We’ve been gathering job descriptions at Piperton UMC lately. Some were concerned that the job descriptions were going to be used for thorough overhauls of the work done at our church.
They aren’t.
Some were afraid that we were trying to figure out who to cut and who to keep.
We aren’t.
The reason I called for job descriptions two months ago was to facilitate accountibility. And I’m much less interested in employee accountibility as I am in seeing to it that the congregation is fairly holding accountible our friends and neighbors who happen to be employees.
For example, I don’t want someone thinking or speaking ill of our secretary if our newsletter hasn’t gone out. Why? Because it isn’t her job to compile a newsletter.
We often have unfair expectations on folks. And that is usually brought about by having no idea what the appropriate expectations are.
Right now, we have a list of goals for our church. I doubt that most people could name more than one.
We have a vision and mission statement for our church. Despite the fact that it is printed weekly on the back of the worship bulletin, I’m 99% certain that less than 50% of our congregation could recount more than 10% of the statement. You can see it here on the website. Just go to the site menu and select MISSION STATEMENT from the ABOUT PIPERTON menu.
So what is the big deal? The big deal is that we have to develop expectations of each other about how we are going to grow together as a congregation. We have to figure out how to grow into deeper commitments to Jesus Christ. And we have to figure out how we are going to share our faith and our commitments with the people around us.
The big deal is that churches that are driven by programs generally fail to grow disciples. Churches that are driven by pastors generally fail to grow disciples, either during that pastor’s tenure, or shortly after that pastor departs.
Bill Hybels recently discovered that the Willow Creek model of programs over people was failing in its aim to provide deeper spirituality and more committed discipleship.
Hybels confesses:
We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.
Bill is discovering that church programs don’t create disciples. Church programs don’t sustain disciples. Most church programs inform and educate disciples. But the only thing that creates a disciple is the personal relationship with Jesus Christ, brought about by grace and the power of God working through the Church. The only things that can sustain a disciple are the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and Christian relationships. And, ironically, these basic disciplines do not require multi-million dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage.
So what do we need? We need people who are willing to grapple with the issues. We need church members who don’t read the Scriptures to crack a Bible from time to time. And we need those who are already occasional readers to become committed disciples.
Can programs do this? No. But processes can.
I’ll be writing more here about the process of discipleship, and the process of deepening your discipleship.
Its part of my job description.
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