I read this today on a Linkedin feed and I nearly spewed my coffee:
Church goals must be continually repeated and reinforced. Once isn’t enough. People forget. To outperform you must overinform.
I have questions:
- Who ever said the church needs “goals“? Seriously!? The church has adopted business language and has swallowed it hook line and sinker. The fisherman’s intentions are not good.
- Is “must” high on your list of personal motivators?
- When your church uses words like “repeat“, does the word “brainwash” ever come to mind, if you have one?
- Are your own inclinations so wayward and wrong that you continually have to hear an opposing message repeated over and over again to get you back on the church’s track? Maybe you are like a beagle who can’t help but perpetually run after new scents and must be leashed, caged or kennelled.
- If your church says that they are going to “reinforce” an idea over and over again, repetitiously, does this not conjure up images of the Nazi youth, another very visionary religious movement?
- If your church has to tell you something over and over again because “once isn’t enough” because “you will forget“, do you hear it implicitly saying, “Because you’re stupid“?
- Why will you “forget“? Have you ever in your life forgotten something that is centrally important to you?
- If you are a part of a church who’s agenda is to “outperform“, who are you competing against? Other churches? Shame on you! Yourself? If it is yourself that you are outperforming, what’s wrong with yourself right now that it needs to be outperformed? Who are you giving permission to continually tell you that you need to outperform yourself? Do you hate yourself that much?
- Doesn’t the bible have something to say about our obsession with competition and performance?
- If any organization tells you upon joining that you will be overinformed, will you still sign up? Are you going to willingly subject yourself to overinformation, endless repetition, perpetual reinforcement and the constant call to outperform? Are you willingly going to subject yourself to the constant reminder that you’re forgetful?
Yes, I have intentionally neglected the purpose of the church goals. Why? Because no matter how noble the goals, the means to achieving them are inhumane. Or maybe you believe the end does justify the means?
This is the kind of visionary thinking I abhor.
I have a 50% off sale on all my art and prints: go here or here and type in “bluesale” in the coupon code box.
My name is David Hayward, and I am the nakedpastor. I am a graffiti artist on the walls of religion.
Spot on pastor!!
thanks rocco.
Dave, I sooo wish I had posted you the quote I read a few weeks ago. I meant to, and then ended up recycling the paper before I remembered.
A writer actually talked about the Church needing to reach outside its four walls to make it’s PRODUCT known, and that Churches have to work on their … wait for it… BRANDING!
You hit the nail on the head with the observation of ‘business language’.
Oh, and *face palm*… number 5? Godwin’s law invoked? Set the bar higher. Probably should have just added ‘reinforce’ to point three.
And three cheers for number 8!!! *does a happy dance*… that sooo needs to be said (and ‘continually repeated and reinforced’ TM) to the churches that push the business agenda/evangelical-school-of-door-to-door-salesman mindset.
Thanks for point 8. It’s a keeper.
PS- for those unfamiliar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
thanks nancy. ya never hesitate to comment when something comes to mind. as you might detect, this issue is a hot one for me.
The only thing that needs to be repeated & reinforced in church is….the Gospel.
sarah: the only problem is that churches think they are.
The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue. Antisthenes
great quote barb.
Very interesting, insightful comments David!
I was involved in mental health issues (volunteer), and I come to the conclusion (being brought up in the Catholic religion) that some people treat religion like an addiction and compulsion perhaps one reason being is that they have addictive personalities!
I am searching like everyone else on my journey. Enjoy your pictures (especially of Haiti) and comments!
I am searching like everyone else on my journey!
thanks Paul. good observation i believe. thanks for your comments.
You say this kind of stuff a lot. Why? Are people stupid? Will they forget?
i tilt at windmills
fred: you would condone the man repeatedly striking the child for continually begging the man to stop hitting him.
Kinda partial to #3 in your list.
Please write a book about this! Purposeless community is how I remember church back in the late 1970s, when I had my most meaningful group worship experiences. Please, please write a book about this! And thanks. The Lord be with you!
I plan on it Michael.
thanks angie. keep your mind!!
Agreed.
Sometimes I’ll read something like what you presented here and it takes me some time to actually see the harm in it. You know, it’s the littlest, most benign phrases that we get taught over and over and are told to accept that are sometimes the most harmful.
And yes, brainwashing and Nazi youth come to mind.
Hannah Arendt has a great book I’ll have to get you the title of. I wrote a post on the banality of evil, but there’s no way to find it now (my blog is a mess). I’ll email you with them sometime. I think you’d like her.
No need Lisa. I have the book and have studied it. The Banality of Evil on the Nuremburg trials. Chilling.
Well, then.
I think the concept of the Banality of Evil is one that stuck with me for years. Following orders is something that I did easily for years, and felt guilty over for years, too.
I think I need to find some way to forgive myself now, after being in that group.
You seem a little pissed dave??
a powerful concept. the book conveys it.
a little.
“fred: you would condone the man repeatedly striking the child for continually begging the man to stop hitting him.”
I would? Where do you get that from? Because I’m pointing out that you seem to be doing the same thing that you accuse others of doing?
That’s an interesting conclusion you’ve drawn. Seems defensive.
the analogy applies fred. those kind of vision statements I quoted at the beginning of the post are condescending crap that i consider abusive. i keep saying “stop!” it doesn’t.
Come on down, a massage on the house.
And how do you conclude that I would “condone the man repeatedly striking the child for continually begging the man to stop hitting him.”
Because I justify goals and vision?
Goals and vision are not abuse. They can be used to abuse. So can a baseball bat. So can a frying pan. So can a belt.
We can get rid of our belts, frying pans, and baseball bats, but then we’d be hard-pressed to enjoy pancakes after the home run. And our pants would fall down.
You said:
“Because no matter how noble the goals, the means to achieving them are inhumane.”
Are they? To paraphrase that shampoo commercial, are they? Are they?
Do you mean all means of accomplishing “church goals” are inhumane? Or just the ones you’ve come across?
I don’t think it is a bad thing for churches to have plans or a vision to be more gracious, loving, welcoming, caring, etc. but when churches take on a business model and set performance objectives and try to quantify their plans with graphs and surveys and numbers then the church ceases to be the body of Christ and people are run over or overlooked in the pursuit of the busyness/business of reaching markers. The church I left liked to use the word ‘assimilate’ in reference to new members and all I could think of was StarTrek’s Borg with no freewill or personality, whose whole mission was to function as a giant unit for the leader. Someone on the pastoral nominating committee should have checked the pastor’s Amazon wishlist before hiring him. It is full of business books and reviews on how to use these books in a church setting. “Reframing Organizations” is at the top.
Statements like “To outperform you must overinform” reek of consumerism, which has no resemblance to Christianity. As Phillip Cary writes in “Good News for Anxious Christians,” consumerism is based on the need to create a sense of need for something new or better, something you can only get at this church, or that church. This is what the business model of church is all about.
On the other hand, Cary writes, “The church, when it’s not seduced by consumerist spirituality, is in the business of cultivating ordinary Christians…” Try that for a mission statement.
That old lovely brand and market the product idea again – did I tell you four US emergent branded books are hitting the markets this year? I mention that as your list of Qs really struck at the core of why I find all this so toxic – it’s repackaged US evangelicalism that’s selling people a new way to “be” or “do” church assuming one can pay in order to play – and the price ain’t cheap.
I hope this doesn’t catch on here in the UK where the only goals (in the Anglican church at least) seem to be to part you from your money for the church restoration fund….though that in itself is scary enough.
Great post David! This post (and your blog) should be a must-read for all pastors. I have fallen victim in the past to the “church growth conference of the month club.” Thanks for helping me “see” what I wasn’t seeing when I was all caught up in vision.
I used to read Agatha Christie. She’d mention the vicar sometimes. I’d picture this little church with maybe 50 people or less, out in the countryside, wooden benches, the vicar saying a few encouraging words, visiting people when they’re sick. Peaceful and pleasant.
I never pictured the vicar trying to make the church building bigger, trying to get more members, ranting about stuff that makes you feel fear and guilt, or trying to rev you up constantly to some spiritual plain you’re supposed to achieve (and feel inadequate if you don’t.)
I haven’t been to church in other countries, but it seems absurd to picture them like the U.S. churches I’ve attended, which are like a business that wants to grow bigger.
I guess I pictured the vicar as a kind father. How’s that for what a pastor might want to be? So maybe my ideal church IS more like a family than a business. Maybe this just reflects my personality and my personal needs. If I was more the gung-ho type, I’d want to be like a busy little bee in church running around doing lots of stuff.
Of course my biggest thing with church is-are they telling the truth??
Seems like the problem in the churches described in the article is they are more concerned about building their church, than the kingdom of God.
The bride belongs to the bridegroom, not the best man.
elderyl: thanks for your comment. in my opinion, what you said: “whose whole mission was to function as a giant unit for the leader” applies even to good things.
I’m glad someone brought up Godwin’s law. Similar instances of faceplam happening here when I read 5.
I have to say that my mind didn’t automatically got to ‘brainwash’ when I saw ‘repeat’. It did, however, wander its way back to school and to the mathematics tables, and then to the old concept of writing out lines as punishment. And yes, it does seem to say by implication ‘You are children, unable to make your way through life without some ‘adult’ to hold your hand and constantly keep an eye on you.’
The general thrust of the post is a worthy one, even if it is a tad hyperbolic. But that is a part of the ‘nakedness’ which attracts. Sometimes you get NPs emotion in all its irrational ‘over-the-topness’.
Oh, and if I may stick my nose into the ‘man striking the child’ analogy:
These days it may be more accurate to say that you are in the position of a someone witnessing a husband mistreating his wife, NP. Perhaps even an ex who you still have deep feeling for. If you pass comment you will be told to keep out of it by the husband. If you keep passing comment you may just find the wife will turn on you as well.
My opinion… keep passing comment. The kids of the marriage might just end up learning that there is another way of life.
johnfom: this has happened to me before. i tried to break up a fight between a man and a woman. then they both turned on me. wasn’t pretty.
I’m right with you on this post, David. It strikes home.
I’m not so against the church building fund, (Botticelli Woman) as in the UK (where I’m originally from, by the way) the buildings are worth saving, although costly, but the little friendly church (Lynn) with the vicar smiling at everyone for simply showing up and occupying a pew for an hour on Sunday mornings has definitely gone. How did they do it, I wonder? Perhaps they didn’t have grandiose ideas of what the “church” should look like. Yes, today the church does operate like a business, and that’s why the Spirit isn’t in it anymore. I want to be where the Spirit is. I’m still looking…Crystal.
i agree crystal. those small churches as was described… i think they are the blessed ones.
You know the “clobber passage” in regards to vision? Proverbs 29:18? I did a bit of researching and contemplation on that last night.
The first half of that verse, in most Bibles, says (paraphrased), “Without a vision, the people perish.”
However, I looked that verse up in Young’s Literal, and it renders the first half this way: “Without a vision is a people made naked.”
The second half says (YLT again): “And whoso is keeping the law, O, his happiness!”
Anyway. The Hebrew word translated as “vision” there is “chazown” (Strong’s Entry #2377, which is also the predominant Hebrew word used for “vision”) — “a dream, revelation, oracle”. The word the King James and most other versions use for “perish” is “para” (Strong’s #6544), which actually means “to expose”.
Clearly, this verse has nothing to do with “vision” as Christianity Incorporated is teaching the masses. To me, that verse has everything to do with having a revelation of who God is, of his character. Without that, one is exposed/made naked.
Regarding your list, I think you’re spot on.
ah shelly you’ve done your homework. YES!!! you are right. i posted on that some time ago (see #1): http://www.nakedpastor.com/2010/04/22/biblical-arguments-against-vision/
Johnform,
Great analogy. The ones you’re trying to save will definitely turn on you. They don’t want to leave what they have or are not ready to move beyond it.
Re the vision passage in the Bible. So people have preached on this verse, lived their lives by it, and all along were interpreting it wrong? I believe you, it’s just that this very fact should give people a clue: why did God not say, “Wait! That’s not what I meant! You’ve gotten it wrong!” Wouldn’t that be the kind, natural thing to do?
David, this breaks my heart. What have we become? Why do the masses not see it? Is Father awakening us? I hope so. It’s all so incredibly….sick. *sigh*
I’m not sure what we’ve become. But I know too many people who don’t want anything to do with it. Justifiably.
Someone said: “…the little friendly church…with the vicar smiling at everyone for simply showing up and occupying a pew for an hour on Sunday mornings has definitely gone.”
np responded with: “those small churches as was described… i think they are the blessed ones.”
Yeah, I don’t think Jesus went to the cross so people can do their time for an hour a week in front of a smiling, happy vicar.
Neither, of course, did he die to turn a mass of people into a large flock of sheep (western style) driven by a shepherd with his sheepdogs.
But there is at least one more option (and maybe more than that)…
It’s amazing how polarizing these conversations get–as if everything must be either/or, black or white.
Seems almost…fundamentalist.
I don’t know what church you were talking about but my church is my family and I see our leaders as a parent figure and the congregation as siblings and like all familys we have our ups and downs and don’t always get on.
Parents can be controlling, demanding, nagging, annoying and out of touch, but they are also loving, encouraging, supportive and nurturing. The leaders are no different.
And siblings can be rejecting, hurtful, slanderous and competitive, but they too can be loving, playful, supportive and loyal and the members of my church can be all these too.
You’ll never find the perfect church because they are full of imperfect people, but churches that are run like businesses, are just that, businesses and we all know what Jesus did to the businesses in the temple.
So, my friend Paige and I just decided to make you a Superhero. This blog is so RELEVANT and INSANELY AWESOME we were laughing hte whole way thru it. posting it on fbook and twitter!
Be Blessed
Tanya:
You are not on the journey (yet) that many Christians are on today. I don’t know whether that’s “good” or that’s “bad.” I will say this, love and wisdom would say, I believe, that you listen carefully to your brothers and sisters who see things that you don’t. Try to avoid the path of correcting others of what you see to be “erroneous” views if possible. Try to hear the legitimacy of their views and experiences.
Though you may not yet know it, there are thousands upon thousands of your brethren who have exited the church building in pursuit of something that we see as more authentic, less man-centered, and closer to the heart of Christ.
I hope that, in your journey, you can agree to disagree while at the same time validating the experiences that so many of us have had and not trying to negate our views or opinions.
)
Also, let me point everyone to this FABULOUS blog that I (sadly) did not write.
)
http://whychurchessuck.blogspot.com/2010/12/body-of-christ-vs-church-corporation.html