by Chip Brogden
A growing number of people have come to the conclusion
that the social benefits of going to church can no longer compensate
for the lack of spiritual life.
“And seeing a fig tree by the road, [Jesus] came to it and found
nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, ‘Let no fruit grow on you ever
again.’ Immediately the fig tree withered away” (Mt. 21:19).
People are tired of going to fig trees that promise fruit, but offer a
hungry person nothing but leaves to eat. They’ve been eating leaves or
chewing on bark, but there is no fruit, no sustenance, no nourishment.
One day they wake up and say, “No more. Whatever this place used to
mean to me, whatever purpose it used to serve in my life, this place no
longer represents the Lord Jesus. I can’t fully explain it, and I don’t
completely understand why or how, but the religion of church is
hindering my relationship with the Lord and it is time for me to leave.”
You do find two groups of believers in the Book of Revelation who
were doing well, who received no rebuke, only praise from the Lord; only
two out of seven that He expressed satisfaction with. Before you begin
to think that
your church is one that Jesus is satisfied with,
let me tell you one thing both these had in common: both of them were
suffering persecution. Isn’t it interesting how persecution has a way
of re-arranging your priorities? Isn’t it amazing how the only two that
Jesus was completely satisfied with were the two that were going
through deep affliction and persecution? Persecution brings adjustment.
It brings a sense of eternal purpose.
I had a ministry to burned out pastors when I was still working for a
denomination. What a great ministry; there’s never any lack of burned
out pastors. I would take over their pulpit for one or two Sundays and
give them a break so they could take some time off, spend time with
their families, go get counseling, or do whatever they needed to do but
couldn’t take time to do because they were so consumed with running
their church. That opened my eyes to a lot of things.
I remember getting a call from a pastor of a medium-sized church, and
he wanted to take me to dinner. I agreed to meet him because I was
flattered, and I was really looking forward to it because he was someone
I considered “successful.” His church was growing, they had a nice
building, he drove a nice car and had nice clothes. I was struggling
with all those things so this man was someone I kind of looked up to. I
was hoping I could get some words of wisdom or some ideas that would
help me become as successful as he was.
So we met for dinner and things are going well. He seems friendly and
I am just on the verge of asking him, “What is the secret to your
success?” The words were on the tip of my tongue, and then this pastor
broke down right in front me. His personal life was a mess, his church
was a mess, and he wanted me to take over his services for a couple of
weeks so he and his wife could take some time off and put their marriage
back together. I nodded and listened but inside I was thinking, “My
God! Here I am looking to this man as an example of success, and he is a
nervous wreck.” And that meeting taught me something. I learned not to
judge success by the outward appearance of things. I saw that pastors
are just as clueless as anyone else, but they have to convince
themselves and everyone around them that they really have it all
together. Most of the time they do not, and you can only be a hypocrite
for so long before the whole things takes its toll on you.
I like to teach, and I have a heart for pastors. If it were up to me
I would probably be working with burned out pastors. But God had
something else in mind. “Leave them alone, Chip – they are blind leaders
of the blind, and if the blind lead the blind, they will both fall in
the ditch.” And God showed me that until a blind leader falls into a
ditch, they cannot be healed. He can’t have his eyes opened until he
realizes he is blind and has no business trying to lead others. My
efforts to help them by taking over their pulpit for a week or two was
like treating cancer with a band-aid.
Pastors aren’t bad people. Pastors, for the most part, are good
people who become trapped in a bad system. It’s the religious system
that is at fault. Yet this religious system was created by people –
well-intentioned, good-hearted people who thought they were doing
something for God. And now this thing called “Churchianity” has become a
monster, a grotesque creation of our own hands, and now we can’t
control it; IT controls us. It masters us, all the while tricking us
into thinking that when we serve IT then we are serving God. The work of
the Lord becomes more important than the Lord of the Work.
How far we have fallen from the days when people could look at
disciples of Jesus and would notice that they had been with Him. They
had been with Jesus. Now we look at religious folk dressed up and going
out to eat lunch on Sunday and all we can say of them is that they have
been to church.
