Compliance or Commitment?

 

Is trusting God the essence of our Christian life or is it just an obligation to Christian compliance?

Trusting God can merely be a ritual than a meaningful decision to follow Christ. Mere involvement in Christian activities can give us immense satisfaction without any urge for intentional engagement. To elaborate my point, worship service with good music and singing can attract us and elevate us emotionally, yet remain disconnected in our soul. Unlike Old-Testament age where compliance was the highest priority we are now living in New-Testament age where the focus is on the purity of heart and meeting the demands of a pure conscience. However, as believers we have complacently settled for compliance by regular Church attendance, weekly fasting and paying tithes and offerings without actual engagement with Christ. It's very similar to the days of Jesus where the Pharisees and the scribes rejected the teachings of Jesus for mere adherence to compliance and confronted Him to get His approval and applause. I give below few instances from the Bible that portray this picture. Questions raised by the Pharisees on compliance:

 1. How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast? -Matthew 9:14

2.  Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?  - Matthew 15:3

3.  When the Pharisees, saw this, they said to him “See, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on Sabbath.” Matthew 12:2

4.  Why does he (Jesus) eat with tax collectors and Sinners? - Mark 2:16

5. A doctrinal question from the Pharisee (Matthew 22: 23-28), “In the resurrection, then whose wife will she be of the seven? For all had married to her” They quoted Moses' law (23:24)

To establish our Christian identity, we meet the bare minimum requirements of the Church. The most important truth of finding purpose of life is conveniently overlooked on a daily basis. Apart from this important teaching, every other aspect coupled with encouragement is preached from the pulpit week after week to satisfy the congregation's demand. We too as average Christians have settled to be a good believer and remain faithful to the Church. It ends up in mutual bliss, failing to ask ourselves, is this all Christ demands? Why is that people’s disengagement to Christ's Mission not bothering the Church leadership?

Allow me to present the major purpose of every individual in a crux, as follows:

1. To Know God and to have fellowship with Him.

Jesus' prayer to His Father is profound. John 17:3 “This is eternal life: "that they may know you the only true God, and the one you have sent - Jesus Christ”. Most of us assume knowing God is to have theoretical knowledge of Him and that is sufficient enough to take care of the first purpose of an individual. But we will agree that knowing God is much more than that. It means to make a meaningful decision to commit one’s life to Christ and follow His teaching. This new relationship enables a person to have a fellowship with Him all the time and following His will in one’s life.  In 1 Corinthians 1:9 Paul clarifies, “God is faithful you were called by him into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”. It is the responsibility of the Church leaders to strengthen every member in having a fellowship with Christ.

2. To be a Disciple maker

Jesus always called only to follow Him. He never meant for people to attend His meetings but to follow His mission. Jesus’ call was intense. (Mark 1:17).  He called people to follow Him and surrender to the process of becoming fishers of men, in other words His disciples. Today, Church is that institution, which is the ideal training center to consciously prepare members to be disciple makers. As Pastors let us refrain from giving mere comfort in the four walls of our Churches. God of the Bible condemns unproductive people.  In the parable of the talent, the man with one talent did nothing with it and was rebuked as an “unprofitable servant” (Matthew 25:30). In the Great Commission, Jesus commands all of us to “go and make disciples of all nations...” (Matthew 28:19).

3 To be a carrier of the Gospel.

Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:3 “For I passed on to you as most important what I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.”. The Gospel was never meant to be harbored. As Apostle Paul passed on to us what he received we are also expected to pass on. But the problem is we stagnate. Instead of becoming the 'carriers' of the Gospel we have become 'reservoirs'.

It's time to take a reality check on whether the above mentioned three major purposes are well integrated in our spiritual lives or are we just satisfied with mere attendance to all Church meetings? Dear Church Pastors and leaders, unless we equip our members to these major three goals, our Churches will be stagnant like reservoirs merely depending on biological growth and for 'Church-hoppers'.

Click here  You can follow on Twitter

Deepening the roots of Church engagement!

 

The effectiveness of the ministry was heavily judged by the attendance of its congregation members, which has proved costly for Churches. This issue was addressed in the previous blog, which can be referred HERE. Clergy and Laity have their own rationalization to their defense in regards to drop in attendance and offerings. Apart from their attachment for the Church as an institution and building facility, there are no other concrete reasons to anchor Church members to this entity. Church facility was seen as a holy place for worship and therefore all efforts were focused on maintaining its decorum.

Church members affinity to the Church manifested itself in forms of sitting in a particular place and having their own group of people to interact. Once the Church service is over, the disconnection begins until following Sunday. Churches have also misconstrued the engagement of Church members in its activities like Bible study, women’s fellowships and Youth fellowships, etc. as the loyalty and faithfulness of the members. In fact, such members were hailed and given importance by the Church leaders.

The pandemic has taken the scales off the Churches eyes and stripped it of all its myths. The lament of some pastors is that the Church members have shunned their moral responsibility towards the Church and in taking care of their Pastor. They feel that the members have become too complacent during this pandemic time and the online Churches have added to their callousness. I beg to disagree with such pastors in this perspective.

Let me shift gears here. We all have school grades, standardized testing scores, mileage for our cars and square foot dimensions for our homes. There are measurements for everything in life. In the same way we have measurements to assess the “success” in a ministry. 90% of the churches use Attendance, Building and Cash as success, which is called as the ABC method. These areas can be great indicators of health for a Church. But what about the matters of the heart? Sadly, Churches have no measurements for discipleship and spiritual maturity. Other areas that need to be included in measurement are discipleship, faithfulness and fruitfulness, scores telling how many people have presented gospel over a week, month and year and how many of the new members made a commitment and participated in Church fellowship over the years? Such parameters that indicate deep engagement to Christ's mission is often absent or overlooked.

We need to keep in mind that the Church is a group of redeemed people that live and serve together in such a way that their lives and communities are transformed. Church, the body of Christ, is neither confined to a structure nor is an entity where people gather, as an end in itself. Rather it is a vibrant movement to impact the communities and people under its sphere of influence and nation. Church is the only hope for lost lives and nations. Out of 114 times the “Church” is mentioned in the New Testament, at least ninety of them refer to specific local gatherings of believers who have banded together for fellowship and mission. God intends for every follower of Jesus to be a part of such a gathering under the servant leadership of pastors who shepherd the Church for the glory of God. It is the responsibility of the Church Leadership to engage their members to Christ's mission. Apostle Paul said that God gave pastors, teachers, and elders to the Church so that they could teach the rest of us to minister. A pastor’s job is not to do all of the ministry in a Church, but to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians. 4:12).

Can the Church define to its members what their Church mission will look like and build their engagement for a greater harvest?

Click here  You can follow on Twitter