For some reason, when things are broken in a church, we don't often notice--or at least, those who are a part of the church don't notice (it's sometimes painfully obvious to observers or guests). What's worse, broken things tend to have been broken so long, we are used to them being broken, so their broken state becomes commonplace for us. A certain person in leadership might be overbearing and in their effort to always push his or her agenda, end up hindering the church's effort to work toward the vision God has given it. Or perhaps there's a program that "we've always done" that just isn't accomplishing its intended purpose--or any purpose of value, for that matter.
I've done this as a youth ministry leader. I can't tell you how many times we've done an event that "we've done the last X number of years" without really stepping back and asking, Why do we do this event and spend resources on it? Should we keep doing it? I've also allowed people to stay in their leadership roles, even though they never quite understood the purpose of what we felt God was leading us to do. To give another example, I've sometimes refused to see that committed leaders were just unhappy because they didn't really fit in the role they were in, but they stuck it out because they were incredibly faithful people. In many ways, I got used to the way things were. Because I was used to these broken situations, I lost my ability to see that it was kind of weird that they were broken, and I never took the initiative to find a solution.
I've experienced this at my current church in a positive sense. Most of us can identify when we've been a part of an organization that lacked purpose. I've been in such ministry situations before. The people I worked with and who were in positions of leadership of the ministry or organization may have been amazing people who loved Jesus wholeheartedly, but some simply lacked the ability to define, discern, or communicate any kind of vision or purpose for the organization. Fast-forward to my current church, where I've been for two years. Our mission statement is "Experiencing together God's grace and transforming power, one life at a time." Now, I understand that many vision or mission statements get created, only to be put in a drawer somewhere and forgotten. But our church leadership keeps our mission in front of us at all times. Events are evaluated in relation to our mission of seeing people transformed by Jesus, and when we celebrate, we celebrate about lives transformed by Jesus. We are about that mission, and I love it. The thing is, when I first came on staff at our church, it seemed weird to me to have such a focused vision. We're certainly not a perfect church, given that we are all fallen, imperfect human beings. But it's refreshing to be in a ministry setting that is about the vision, because God has given his Church a vision, and we are to do all we can to work toward that vision, with God's help.
I hope that in the areas I have leadership in, I won't allow broken doors become the norm. What are some other examples of "broken doors" that we tend to overlook in the Church?
Update: A follow up post is here.
