Reviewing the Exile Part 5: Winning the Turf War

This is the conclusion of my thoughtful review of my spiritual journey at the 5-year anniversary of my dismissal from the church.  (Scroll down to read Parts 1 through 4.)

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In the winter of 2009 the local congregation split over philosophical issues and 150 people left.  It was a nasty split because the arguments turned into personal attacks.  Dissidents were labelled as rebels by the leadership and were put in their place - and quite disrespectfully.  (Okay, I haven't said anything surprising yet, right?')

The remaining 75 were left with our heads spinning, and Kaye and I were wondering if there was any hope that our life-long church home would rise out of the ashes and once again become a viable force in the spiritual world and the local community.

Six months later, in September of that year, an interim pastor hosted a series of meetings in which the faithful were to re-establish the mission of the church.  His first presentation was a summary of a concept called the Life Cycle of a Church, and we were supposed to plot our location on the bell curve of church progression and see if we could establish a Sigmoid Curve that would be a platform for renewal.  From the visual chart we could easily see what had divided our church (although I was quite aware that we were really two churches under one roof and had been for a long time).

Vibrant and growing churches put a high value on People and Relationships and assume that sound doctrine will follow.  People feel they are loved and cared about, their needs are met, and the church grows.
On the other hand, stable and dying churches put a high value on Structure.  When in competition, sound doctrine, programs, and property win priority over relationships and the needs of the people.  Consequently, people feel they are undervalued and they go elsewhere, and the church stagnates or declines.

Over the previous 20 years our church had slowly polarized between these two camps of people that I call the Progressives and the Traditionalists.

  The Progressives placed a high value on people.  They were visionaries and outreach types.  They wanted to reach the neighbors and maintain an active presence in the community.  They were all about the “Go” factor in the Great Commission and were interested in what happens outside the four walls of the church building.  On a hot summer day you might find them passing out popsicles at the county fair.  Their vision was simple:  " We just want to love people."
To their downfall, they didn’t care much about rules and regulations.

  The Traditionalists were all about what happens inside the four walls.  I have often labeled them as the Fortress types.  On the marquee out front, you will see the word "Come" but never "Go."  They protected the facilities by putting up signs on the walls:  “Please do not take food and drink outside the fellowship hall”,  “No one under 18 may sit in the balcony without supervising parent”,  “Your mother does not work here; please wash your own dishes” in the kitchen, and so on.  They had regulations for every detail of how the place could be used, all the time unaware of how threatening they had made their church environment.  Visitors were afraid to do anything for fear of a reprimand.  Their vision was equally simple:  "We just want to protect this place."

Along with that, preserving the denominational doctrinal distinctives was given high value.

It came time to select the next Senior Pastor, and the masses wanted to promote the incumbent Associate Pastor to the position.  He had been there for over 20 years and he was the young visionary, a people person who cared much more about loving people than he did about following rules.  This man was seen as a champion of the Progressive movement and he was very popular.  But his disregard for the status quo had made him the pariah of the Traditionalists.

The governing board of the church was under the control of the Traditionalists who represented at best a fourth of the constituency, mainly their own families.  They would not allow the congregation to vote on this man for their senior pastor though he was popular with most of the people.

“He’s not a good fit for this church”,  they said when announcing their decision to the congregation, and everybody knew what they meant:  “He is not traditional enough for us.” and furthermore, "We don’t like him (partly because we can't control him)."

And the people, by association, felt that the judgment was being made about them as well.  They did not “fit” at this church anymore and the message was clear:  They were not welcome anymore.   Reluctantly, 150 good people left.

Most of those visionaries joined or started house churches and five years later, only a few have returned to an institutional church.   They invited that popular pastor to be a sort of traveling elder for their house church network, and they support him financially.  Now everybody is happy. 

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Well, back to that September membership meeting where we were learning about the life cycle of a church and that the sign of a dying church is that it puts a high value on Structure rather than People.  Kaye and I looked around the room and saw 40 people whose priority for their church was Structure.  They were intent on protecting their doctrine, their programs, their property, and their sanctuary for the saints.  They were all about the fortress and said so.  “We want this place to be the same familiar place for our kids and grandkids that it was for us.”

No mention of people and relationships; it was all about the institution.

Hope died for Kaye and me that day.  We could see the handwriting on the wall... and on the dry erase board.  We drove home in defeat.  Then we set up a meeting with the interim pastor letting him know that we were not going the direction that the church was apparently going.  As visionaries ourselves, Kaye and I had better ways to spend our remaining time on the planet than doing regular maintenance on a religious machine that was obsolete and no longer viable in the culture except as a safe haven for the saints.  We told him that we would probably only return for special occasions, family events, and such.

He suggested we not come at all.  Seriously.

Well, okay then.  He spoke the honest truth that we had guessed was the case: “You are no longer welcome here.”

So opposing philosophical camps fought over our church, and the Traditionalists won.

Thank God.  They are welcome to it.

I am not a Traditionalist.  I’m not a legalist.  I like to think for myself and ask questions, and I don’t like to be handed pat answers or cliches.  I don’t think God and Christianity can be reduced to pat answers and cliches and rigid doctrines that abruptly end every attempt at intelligent conversation.  And I don't believe that the mission of the church can be carried out by fortifying the traditions that are perpetuated within its four walls.

So, I really do not fit there.

Again, Thank God!

At the last board meeting that I attended subsequent to my resignation as an elder, I was pointing out the realities of the direction they had chosen for the church, when one of my counterparts interrupted me, “Bob, when are you going to give it up?  You guys lost!”

To which I replied, “We all lost; there are no winners here.”

But, five years later, I have made a turnabout and hold the exact opposite view and believe that we were all winners:

• The Traditionals who placed a high value on Structure won their church back and were able to control the direction she would go.  To them the struggle was all about protecting their fortress, and now they had their familiar buildings, property, programs, and doctrinal platform back under control.  And really, it was appropriate that they would be the ones to win that 10-acre corner property, because they were the ones who valued that kind of stuff.

• The Progressive exiles were also the winners, because they didn't put a high value on the buildings and property and traditions.  They were now free to pursue their vision of an incarnate Church that is truly the salt of the earth.  Meeting in their house churches, they do not own church buildings (and the responsibilities that come with that), they do not have a budget, they do not hire staff, they do not sign their names on any denominational statement of faith, and they are not subordinate to any designated leader who assumes authority over them.  Wow, they really do enjoy a lot of freedom!

• I was a Winner too, but not in the way I had hoped.  I had wanted to stay there and spend the rest of my life trying to change the institution from within, and that’s what I would have done if I could have.  That thought just scares the crap out of me now.  If I had not been banished, I probably would still be there.  And I would live out my days in never-ending frustration and disillusionment while fighting the traditional powers that be.  Forever and ever, amen.

I am so happy to be outside now.  I am not sure how I am viewed by those who are still inside, but I feel like an escapee.   As I exited, the door slammed shut behind me and smacked me in the virtual rear end.

It stung for awhile.

But not anymore.

After all, this September I am celebrating five years of liberation!

Footnote:  With a more objective viewpoint now - having been outside the institution for five years, I believe that the growing exodus from the church nationwide is to some extent a departure from exclusivism, and I think it is a healthy movement.  There needs to be a blurring of the lines between the 30,000-plus Christian denominations that have an unavoidable tendency to divide the Body of Christ.

Structure be damned, the church needs to get back to loving people...  at the expense of doctrinal distinctives which must take a back seat to compassion and good will.

When you hear people yearning for the good old days in their particular denomination, know that you are listening to someone who is part of an aging institution that will continue to become less and less relevant to the needy world outside their walls.

Read Reviewing the Exile Part 4 here.

Read Reviewing the Exile Part 3 here.

Read Reviewing the Exile Part 2 here.

Read Reviewing the Exile Part 1 here.

Thank you for reading!