Men
This past Wednesday was my buddy Aaron’s birthday and he invited us to this EXTREMELY out of the way steak restaurant to celebrate his big day. Twelve guys joined us on an hour long caravan to talk, laugh, and have some of the best steak we’ve ever eaten.
Towards the end we each took time around the table to share a blessing with Aaron: something we loved about him, a prayer, or just a funny story. But as we were going around the table blessing Aaron, I realized what an extremely unique thing this was for so many men to be on a spiritual journey together and to feel like brothers.
I say unique, not because it’s impossible for men to be spiritual and like each other, but because statistics and experience tell us that men typically are disengaged from the church. For what it’s worth, church attendance nationally is 39% male and 61% female. My wife regularly tells me about women she talks to outside of our fellowships who wish that their husbands were friends with other men. There are even whole books written about why men hate church.
In our house churches, though, this has never been an issue. We have done absolutely nothing to attract or retain the men in our midst, but despite that fact most of our men our engaged and have their deepest relationships inside the church. What causes that? I have some thoughts:
- Men love risk. For the most part, church as we know it is typical and unpredictable. Everything for the most part continues to happen as it always has. Most church services are clean, tidy, and require very little from them. We, on the other hand, are messy. No meeting is exactly the same as the last one. In fact, a meeting we have one Sunday will be completely different from the meeting we have a year from now. I tell people who are thinking of coming to one of our house churches that fist fights have been real possibilities a couple of times in our history. The ladies (especially my wife) hates it when I tell that story…but every once in awhile when I tell it to a guy, I see his eyes light up. Men don’t want a meeting, they want the real Jesus and communitas. They are looking for a band of brothers who will go with them into battle.
- Men are active, not passive. Deep down, even the most passive, sedentary man truly wants to make a difference. They were made for more than just sitting around and listening to someone else talk. The same reason boys and young men have trouble in school is the same reason men struggle with traditional church. Men want to do something. They aren’t anti-learning, they’re anti-sitting. I often tell people that when two guys go and set out to do something, they call it a “mandate” because men build intimacy through doing things together. Men want to do something significant. It’s written on their hearts by God. And the minute we tell them to sit down and shut up, we lose them. What we’ve done, instead is encourage men to play an active part in our churches: “Teach. Serve. Evangelize. Grow. Lead. Plant a church. We need you.”
- Men actually want relationships, just not fake ones. Frankly, that’s most of what we do around here. For at least seven of our last ten years, most of our house churches have been a part of small, same gender discipleship groups we call 2’s & 3’s. Part of the purpose of 2’s & 3’s is confessing our sins to one another and praying for each other in the areas where we are weak. And while this discipline is just in general good for everyone spiritually, it has actually enabled men to build relationships around Jesus without the pretense of being perfect or all put together. This is a key to true brotherhood that often gets forgotten when we are part of churches that want us to look all put together.
Friends, we need the whole body of Christ at the table to pull off the kind of harvest the Lord has in store for us at the end of the age. This includes men and we simply cannot be content with only 39% of them.
Now, I’m not so naïve to think that these things can’t be done in a traditional church. They absolutely can. And to the degree you can add these elements into whatever type of church you’re part of, I would encourage you to do so. But our current structure is designed to give us the kind of results we are already getting. Don’t be afraid to make a change.
God designed the church to be a place where women AND men can be engaged and fulfilled. To the degree that we allow risk, activity, and true relationships flourish in our churches, I think we’ll see a resurgence of men becoming what God has called them to be.
The choice is ours: will we be the kind of church where men can engage, or are we content to go on without them?
Reason #2 We Started a House Church
Editors Note: This is my second post in my ongoing series describing why we started meeting as organic house churches. You can find the first post in the series here.
Yesterday started off like any other Sunday. A buddy of mine and I usually begin the day doing some one on one discipleship at a local McDonald’s. Before we had even begun to pray, we were talking with the store manager about her boys, some of the struggles she has with them, and how the gospel fits into that equation.
But one thing became quite clear during our conversation: Our neighborhood lacks men to help raise the boys in this neighborhood. After the manager went on to her normal duties, the idea lingered with us. We talked about how much more need there is than what we ourselves can handle. We prayed that God would raise up more guys to invest in the kids in our neighborhood. Then, we moved on to our normal discipleship topics.
The next step in our Sunday routine was to join our families as we met as a church. One of the newest families that has started to come is a single mom from our neighborhood and her three boys. Out of the ordinary for yesterday, though, was the addition of two boys from another family in our house church network. They were friends of my oldest son who were wanting to spend some time with us for the day. Our plan for the day after we met as a church was to take my kids and the two boys two a local play area (think Chuck E. Cheese, but on steroids).
But my buddy and I, after talking throughout our meeting, decided the single mom that had joined us could use a break. So, he loaded her three boys in his car, I loaded my four kids and their two friends into my van, and we hit the trail to the play place. It was a fun day. The kids broke up into different groups. I intermittently got to talk to my friend in between chasing after one kid or another or waiting in line for face painting. Everyone had fun. Most importantly, it was our chance to practice what he and I were talking about earlier that morning.
Which brings me to the reason we do house church: Spiritual family. Our afternoon yesterday was full of activity, but it wasn’t just “ministry.” It was pouring into different kids and families that fills holes that the world has left in their lives. These holes can’t be plugged by another program. They are only plugged by flesh and blood humans who have been touched by the Spirit of God.
We’re able to do this not just because we don’t have programs. We’re able to be spiritual family to others who need it because spiritual family is the “program.” We’ve decided to make relationships around Jesus–even ones that don’t always focus on “spiritual” activity–the point of what we do. And this practice of family is exactly what the world, in all of its brokenness, needs.
“God places the lonely in families…” is a truth we’ve come to live by. And it’s one of the reasons we’ve continued to start and meet as house churches.
Photo Credit: Cracked Ball by Earls37a
Roles, Titles, Authority…and the True Gifting of Christ
The last several days I’ve been talking about the role of pastors/shepherds in the New Testament, how our house church network found a way to embrace them, and the real truth about ministry. But what about offices, titles, and roles?
Within the house church movement specifically there is a lot of reluctance to give people any kind of title or role. There are a lot of folks who have either been in ministry and been burnt out or there are people who have been hurt by a leader of a church, normally someone who is given the title of pastor. So there is a TON of reluctance to even talk about people being anything other than believers.
There’s also the role of hierarchy. Paul wrote that we should “with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves,” (Phillipians 2:3). The human, carnal side of us often looks at someone with a title and elevates that person above others. This can happen in the mind of the person with the title and in the mind of the people who know the person. Jesus reminds us of this reality when he says “Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters,” (Matthew 23:8).
So what do we do with titles like apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher?
First, I believe in the priesthood of all believers. All believers have direct access to God and do not have to go through another person to have a relationship with Christ. I also believe that the Bible was written for third world peasants, so a born-again person who can read has the ability to interpret the Bible for him or herself.
But I don’t believe that all believers are gifted similarly. To put it differently, while I believe in the priesthood of all believers, I don’t believe in the apostleship of all believers or the pastorship of all believers*. Paul tells us several times that while we all have one Lord and the same Spirit, He gifts us differently. In fact, the first century church experienced such a diversity of gifting that Paul was forced to argue for the oneness of God every time he talked about gifts. His point was we have one Lord and so even though there are different giftings, they don’t point to separate gods or separate spirits from God. One God gives diverse giftings.
But Paul had another emphasis in Ephesians four. Paul says in Ephesians 4:7 that “grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” He then goes on in verse 11 to mention five gifts “apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.” I personally believe that these five different types of giftings are part of each person in the body of Christ. And so naming that gifting isn’t so much a “giving an office” to a person, as it is describing the role they play in the body of Christ.
So we don’t spend a ton of time appointing apostles, prophets, pastors, or evangelists. We just recognize the gift when we see it in a person. Does a person regularly lead people to Christ? They’re probably an evangelist. Does a person regularly care deeply for the needs of those in their church? Most likely they’re a pastor. We use the name of the gift to call out the uniqueness of the person, but not to give a person any special sense of authority.
Authority is a sticky wicket in this discussion because it’s real and yet can be so easily abused. We rely heavily in our network on relational authority**, which means you listen to me because you know me, you know my track record, and you know I care about you. I’ve never had a conversation with someone where I’ve “forced” them to listen to me. I’ve reasoned with people. I’ve pleaded with people. I’ve told them there are YUGE repercussions with Jesus for not listening to some things I’ve said. But at the end of the day, if they don’t want to listen, I can’t do anything to make them. Nor would I want to.
Why do I think people should listen to me? It’s not because I’m the senior pastor or because I started the house church that birthed our house church network. It’s because I’m a believer in Christ and we’re called to submit to one another in the fear of the Lord. I have to do that with those in my house church. No one, in any church, is at the top of a pyramid somewhere that they don’t have to listen to anyone. Mutual submission is the mark of Christ’s church.
So we all have access to God. We all are gifted, albeit differently than others. And we can all have authority in relationship with others to the degree that we are known, our track record is consistent, and we operate in love. And this gives me comfort in calling another brother or sister a prophet/ess or an evangelist, because it doesn’t make them special or higher than all of us. It tells us how Christ uses them.
This has immense implications for everything we do, especially in the realm of elders and servants. But I’ll write more on that tomorrow.
*I do believe however, that apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors and teachers are to equip the body, of which apostles and pastors are a part. While this thought is probably a post for another time, I think it’s important to note that apostles need to learn from evangelists, and prophets need to learn from teachers, etc.
**Look forward to another post soon about the benefits of relational authority.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 