The Parable of the Bricks

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. I Corinthians 3:10

But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. I Corinthians 12:18

Building a body of believers is like the man who set out to build a house. He had seen some beautiful houses made of brick, and determined that his house would also be made of bricks. He began searching for the strongest and most beautiful bricks, because he wanted his house to be both strong and beautiful. He took great care in his search for bricks. He read books on how to find lots and lots of great bricks. He spent long hours perfecting his strategic plan for collecting more and more bricks. He became an expert at finding and collecting bricks. He wrote books and taught seminars on the subject. His brick collection was one of the largest the world had ever seen—piles and piles of bricks covering acres and acres of land. Nobody knew more than he knew about how to collect bricks. The entire world recognized him as a wildly successful expert when it came to finding and collecting bricks.

He never built the house.

Another man set out to build a house. He too would build with bricks. When he had found his first two bricks, he began to examine them closely to determine how they might fit together. They were not particularly beautiful bricks nor were they all that strong, but he knew he could use them.  When he had determined how they would best fit together, he used mortar to join them together. In this bond, the two bricks supported one another and made each other stronger. Then the man found a third brick and, again, took great care to figure out how it would best fit with the first two. And then there was another and another. Some were strong, some were beautiful, and some were neither strong nor beautiful.  But with each new brick, great care was taken to examine it and place it just perfectly along with the others, and then bond them together. With the mortar, the bricks supported each other and made each other stronger. Before long, the man had a house. It was much smaller than the pile of bricks the first man had collected. And it didn’t necessarily grab the attention of the world with its size or beauty. But it was a good house, useful to the man for many purposes.

And he was a good builder.

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

What Churches Learn from Stress

[I love being a part of the HighCallingBlogs Network.  This post is part of a writing project with that network. The topic is actually "What I learned from Stress", but this blog is really less about me and almost entirely about churches.  So my take on this subject will be what churches with whom I have worked have learned from stress.]

Every church conflict is unique in many ways.  The mix of personalities, the history, and especially the specific facts and circumstances cover a huge range of possibilities.  But they all have some things in common as well.  As I “debrief” a church leadership team after having come through a difficult conflict, I am always intrigued by what they learn as a result of that conflict.  Intrigued, but rarely surprised anymore.  Because, generally speaking, I hear variations on the same lessons over and over again.  “What regrets do you have?” I will ask them.  In the instances where we actually came through with success, I almost always hear the same regrets.

Church Leaders’ 3 Most Common Regrets from their Conflict:

1.  “I wish we had built stronger relationships.”

No surprise here, right?  There is a lot of talk these days about the fact that the church is not a building, it is people.  I agree with that, but I disagree with saying it quite like that.  The church is not just people…it is people living in relationships with each other.  The key is the relationships.  It’s one thing to get a bunch of people attending a weekly “show” on Sunday mornings.  But if they are not in relationships with each other, they are no more a church than the theater full of people all attending the same movie.  What makes it a church is the relationships between the people.  And what destroys the church is when the relationships fall apart.  Relationships, then, are the very “fabric” of the church.

When church leaders look back at a season of severe conflict, they almost always realize that much of the attention, emphasis, energy and resources which they put into polished programs, beautiful buildings and synchronized schedules should have been put into teaching/learning/practicing the skills of Biblical interpersonal relationships.  The health of any New Testament church really does boil down to the peoples’ relationships with God and their relationships with each other.  Love God and love others.  Sound familiar?

2.  “I wish we had taken more time to build consensus.”

I don’t know why this is the case.  Maybe it is the democratic, “red states, blue states” culture in which we live, but too many churches have determined through the years that the best way to resolve conflict is to just take a vote and let the majority rule.  As a result of that kind of thinking, peacemakers like me will have work to do in the church until Jesus comes back…because the New Testament church is not a democracy.  We exist to discern together the will of God.  Every decision we make should be a determination of the will of God.  There is never an instance where our “discerning” should stop once we have figured out the will of the majority.  Simply voting on the will of God is a little bit like voting on what time it is…the vote will neither change nor establish the truth.

Churches who simply take a vote on a conflict and then attempt to move forward on a 60% or 70% vote are begging for far deeper trouble to follow.  I once heard Henry Blackaby describe that scenario as perhaps having figured out the will of God but not yet figured out His timing.  Both matter quite a bit.  On controversial issues, when we do not yet have a clear consensus (i.e., enough puzzle pieces in place to leave no doubt as to the entire picture), we do not yet have God’s timing.  And if we do not yet have God’s timing to move, we should stay right where we are, faithfully doing the last thing we know He told us to do and continuing to pray together about the next thing.

3.  “I wish we, as leaders, had taken more responsibility for the focus of the congregation.”

In other words, at some point in the conflict, the leaders turned all their attention to the issues and away from their usual focus on Jesus.  They “secularized” the problem-solving process, handling it all in their own strength, rather than intensifying their prayer efforts and leading the congregation to do the same thing.  A church’s focus must always be on Jesus, as the head of the church.  That’s really our job, to show people Jesus.  When times are good and the budget is fat and new people are pouring in the doors, we should be showing people Jesus.  When everything is going down the toilet and we can’t pay staff salaries and people are leaving in droves, we should show people Jesus. That focus should never change.

But we are like Peter walking on the water (your church walks on water, right?).  As long as everything is rocking along well, we keep our eyes on Jesus.  But as soon as the waves pick up and we feel less steady, we take our eyes off Jesus and start focusing on Roberts Rules of Order or the church constitution and by-laws or the sinful, fleshly side of everyone.  As soon as that happens, focus is officially gone.  At that point, we will get exactly what we’re focused on: trouble.

These are the lessons learned by churches who survived conflict.  Maybe you have experienced church conflict yourself and have already learned these same lessons.  If you have not, then ask yourself this question: can you go ahead and learn them now, or will you have to learn them firsthand?

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

Languages of Worship (The Biblical Illustration)

The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him. Genesis 12:7

David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the LORD with all his might… II Samuel 6:14

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. John 12:3

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death… Philippians 3:10

My first post on this topic (and by this title) was back in July (find it here).  Think of it as an introduction.  We’ll call this series of posts the “Languages of Worship” series.

If you have ever had to plan a corporate or “gathered” worship experience for a diverse group of people, you know how challenging it can be.  This person prefers hymns, that person prefers choruses.  This person loves the Power Point, that person hates it, and so on and so forth.  And it is those differences in preferences which have contributed to what we call the “worship wars” troubling so many of our churches today.

I believe those differences can be sorted out into two categories.  Some of them have to do with cultural upbringing.  In that respect, the preferences are learned languages which we have developed over time.  I grew up singing hymns so I have developed a love for them, a preference.  Others did not grow up with them and find them to be difficult to understand.  They prefer a more “user friendly” chorus.  This category of preferences is very akin to the Mac versus PC issue in the computer world.

But there is a second category of preferences that go beyond just cultural or learned responses.  Going back to the computer metaphor, there are some worship preferences which have more to do with our circuit board than with whatever application we happen to be running at the time.  They are about temperament or personality.  They have to do with how God created us.  If the first category of issues is essentially a “software” issue, this second category is more of a “hardware” issue…all the culturalization in the world will not change it, because it has to do with how we were hardwired from birth.

Consider four of our friends from the Bible: Abraham, David, Mary of Bethany, and Paul.  If you were called upon to plan a worship experience that would engage all four of them, what would it look like?  Abraham was the traditionalist, always looking back at what was and remembering.  He approached God by building altars.  David, on the other hand, was passionate and exuberant in his worship.  He celebrated being in God’s presence with singing and dancing.  Mary’s (of Bethany) pathway to worship was just sitting in Jesus’ presence, gazing adoringly at him, contemplating His love.  Paul was an intellectual.  If you want to engage him in worship, you better have your Bible opened and be challenging him with thought-provoking truths.  Each of these dear friends loved the Lord and was loved by God.  Each of them were wired completely differently in terms of the environment in which they preferred to approach the Lord.

Can we in the church today learn to give each other the leeway to be wired differently from one another?  Can we learn to embrace those differences and use them to make our worship experiences even richer?  Can we as leaders in the church learn to exert our influence so as to promote tolerance in our people for a variety of forms of worship?  I say yes, yes and yes.  I have faith in the church.

By the way, for more on this concept, you should check out Gary Thomas’ website and particularly his book, Sacred Pathways. Intriguing stuff.

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

The Spiritual Gift of Blah, Blah, Blah

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. I Corinthians 13:1-3

You really cannot have a complete discussion about unity in the church without talking about Spiritual gifts.  They are, after all, an essential piece to the puzzle.  The Spirit of God Himself, manifesting Himself through the believer, is a huge promise from Him…a promise upon which unity rests.  Without the Spirit of God working in and through us, there would be no hope for unity because there is no other provision for unity other than the Spirit.  How He chooses to manifest Himself, then, through believers (i.e., what we call Spiritual gifts) is a critical cog in the machinery of the church.

Paul begins his discussion of Spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12 with these words: “Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.” He then teaches the concept of Spiritual gifts wonderfully, including the whole metaphor of the church as a body.  But then at the end of that chapter, he segues from that discussion with these words: “And now I will show you the most excellent way.” In other words, now he is going to paint a picture of how it all looks in a very practical, understandable way.  And with that introduction, he teaches us the most important lesson there is about Spiritual gifts: that they can be amazingly helpful or utterly useless.  It is up to us.

Your Spiritual gifts, it seems, are always going to be perceived by the church through the lens of interpersonal relationships.  Where relationships are good (i.e., where love abounds) the gifts are helpful and fulfill their intended purpose.  But where relationships are bad (i.e., where there is no love), even something as powerful as the Spirit of God Himself will not be received when He manifests Himself through a believer.  That activity (gifts without love) is described as just a bunch of noise: a “resounding gong” or a “clanging cymbal”. Kids today would describe it this way: blah, blah, blah. Meaningless.  Worthless.  Under those circumstances, your Spiritual gift of teaching becomes the spiritual gift of blah, blah, blah.

Can you imagine such a plan on God’s part?  I’m going to do my work in the church through the people of the church.  If there relationships with one another are not right, then they will not benefit from my work.  It will all be dependent upon their love for each other.  No love, no power. I don’t know about you, but I probably would not have planned it that way.  That is an absolutely astounding move on God’s part.

So here is the question it begs: how is the “lens” between you and the others in your church?  Is it such that the church is able to receive God’s “gift” through you?  Have you maintained such loving relationships with your church that your Spiritual gift actually has meaning in their lives?  Or is time to pull out the glass cleaner and get to work on that lens…

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

The Ultimate Power Source

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17b-19

The love of Christ may be the most awesome, profound, world-altering source of power ever known or experienced by creation.  And it is available to any of us as a free gift.  Paul taught about it, wrote about it, and prayed for it.  The church has been teaching about it and, in some very limited sense, demonstrating it for centuries.  The stories about it abound by the millions over the last two thousand years.  Creation itself speaks of it.

The Bible says it over and over and over again in no uncertain terms.  There is no substitute for it, no limit to it, and nothing else that even resembles it.  It is easy to spot, easy to desire, and relatively easy to access.  It gives meaning to everything.

It is the only “pearl of great price”, worth pursuing at any cost.  Millions have died for it, either for the right to proclaim it or trying to defend it.  Entire empires have stood because of it and have fallen because of it.  Its power is indescribable and immeasurable.  It is the source of life itself.

It is stronger than any government, deeper than any ocean, more expansive than the ever-increasing universe, and more valuable than knowledge itself.  It is why the church exists, why Christianity exists, and why I (as a Christ-follower) am still on this earth.

Why, then, are there ever days in our lives when it is clearly not our first and best pursuit?

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.

Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com