Church Work

DateLine (10/19/05 – Naas, County Kildare, Ireland)

I was reading a copy of Fortune magazine recently and happened upon an article entitled “The25 people we envy most.” I fully expected to find the likes of Bill Gates, the two co-founders of Google, Tiger Woods, J. K. Rowling of Harry Potty fame, and even Chris Rock the comedian. These are all people who have measured up in terms of how society defines success; fame and fortune and at an early age mind you for some of those profiled.

Quite to my surprise I find included in the list, Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church and wildly successful author of “The Purpose Driven Life.” The article labeled him as the most influential evangelical since Billy Graham and ends the piece with the statement, “and he’ll never wake up wondering if his job has meaning.” Why is this man so admired?
A recent article in our own Baptist Courier weekly tabloid quotes from Reggie McNeal, the director of leadership development, who led a group to analyze our effectiveness in accomplishing some goals that we had set for ourselves in the year 2000. In response to a question which asked about some goals where we had achieved disappointing results he states, “my own opinion is that we are too busy doing church to “be” church.

In my opinion the appearance of Rick Warren in Fortune’s list of most envied people and the disappointment verbalized by Reggie McNeal are connected. If there is one thing that Rick Warren did in the book referenced above it was to drive home the point that everything that we do in the church should be purpose driven. He laid out a challenge to evaluate our programs and efforts to insure that they are aligned with the heartbeat of God. He helped formulate the metrics to determine “on purpose” living by sifting out the five primary purposes of our existence; worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship, and personal need focused ministry.

A well balanced person and a well-balanced church have equal emphasis on all five. If our fellowship drowns out our evangelism or our worship leaves no time for discipleship or our evangelism ignores the physical needs of those we reach out to, then we are out of balance and not meeting our personal potential, our church’s potential, or God’s objectives. If church activities that cannot be tied back to any of the five basic purposes then the energy to perpetuate the program is leached from the programs that are purposeful. Rick Warren could be acknowledged as the person most responsible for liberating a generation from the drudgery of religion therefore earning him the admiration of his listeners.

Our church participation should not be driven by guilt or obligation. Understanding God’s will for us and the tools that he has equipped our person with should lead to a sense of freedom and empowerment. What I hear in Rick Warren’s teaching and Reggie McNeal’s analysis is a need to release people from church “obligations” in order for them to have the time and energy to “be” the church. I once heard a pastor say, there is a big difference between church work and the work of the church. Don’t ever feel like you have to apologize when approached to do church work if you’re confident that your life is invested in the work of the church.