Deep Church and the Atrophied Elder
Something to ponder, for the interested reader. I’ve been reading Deep Church by Jim Belcher for the last week or so, really trying to soak it in, and I want to talk about something I read last night about the biblical model of the Church. Dr. Belcher describes the early church as a gathering around a well, with Jesus at the center, His disciples forming an inner circle around Him, and a group of undecided “seekers” gathered around the disciples, all listening to the truth spoken by the God-Man, the creator/savior of humanity.
When Jesus walked the earth, he was surrounded by the earliest model of the church. His first acts were to call, teach and train His disciples the truth of who He was and what His mission was here on earth. He grounded them in doctrine and gave them conviction. As he preached, around him gathered a motley group of seekers, some of whom would eventually believe, some of whom would not. All gathered around the wellspring of life that is Jesus, the disciples in His inner circle, with seekers in an outer circle.
When Jesus had ascended, the very first churches were started in this model. Paul, Barnabus, Mark, Luke, Timothy and others all went out into the world, selected and trained elders, then turned outward to the seekers, preaching the word. The training of elders of course never stops. As each new believer grows with strength in the Holy Spirit, they are called on to exercise the gifts they’ve been given. The natural progression was from seeker to believer to disciple, and for those with gifts of leadership and spiritual discernment who meed the criteria, eldership.
Note that the step from belief to discipleship is separated. Baptism and profession of belief do not a disciple make. Discipleship is something learned over time and maturity in God’s word, and is highly costly both in those terms and in terms of the oh-so-human preconceived notions (such as self-worth, relativity of sin, and the nature of humanity, to name a few) we have to redefine or leave behind outright in the process. True, honest discipleship in Jesus Christ will challenge the very foundations of your world. Profession of belief and baptism into a church community is only the first step.
And it’s that journey for which elders are partially responsible. Those of us who have traveled along that road further than others have a biblical duty to guide those less mature, to correct them where necessary and encourage them when they fall. Too often in today’s evangelical church, we engage in “dunk ‘em and drop ‘em” conversions, which, to make a tangential point, I call statistic-padding. We focus on the conversion and baptism so we can send good numbers to the convention at the end of the week or month and get that tithing member into the congregation and grow the revenue of money we get to manage. Depressingly, this is where it ends for the growth of many Christians. Oh, certainly they are lit afire for some time, and study the word with a voracious appetite… at least for a while.
But without the encouragement, guidance and edification provided by a loving elder disciple their feet will falter on the path. It is inevitable, and our Enemy loves to target new Christians for exactly this reason. Their atheist friends will plant doubts that will need to be explained. They will stumble across a superficial contradiction in the Bible or some other misunderstanding and without a satisfactory solution become disillusioned. Once that happens, they’re easy pickings for the whispers of the Evil One. Or, as is very common, they become cultural Christians, convinced, as their experiences lead them to believe, that their journey stopped when they were baptised. “After that,” they think, “I was justified and regenerated, so no need to bother with high theology or really reading deeply into the Bible. After all, if I can’t get the answers to my questions there, the answers likely just don’t exist.”
Who can blame them for thinking that way? When I was growing up in the church, the only way I managed to avoid becoming yet another lost Christian was the great fortune of having the parents I have who taught me and the strong mind God gave me to think critically. I also have been gifted with a mind that is like a sponge with information, and have always been naturally inquisitive. I despise not knowing how something works, especially when it breaks. But when I was a kid, I asked hard questions about the faith I’d grown up with. Why did God allow bad things to happen? Was evil within God’s will? Was it then NOT evil? You can imagine the canned, stale answers I got when I got answers at all. More often than not I was told I was much too young to be asking these questions and to run along and chase girls (I dutifully obeyed at least the last).
The bottom line is that the church isn’t structured or behaving as though it is attached to the vine that is Jesus. What fruit is produced when elders are spiritually atrophied husks, when their leadership capitulates to every loudly proclaimed desire of the congregation, whether that desire is biblical or not? I’ll tell you what: a golden calf. An idol. Like Moses coming down from the mountain, Jesus is going to come back (and soon, by my reckoning) and have some pretty harsh words for such leadership. How can you possibly intend to lead a congregation when your depth and commitment as a disciple ends anyplace it might cost you? How do you set an example and lead when your epistemology ends at the boundaries of tradition, with no further thought required or tolerated?
So how do we remedy this situation? I can’t accept the glib answer that some churches are simply beyond remedy, and to move on until I find a congregation and group of leaders who have the same ideas I do. You can’t possibly ask me to turn my back on the faithful disciples that exist within the church as it is, struggling to make their voices heard if they haven’t been completely downtrodden already. There are good people trapped in there! How do you take a church whose ecclesiology is completely twisted by the effects of years of sinful leadership and turn it around to center on Christ once again? Is it even my place to attempt it? I haven’t been appointed as an elder, I’m just a young guy with some very, very clear ideas of what I believe and a heart full of courage to match those convictions.
What can I do?
Interesting… I thought you answered this question in your previous post…
“Give us today our daily bread,” “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters.”
“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” “he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Of note is that it is God who is doing the leading, the restoring, the delivering, the comforting. So what then are we to do? Pray until God makes his Will known, and then follow wherever it leads you.
There is a danger, if I may be so bold, with someone of your temperament, that of activism: seeing failings in the people and the system around you and wanting to jump ahead of God’s Will to fix them. God has His own time and His own ways and He will prepare the way for whatever He calls you to. I do not claim to know whether or not God has already prepared the way and the time is now, but I do know (from personal experience) that if God has a work to be accomplished and you give Him control of your life and bend your will to His then much more good will be accomplished.
If I may also offer a piece of advice. I don’t know what teaching you’ve had on fasting, but it is an incredibly powerful tool in the spiritual arsenal and can truly help bring your will into line a lot more quickly than many other “spiritual exercises”.
Most of all, pray. Pray and seek God’s Will, and though the road will be hard (I can guarantee it – Christ suffered humiliation and death on a cross, can we, His disciples expect anything less?) it will bear great fruit.
“All gathered around the wellspring of life that is Jesus, the disciples in His inner circle, with seekers in an outer circle.”
Even though this quote wasn’t the main point of your post i want to make one observation because this is a beautiful picture. In your previous post you spoke of the correlation between the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer (as you did in Sunday School). To me this picture is a fulfillment or at least an illustration of the Temple in the Old Testament with the Holy of Hollies, the inner court, and the outer court. It’s just a majestic picture…..
And how cool is it, now, that Jesus has shattered the restrictions on who can move into that inner court and be ushered, by Him, into the Holy of Holies into the presence of God the Father? All that is required is surrender and subsequent faith. All can kneel at the feet of God who are cleansed by the sacrifice of Jesus’ blood.
Gives me chill bumps.