy balance
"We want to maintain a healthy balance here between service and fun, between ministry and family. So we're going to have to work this out, and I'm certainly available to help you decide what areas of ministry to cut. I think it would be important for me to meet with you and Jim."

Susan began to cry. She was a bit willful, and she thought her plan was best. But she did agree to arrange for me to meet with her and Jim. Eventually she gave up her "servaholic" tendencies, and over time, her marriage and family were restored.

Unfortunately, most churches have their "Susans," and they do nothing about it. Good workers are hard to find. When we do find them, we hang on to them with viselike grips.

We do not hesitate to violate the boundaries in their lives; to invade the core of their time reserves; to rob their families by taking the bulk of their attention and energy. There is such a thing as reasonable service, and we can encourage that; but too often we're blind to anything but our own recruitment needs.

Churches that heal must respect boundaries. For a time, I admit, I dropped the boundaries of my own heart and life and let them become fused with my church. Frankly, I let the congregation's activities and needs, its calls and cries for help, intrude into the sacred areas of my home. We all paid a severe price for that. But when I reinstituted healthy boundaries, I was given a new life, and the church was invigorated to depend less on the pastor and more on God and one another. We became, once again, a place where healing could occur.

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