Being Quiet and Contemplative

[dayhiker]

I attend a church that is now big enough that it has 11 paid pastors. Several of the pastors know me, but I don't interact with them much at all ... they aren't asking me why I'm not involved more in the church.

 

[NotUrAvgGuy]

I attend a church that is now big enough that it has 11 paid pastors. Several of the pastors know me, but I don't interact with them much at all ... they aren't asking me why I'm not involved more in the church.

I struggle sometimes with how staff heavy modern churches are getting. My view is that the church exists for corporate worship, edification, and fellowship. The church should be equipping us to do our jobs as parents and individuals. If parents took seriously their responsibility to train their children in the Bible we would not need so many youth ministries. Seems we need a pastor for 10 different things now. Somehow I don't think the early church, meeting in people's homes, had a huge staff.

We have created a monster. A modern church has to have a big facility with lots of classrooms, baby rooms, playground equipment, loads of musical gear, etc. That requires purchasing land and financing an expensive facility that is only used a fraction of the week. Pastors and elders become concerned with attendance because they need giving to be able to afford that big building and the small army of staff they hired to administer the many programs of the church. I live in Mormon country and one thing I'll say for them is that they share facilities. Often 3 wards (congregations) share one facility. So many Christian churches could share like that but everyone wants their own facility.

My church has four services so they keep the facility busy on Sunday but the rest of the week not so much. When they built the new sanctuary they put a hot tub / baptismal behind the stage. Of course special sound tiles and major speakers hung from the ceiling. My pastor teaches verse-by-verse through whole books (which I love!) but for each book there is some kind of theme and some kind of props placed behind him that go with the theme. This time it's a bunch of wood scaffolding with lights. Not saying that's wrong but who needs that? Does the drummer really have to sit in a Plexiglas room on the stage? We Americans love our facilities. Early in my walk I went to some churches that met in high school auditoriums or elementary school gyms. I used to volunteer to ferry music equipment from the church office to the gym before the service, hook it up, then tear down and move back after. Sure a bit of a hassle but that church had no debt. There was something authentic meeting like that without a fancy facility.

If the church ever loses it's tax exempt status (I bet it does at some point) then we'll see what happens...