What’s a church service for? Pt. 2
Written by Aron Strong on May 30, 2008 – 4:49 pm -This post is much later than I anticipated. A huge project landed in my lap this week on the fast track and has derailed my regular schedule. That said, I’d like to thank D Rho, Eric Rata, and Joe for great and insightful comments. What you guys said really resonates with me.
I think this discussion often gets confused between two concepts: what is the church for and what’s a church service for? I find that many young and growing believers get caught up thinking they are one in the same thing. This is not a style discussion, but a purpose discussion. Style has mostly to do with preference.
It’s a circular system. The style of your church will define the style of your service which influence the style of people your church will attract. Service style may revolve around deep exegetical teaching. It could be around passionate worship. It may be relationship and interaction. Each of these is important to a growing believer. The problem falls when people expect a service to be all of those at the same time. When people think the purpose of a service is to accomplish the entire growth process at one time, in one place.
Of course, this isn’t the picture of the life of a growing Christ follower. It’s something that permeates your entire life, schedule, relationships and habits. Our biggest problem is that we really just don’t want to work that hard at following Jesus. Especially now that culture confirms what human nature desires (immediate gratification marketing combined a disposable commodity society) it’s a tough job to lead people to engage at that level. But no one said this would be easy. Especially Jesus.
So, then if the church service can’t and shouldn’t provide a one stop shop for growing believers, what’s it for?
I think it is a big part is a) to get seekers and young believers moving in the right direction and b) be a gathering place for believers (of every stage of their faith journey) to worship, be challenged and experience God together.
More on a) since we can mostly all agree on b). (if you don’t, leave a comment and let’s continue the discussion!) For seekers and young believers, a church service creates God experiences they have a hard time finding elsewhere. It gives them tools they can use. It introduces them and moves them to understand worship. It gives people something to invite their friends to. And according to the Reveal Study, the largest comprehensive spiritual growth and the church study which we recently got to be a part of, confirms this is true. Worship services are only a significant part of spiritual growth to seekers and young believers. After that, it has to happen outside the service.
Because growth, real spiritual growth, has to take place outside of a service. It’s going to happen in a growth group, serving in ministry, reaching out to the poor and desolate through missions. It comes from reading your Bible on your own, through prayer, solitude and tithing. It comes through seeking out spiritual mentors and sharing your faith. It happens as you shape your life to look like Christ.
And equipping people for those things is the job of the Church. The discipleship process is there to provide people tools to grow in those areas. Still, it’s vital people realize the Church can’t grow you spiritually. That’s something that happens when you submit to Christ through disciplining yourself to become like him.
The Church provides the resources. You provide the commitment. God provides the transformation as you begin to look like him.
A final thought. Church services are for everyone: seeker, young, growing and mature believers. I absolutely love working in an area that engages and challenges every believer no matter where they are in their faith. Truth is truth no matter where you are on the journey. 65 minutes can change your life. But it’s the rest of the minutes that take that change and make it a permanent part of your life.
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- Jun 12, 2008: Loud & Clear » Blog Archive » designing the service
By Joe on May 31, 2008 | Reply
I enjoyed reading this, Aron. I actually enjoy the whole collective thought on the topic. I think that we are meant (meaning it’s God-inspired) that The Church - you and me - would always ask the question, “What does it mean to be the church here, now, today?”. I think that it’s these questions that has propelled christianity forward for thousands of years (think Martin Luther or even Rick Warren).
I am finding it very difficult to simply drop a short comment here… I have so much that I’d like to say.
Let me give 2 (more) short thoughts.
1. I think it’s important that in this type of discussion that we all keep in mind that WE are the church. Church (biblically speaking) is not a Place. It’s not a Meeting. Jesus and the early Christians clearly thought of Church as PEOPLE. We loose the deep significance of this in America… we “go to church” - “which church do you go to?” - “so and so is church-hopping” and so forth.
I AM THE CHURCH. YOU ARE THE CHURCH.
2. Without stating a lot of reasons, I think the “church service” should always include 1. corporate singing and 2. teaching the scripture. I think that The Lord’s Supper is also a necessary element, although I’m not convince it MUST be done weekly.
and a side-note: I really, strongly feel that the most American “Churches” need to do a better job at things outside of the church service. I think that if half the money and effort that is put into the weekend services could be put into all the rest of the christian life… then the american church would be much healthier and more significant to the unbelieving culture.
By Eric Rata on Jun 2, 2008 | Reply
“Because growth, real spiritual growth, has to take place outside of a service. …And equipping people for those things is the job of the Church. …The Church provides the resources. You provide the commitment. God provides the transformation as you begin to look like Him.”
Well said, Aron, and I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I believe in the value of our GROW classes, and why I’m so excited to be a part of the teaching rotation. Good stuff, Bro!
By D Rho on Jun 3, 2008 | Reply
Great post Aron - I really enjoy this topic!
“Because growth, real spiritual growth, has to take place outside of a service. …And equipping people for those things is the job of the Church. …The Church provides the resources. You provide the commitment. God provides the transformation as you begin to look like Him.”
Why does real spiritual growth have to happen outside of a church service?
Isn’t this what church gatherings are supposed to be for (the edification of everyone present)?
Maybe what we do in our services needs to be transformed into a more dynamic, wild, beautiful, collective expression of Jesus Christ?
Is the Christian faith really as personal as this: church gives, I take, God grows?
Or is there a more communal, connecting aspect?
Is a church merely there for pastors to produce resources for people and tell them how to live?
What if everyone in the church has a bigger, more dynamic role to play?
Isn’t the decay of real relationships in our culture reason and cause for the church to truly rise as a remedy to that void?
Have we created a sort of “step ladder” for people to jump through on their journey with God?
By Aron Strong on Jun 3, 2008 | Reply
Thanks, D Rho! This is a topic I love to discuss. I think differing opinions is part of “iron sharpening iron.” The discourse makes us all better.
The reason I say real spiritual growth has to happen outside a weekend service is because becoming like Jesus is something that must happen to your entire life. It’s the application of Great Commandment (love God and love others) and the Great Commission (lead people to know and become like Jesus) to who you are through what you do.
We can design a weekend service to do whatever we want. However, spiritual growth still couldn’t happen only inside an hour or, in our case, 65 minues. Edification is an important part of a believer’s life but isn’t sufficient without daily application.
I agree with you, there’s a growing reaction in current culture against the modern style of church, though I hear it most often called “organized religion.” I’m going to delve deeper into this topic in my next blog post. But in this context, it’s a belief that churches have an agenda to simply benefit themselves through large numbers.
The church has a real challenge in taking on this idea. I know from my years of being on staff at a church that our goal has nothing to do simply benefiting ourselves, but achieving what Christ commanded us to do. In that sense, our intent is pure, but our strategies can cause confusion to the unchurched and disenfranchised beleivers (not saying that you are, but others I’ve discussed this before with).
It’s part of our culture to suspect anything that grows too large or is too successful. Microsoft at one time was a hero and now is the enemy. You can see this transition beginning with companies like Google and Apple. I think it’s also occurring with the “megachurch.”
I’ll save what that means for my next post, but for now I’ll say that the church’s task is to produce disciples. I was reminded of this reading through the book of Titus this week.
I absolutely disagree with the idea that pastors simply “produce resources for people and tell them how to live.” (I get that you do also.) In fact, I’m saying the exact opposite.
First, pastors should be exposing people to what the Bible says on how to live, not themselves. Beyond that, equipping people with spiritual mentors, small group fellowship (like home churches) and classes designed to expand their knowledge in the church, basic theology, study methods, etc. is the job of the church.
I believe it’s the whole package that creates spiritual growth. This is supported by the Reveal Study (revealnow.com) which has shown that there are different catalysts for spiritual growth depending on where you are in your spiritual journey. The weekend service is the catalyst mostly for seekers and early beleivers. Later stages of spiritual growth require different catalysts.
I’ll have to do a post on that too, since Clovis Hills just received our personalized results a week or so ago.