Your Church’s Salvation Is In This Counter-Intuitive Shift

by Mark Tidsworth, Founder and Team Leader

Your church’s salvation is in giving itself away; not in protecting itself or focusing on survival.

I’m remembering one consultation conversation with a lay leadership team wherein the discussion went on and on. Weariness and frustration were growing as the group continued to generate ideas about how to attract newcomers to their congregation. This agenda was not the stated agenda, but since it was present behind the overt agenda for our work, it surfaced. After their frustration reached significant levels, I found myself saying what everyone in the room already knew. “I hate to tell you, or to state the obvious, but there really are not people out there who are eager to join you in order to help you pay the light bill.” The initial response included nervous laughter, followed by substantive conversation about focus and priorities. This group of lay leaders knew this before it was spoken. They knew that their church’s ability to meet its financial obligations along with other institutional concerns, is a non-issue for those in their community.

There really aren’t people in their community who want to join them to help address their institutional concerns. They were relieved someone finally said aloud what they knew intuitively.

Sometimes the paradox of the gospel is striking, especially when it comes to being church together. When we can take our feet off the gas pedal, stepping back toward reflection, then we recognize that our grasping, clutching, and striving is counter-productive. Focusing on ourselves as priority, even when it’s our church’s needs, leads to further institutional weakening.

This is the time to shift the conversation, to shift our focus, to the first clause in the statement above. Your church’s salvation is in giving itself away. We find Jesus using so many analogies about the calling of his disciples in the New Testament. Grain falling to the ground and dying, giving up control over our priorities and following Christ, embracing our brokenness before finding healing…dying to self appears to be the default way of salvation (finding genuine life on earth). This is the calling of God’s church. Communities of faith are called to avoid self-centered and self-aggrandizing behavior. We are called to give ourselves away in service, joining God on mission in the world. When we do so, we discover life. We gain a foretaste of what life will be like when God’s kingdom comes fully on this earth, like it is in heaven.

Our church’s salvation is not found in protecting itself or survivalism. Our church’s salvation is in laying down our agendas and taking up God’s agenda as modeled through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the founder of our faith. May we have the courage to be church, trusting God as we go.

NOTE – We will continue making the shifts we need through next week’s article. To learn more about these shifts, see Mark’s book Shift: Three Big Moves For The 21st Century Church, Pinnacle Leadership Press.