I once hear that the very skills it takes to break an addiction are the very skills prolonged addiction destroys. That is to say, that addiction to drugs, alcohol or sex are hard to break because the addiction atrophies the disciplines or abilities it takes to stop using drugs, alcohol or sex. Thus, addicts often aren’t simply physically connected to their problem, they are connected mentally as well. Anyone heard this before? Want to add thoughts?
I bring this up because there are addictions beyond drugs, alcohol, sex and cigarettes. Relationship can be addictive. As can a role we play in a family system. As can the role we play in a global system.
I might as well go ahead and say it.
We all have addictions when it comes to our understanding of the church and how we interact with it.
It seems there’s a growing addiction more and more common in the church.
Church leaders are more and more addicted to experts giving them practical steps for ministry.
20 years ago the cry for the practical really took off. The language of life application began to take root and drum the “contemporary churches” of the 80′s and 90′s were beating. This was a reaction against the stereotypical sermon of the day, in which people complained, that church had little to do with real life.
As this drum kept beating in new churches being planted in the late 70′s and mid 80′s make this a core value of theirs. It only made sense, that these churches who make things practical for their congregation, to teach others the 5 easy practical ways, steps, or purposes for their church.
The world was certainly changing at the time and they church plants became teenagers, who began to dictate what success looked like as a church. Pastoral ministry language was set aside for the language of leadership. There was a lot of good done in these days, but there are some consequences for what became an addiction to the practical.
Expectations have risen exponentially for staff to deliver a quality product.
The role of pastor has shifted to something the New Testament might hardly recognize and the burden for being the church shifted. In some ways it shifted in healthy ways. Others only fuel the addiction.
As expectations have risen and diversified i increased both the demand from pastors to find practical steps to solve problems their church used to face together AND fueled the desire for applicable, practical church teaching as well.
15 years ago I heard Rick Warren speak at Saddleback and it was quality stuff. 2 years later as I looked for a job, several pastors send me tapes of them delivering sermons. I kid you not, the sermon was almost word for word the same as Rick’s. The same outline, the same illustrations everything.
Who has time to write a sermon with all the demands on a pastor these days anyway? Or develop a model for ministry? Or a structure?
Our culture demands quick fixes.
The problem with an addiction to the practical is that is becomes a barrier to doing the actual work of ministry, of discovering your voice, or ministry style. It is always the tail wagging the dog trying to live into someone else’s story.
Of course the people who provide the practical advice and the 5 easy steps aren’t bad people. They have amazing intentions and they have a strong desire to teach others, and support pastors in their ministries. It is because of the crazy expecations and busy schedules and limited time of a pastor that they created the tools in the first place. (or actually the second place, because most of the tools were created for their particular church, it’s context and people at that time, then retrofitted to you.) (Of course this is increasingly less true as video venues attempt to make context completely irrelevant withholding any specific geographic specfics such as streets, stores, or communal landmarks believe that the void of context allows for a richer experience…. which is a wholly other thing for a different blog post)..
Regardless, the dealers of all things practical have big hearts. If you are a dealer of these tools, I’d encourage you to step back and survey the landscape a bit. I know there is a high demand for what you are offering, but it might be that you’ve cultivated a bad habit in people who buy from you. What might you be enabling? What are the consequences of offering the practical? What are assumptions we carry that might be wrong?
The key reason addiction to the practical is devastating is because is erodes the very competencies it takes to be creative, to be present in the uniqueness of a context, and of a people. Addiction creates barriers to very creativity it takes to pastor people.
Pastors, publishers, convention planners, non-profits who work with people. Are you a deal of the practical? What price are you willing to pay to stop enabling people?
Everyone – Are you addicted to the practical? Do you constantly seeks outside solutions to problems that arise within your church? What are the consequences of always looking outside the church for problems within it? What might it look like to learn from the people in the room? What might be your role if you could redefine it?
What say you?
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