There really is an important distinction!
Member minded church exists for the members, mission minded church exists for the mission and vision of the church. What then is the mission of the church, why was it created and by what standard will it be deemed successful in it's activities?
A member minded church expresses many concerns; the building, the budget, the existing programs, the volume level of the sound system. Although they have many concerns, their main concern comes down to this: we have to keep everyone happy. The main driving force of the staff and leaders is to keep the members happy. When the members are happy, there is little conflict. Everybody gets along, and everything is peaceful and happy. Isn't that what God wants?
The problem with a member minded church is that it creates a mindset that church exists to please it's members, those who pay the bills and who expect a return on their investment. The Bible says rather clearly that the church are those people bound together by their commitment to follow Christ, serve Christ and to become like Christ. Jesus is the head of the church (Eph. 1:22; 5:23, Col. 1:18) and the church exists to do His will.
Also, member minded churches produce another dangerous mindset: instead of a service mentality, these churches have a serve us mentality. These churches create a membership that comes and consumes, rather than go and serves.
A mission minded church unifies its members by rallying around the vision to reach people for Jesus and present them as mature disciples. A mission minded church doesn't exist to please it's members it exists to produce people who will give their lives for God's glory.
Peter Drucker, recognized in the business world as the father of modern management says that an organization begins to die the day if begins to run for the benefit of the insiders and not for the benefit of the outsiders.
A unified church, rallying around the mission, will change a community.
When the church has the proper focus, the kingdom of God advances!
~ covenant ~ commitment ~ community ~
I went to church once with a friend. From the instant we entered the sanctuary, not a sound was uttered by anyone. The time, depending on when you arrived prior to the beginning of the service, was spent in prayer, contemplation, and/or reading the Bible. I wonder if….
I’ve attended many Lutheran services and Catholic masses. Sometimes, to be honest, I think, “A little too much kneeling”; but kneeling in the presence of God the Almighty, no matter how often and how difficult, does foster humility as well as remind us that Sunday morning worship services are definitely not about us but about Him. My church doesn’t have kneeling benches, and, sad to say, we often do not kneel when receiving communion. I wonder if….
Have you ever looked at a rainbow? Read the Ten Commandments? Considered the gift of the “land of milk and honey”? Celebrated Emmanuel’s birth? Agonized over the sacrifice and crucifixion of the Father’s only Son? Cried hope-filled tears at the thought of the Risen Christ? And hungered and thirsted to know better and grow closer, ever-closed, to God by reading the Word?
Do you realize that we deserve none of that? Do you realize that He owes us nothing? Do you realize that we are nothing? That we are nothing without God’s gift of grace? That we are nothing without God’s saving grace through the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, Jesus the Christ? Do you realize that we are lower than the lowliest of ants, the lowliest of worms; that we are sin from head to toe and throughout every inch of our body, heart, and mind; yet God loves us, for some reason, beyond anything we can think and/or deserve, He loves us; He has entered into a covenant with us; He has caused His Son to die for our sins so that, in accepting Him as our Savior, we can have eternal life.
I wonder if…we sat in silence before each service…I wonder if…we knelt during communion and periodically during each service…I wonder if…we saw and heard and contemplated and read about the numerous ways in which God has asked us to enter into a convenant with Him…I wonder if…we and our heart would race to the church on Sunday morning, with such joy, enthusiasm, excitement, and purpose, to fulfill the ultimate and primary reason of the building with four walls called a church — to worship, glorify, exalt, and praise God; to “come before His Presence with thanksgiving”; to humble ourselves before Him acknowledging our nothingness without Him and to thank Him for loving us and for His all-sufficient grace; and proclaiming to Him and to and with others that “God is good, all the time; all the time, God is good.”
Once I listened to my pastor describe God as “all-consuming fire” willing to allow us to come before Him every Sunday morning. Amazed and changed in my perception of God, I then accepted my pastor’s challenge to read Leviticus, the Bible book he described as a “real page-turner.” Since then, I have read Numbers and am almost finished Deuteronomy with which I am also reading Revelation — now that’s a pair, don’t you think? When I think about what our “jealous God” can and will do because He loves us and wants us to love and be devoted to Him and Him only, coming to church and sitting in the church’s sanctuary has become an opportunity for me, in all humbleness and honor, to come and worship God, to thank Him for loving me, to glorify Him for all that He has and continues to give freely to each and all of us, and to offer to Him the only gift I have and can — myself — for His service here on earth.
I wonder what it will take to cause people to commit to serving God within their community and out of love for the covenant that He promised, has maintained, and will perpetuate with each of us.
Only God knows that, for “His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts”; but in all likelihood, it would have to be a “heart-transformation” — a heart-change readied by and capable of being accomplished only by God through His Holy Spirit, which becomes effected by, perhaps, one word, one image shared with a soon-to-be-servant by one of God’s humble and devoted shepherds, such as my pastor. God’s shepherds never truly know the impact their words and their passions have on their sheep in revealing God’s character and His covenant and, therefore, causing any and all of those sheep to choose to commit to Him by serving Him inside and outside the church.
It is my sincerest prayer that all pastors serving in churches that are more member-minded than mission-minded will continue “being faithful while God is being successful” because, as with the reference to God as “an all-consuming fire” and the challenge to read Leviticus, God’s shepherds, in trying to transform member-minded churches into mission-minded ones, truly “make disciples and make a difference,” even if it is, just one starfish at a time.