Maturity

Rethinking Spiritual Growth

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Measring growthI’m part of a closed group of Vineyard and ex-Vineyard folks who discuss theology on a Facebook page.  Someone there raised the age-old question:

How do we measure spiritual growth?

For too long this simple question has baffled evangelical Christians. I think there’s a reason for that, but it’s not what it appears on the surface. But then, this is Cerulean Sanctum, so when do I ever approach things from a surface perspective? 😉

Measuring anything demands we agree on what we are measuring and the tools and terms we use in the measurement. Talking measuring spiritual growth in an evangelical church immediately runs into a wall because we make poor assumptions about those bedrock criteria. Ask the wrong questions and get the wrong answers.

For me, the elusiveness of measuring spiritual growth occurs because the focus has always been on the individual Christian in the individual church. It’s a bedrock principle that what we’re measuring is how a lone Christian in a lone Church grows.

But I wonder if we’re getting this all wrong from the first step.

I go back to two posts from 2013:

No “I” in “CHURCH”–How American Evangelicalism Gets Its Pronouns Wrong

God of the Group

What if we commit a fundamental error in checking for spiritual growth by focusing on the individual rather than on the collective church?

The language of the New Testament, again and again, is the collective you, not the singular. And the New Jerusalem at the close of the age isn’t a loose collection of people, but a unified Body—or more appropriately, a complete city.

I think one reason that leaders on the local church level burn out on growth issues is because all the emphasis is on the individual Christian. But shouldn’t successful growth be centered on what that local church is accomplishing?

Even more, the tendency to focus on the individual removes the collective church from its role as Body. Paul’s metaphor depicts health not as one organ functioning alone but as the organs in the body working in harmony, which has a secondary effect of wholeness for each part. In other words, when the eye is doing what an eye does, the foot and hand don’t end up falling off a cliff along with it.

For too long the assumption has been…

IF the individual is functioning well, THEN the church will be well.

That thinking puts everything on the back of the individual, though. The onus is on him or her to perform. Legalism and moralism can be the only result.

What if we reverse that assumption?

IF the church is functioning well, THEN the individual will be well.

I think that second equation has gone unexplored for too long. And because it has not been explored, it’s not at the forefront of how we think about church, the individual, and spiritual growth. I believe that second statement, though, is closer to the heart of the Gospel.

Shifting toward measuring church growth rather than individual growth makes it far easier to gauge genuine growth overall. The Body metaphor makes more sense and lends a better basis for measuring growth.

We can chart some growth elements from the perspective of an organic Body or organism. Two obvious aspects of a living organism that we can then examine:

How well is the organism feeding itself?

How well is the organism reproducing?

Starting at the second question also answers the first. Healthy organisms reproduce, while unhealthy ones do not. If disciples are not being made and the church is not growing itself, then it is not healthy. At this point, examining reasons for ill health can take us back to the first question and to others associated with it.

Here’s the thing: Measuring the growth of individuals will always have periods of mixed analysis. If you wish to measure an individual’s activity but do so while he is sleeping, bad analysis may result. What may look like slacking off may actually be recovery from a day’s strenuous work. This analytical mistake is why charting individual growth is so hard in the church and may not be a viable source for an accurate assessment. Our results depend on something that is too variable. Stepping up to a broader measure may be a better way of charting the real growth info we need to examine, and it provides us a way to work backwards and make general statements about the growth in the individual.

The main problem is that we’re not used to thinking that way, so many of our tools, questions, and interpretations will need to be recast to look more at the collective church rather than the individual Christian. Once we start thinking differently, I think we’ll have better results for making accurate statements about spiritual growth in American churches.

When a Christian Feels Like an Imposter

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When everyone is worshiping on Sunday and seems to be “into” God, you stand with them.

But you’re not feeling the music.

You’re not feeling love for God or for others.

You instead feel alone and disconnected.

You wonder what is wrong with you.

You may even ask yourself, Am I an imposter?

Feeling as if you are faking your way through the Christian life is not unusual. In difficult times, when nothing seems to be going right, that sense can become overwhelming.

But are you really a phony with regard to your faith?

Hiding behind a maskTruth is, most Christians who struggle with feelings of being an imposter need to realize, generally, that people who fake their Christian devotion aren’t self-examining. Real imposters in the faith, those who may go to church and talk the talk but who aren’t truly born again, don’t pose questions of their motives because, for the most part, they simply don’t care. Theirs is not an attitude of wanting to fix their phoniness, so they abide it without worry.

Yes, sometimes God does break through in the life of someone who has been phoning in their faith for years or even decades, but I think that’s not the majority case.

Instead, I think the people who most struggle with feelings of being an imposter are genuine, born-again Christians who have run into some kind of spiritual barrier that has forced self-examination.

What are some causes for feelings of being an imposter?

1. Legalism—Whether imposed by a church or self-imposed, a mandated set of spiritual do’s and don’ts can lead that imposter self-accusation. Everyone else is doing this Christian life thing right, but you’re not making the grade, and you know it.

2. Listening to the Enemy when you should be ignoring him—Satan is real. And more than anything, discouragement is his tool for ruining believers. A discouraged Christian never reaches his or her full potential in Faith, which is what the Enemy wants. In addition, a discouraged Christian is an antiwitness.

3. Disconnection from other Christians—Sometimes, the people in the pews go through turnover. Suddenly, you don’t know who those new folks are, have no relationship with them, and your church just feels different. You find yourself increasingly distanced from the Christian connections you once had. You wonder if there’s something you’re doing wrong, which explains why everyone seems not to care about connecting with you.

4. Change—Your church changed it’s worship music style. The sanctuary was remodeled. You have a new pastor. Your closest friends at the church moved out of the area or switched to a different church. Everything feels different.

5. A new direction in your own life—If bridges are burning through no cause of your own, if everything you were doing feels as if it’s coming to an end, maybe God has a new direction for your life. Maybe it even means changing your church. In short, not all feelings of being an imposter must be negative. Perhaps God is opening a new vista for you or is getting ready to launch you in a new ministry opportunity.

And then there’s that final one:

6. Perhaps you’re not truly born again.

As noted above, that final one is less likely than you might assume when you feel as if you’re an imposter.

Here’s the curious thing, though: Whether you are a genuine imposter or just feeling like one, the solutions are the same:

1. Repent—God desires that all men and women repent of their sins. If you are not a genuine Christian, then you need to repent. If you are a genuine Christian and you’ve just succumbed to ignoring what God says positively about you as His son or daughter, then you need to repent. Even if #5 applies and God is using your feelings of being an imposter to take you in a new direction for His work, repentance is always the place to start. You can’t go wrong with repentance.

2. Humble yourself—Sometimes, feelings of being an imposter can make a person feel superior to others. You alone recognize that you’re a fake and everyone else is too dumb to see that. They’re all imposters too. Or so the self-deception goes. Don’t go there. If you’ve repented, allow yourself to be humbled. You’re dust and so is everyone else. Stop thinking that you’re any better or any worse than anyone else.

3. Accept grace—God offers grace to imposters, whether they are genuine imposters or just mired in the mistaken feelings of being one. Learning to accept God’s grace is key to ridding yourself of feelings of being an imposter. But it has to be learned. Ask God to help you improve in your ability to accept His grace.

4. Draw closer to Jesus—Every answer to every problem is found in Jesus. Really.

I want to expand that fourth solution.

My experience with people who feel as if they are imposters is that the majority are on the cusp of a deeper walk with the Lord. Allow Him to take you there. Deep calls to deep, and that feeling of being an imposter is often God’s way of saying that He has a more fulfilling relationship He wishes to pursue with you. He wants more of you for Himself and for His Kingdom’s purposes.

Because God doesn’t want us to be satisfied with the status quo. He doesn’t want us to be thrilled by mammon, but He wants us to be thrilled by what He values. Feelings of being an imposter are one means by which God can correct the course of your life to look more like His Son’s. In a way, that feeling of being an imposter is real because all of us are imposters if we’re not living in the fulness of life in Christ that He so desires for us.

So while feeling like an imposter IS something of a bad situation, it’s not a hopeless one. In fact, it most often signals the start of a wonderful new direction that God has always desired for you but which you were unable or unwilling to accept because you were not ready.

He has made everything beautiful in its time.
—Ecclesiastes 3:11a ESV

Bizarro Church, and What We Can Do to Save American Christianity

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Bizarro SupermanI grew up in an age of comic book superheroes. Spider-Man debuted just months before I was born, and as a child, I endlessly watched the old George Reeves Superman TV show.

About four years before my own debut, at a point that can only be considered a creative nadir, the writers of the Superman comic came up with an anti-Superman called Bizarro. His powers were the opposites of most of Superman’s, and though he was none too bright,  he gave the Man of Steel fits.

Bizarro hailed from a square planet, Bizarro World. Later, as is wont in comic books, publisher DC kept enhancing Bizarro World, adding Bizarro copies of favorite DC denizens Batman and Wonder Woman.

To me, there’s nothing more idiotic in comics than the whole Bizarro idea (well, if you ignore all the desperate comic book universe reboots and their inane explanations).

Sometimes, I feel like I’m trapped in Bizarro Church.

At the beginning of 2012, I wrote about the organic/house church movement and my frustrations with even finding an existing church in that mode in my area, much less one that seemed vibrant and growing (“Is the Organic House Church a Myth?“). That post eventually generated 100+ comments, as many shared my frustration or felt they needed to comment on my rightness or wrongness.

Unlike some bloggers, I don’t close my comments after a period of time. You can comment on a post I wrote a decade ago, if you wish. Over this past weekend, a reader commented on that older post that he shared my frustrations with the oddities and rarity of the organic/house church.

Now let’s discuss the brouhaha that erupted by bringing in the “Gentlemen.”

When the post first came out in January 2012, Gentleman A commented on it and seemed to be an organic church leader. I’m not sure how, but the sudden, recent activity on that post’s comments by that reader commenting sucked in Gentleman B, who, out of nowhere, wrote a screed against Gentleman A, claiming A was some hellraiser bent on destroying the real organic church and its leaders. This was followed by Gentleman C, who often decloaks from nowhere and comments. In this case, Gentleman C wrote to the reader and repeated the annoyingly frustrating organic church habit of sharing how organic church is thriving like crazy in every place where the reader (blog owner included) does not live. Later, Gentleman D, also out of nowhere, wrote me a personal email, noting how Gentleman A is slandering him all over the Web. Evidently, Gentleman D was tipped off to the presence of the seemingly innocuous comments of Gentleman A because of what Gentleman B wrote. And, with a little research, it seems Gentleman D and Gentleman B are connected through the same organic church organization.

In short, a few organic church “leaders” swarmed in and started accusing each other or making the usual unhelpful comments.

Adding to this, my post on Christian singles from a few years ago (“The Christian Singles Mess“) saw a reader comment turn into a diatribe against younger Christian men and their inability to grow up, make good money, and become a proper husband for the commenter.

I’ve been a Christian going on four decades, and I’ll tell you honestly that sometimes I just want to chuck the whole enterprise. And I’m not talking about my blog.

How did the Church in this country get to be such a mess? From the Bizarro behavior associated with this organic/house church fiasco to the Bizarro “everyone else is a loser but me” kind of commentary, it all seems so idiotic as to strain credulity. You begin despairing that whatever it is that Jesus started, we’re not anywhere close to that organization in any way, shape, or form. We instead seem to be practicing a Bizarro form of church that exemplifies everything that is wrong in the world.

Worse, when Bizarro Church grabs the spotlight, immediately we get its apologists, who claim that it’s impossible for sinners to run a decent, sensical church—an idea I reject in toto.

How is it that so few people can see through all this obfuscating garbage? Why is it that no one seems to take basic, commonsense Christianity to heart?

How do we fix this Bizarro Church behavior and get back to the main and the plain?

1. Folks, we are dust. So is everyone else. And dust shouldn’t have such a high opinion of itself.

Here is what Jesus said:

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
—Luke 18:10-14 ESV

I am sick to death of the lack of humility everywhere I look in the Church. If we don’t repent of our pride, we are wasting our time being the Church, because we won’t be, no matter how much we tell ourselves we are.

2. We think we have a handle on life. We don’t. Time to grow up and experience a reality check.

Here is what Jesus observed:

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
—Matthew 9:35-36 ESV

I will repeat what I have said often elsewhere on this blog: Most people are just trying to get by. Do we have compassion on them? They may get by in a sinful, stupid way, but they are trying to get from Point A to Point B in any way they think is possible. What stupid things are you and I doing to get by? Because I can promise you that we are sheep too.

3. We say the harshest things to and about each other. We should stop. Now.

Here is what Jesus said:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
—Matthew 5:21-26 ESV

Later in the Scriptures we are told that Christians are ambassadors who have been blessed with the ministry of reconciliation. Are we acting that way? Is reconciliation at the heart of what we do as believers? If not, why not?

4. What we learned about Christian practice as children seems to be forgotten in our “maturity.” That’s an enormous loss.

Here is what Jesus said:

“Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
—Mark 10:15 ESV

Also:

“And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”
—Luke 6:31 ESV

Really, how hard is it to ask oneself before any interaction with others, Is this how I would want to be treated? I mean, didn’t all of us learn The Golden Rule when we were 3 or 4 years old, even if we never stepped foot into a church? If so, how is it that we treat others so atrociously?

5. Whatever it is that is wrong with someone else, what is wrong with you and me is probably bigger. How can this not sober us?

Here is how Jesus said it:

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”
—Luke 6:41-42 ESV

Nothing amazes me more—or frustrates more—than people who read their Bible every single day without a miss and yet they’ve never incorporated into their lives the most well-known and obvious passages. If that’s the case, stop with dutiful Bible study, because it’s not penetrating that cold, dead heart, and we’re just wasting our time unless the Holy Spirit gets ahold of us and we repent.

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I’m sickened by all this immaturity. Really. None of us is listening to what the Spirit is saying to the American Church. We are all self-righteous prigs, and we seem satisfied with our state.

Stop it.

Bizarro Church sucks. Period. And yet it seems to be what we’re perpetrating on the world.

Some are searching the skies for Superman to appear and fix everything. Here’s a clue: You and I are Superman. But only if we stop living in this Bizarro World of our own making and start living the way Jesus can empower us to.