11 Church
If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.
JOHN PIPER9
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Col. 3:12–17)
Jim said that he and Sherri will never forget driving onto the campus of First Baptist Church (FBC). The grounds and the building were a picture of longevity and stability. FBC had been founded almost two hundred years earlier and had remained faithful to the gospel throughout its storied history. The huge, beautiful, and traditional sanctuary made Jim and Sherri feel safe and secure. They loved the regal worship service and the elegant preaching. But within their first year at FBC, they both began feeling smothered by tradition. Sherri told Jim she just couldn’t go to a church that was so traditional that you felt embarrassed if you coughed during the worship service.
A friend had told Sherri about the Vine, so they gave it a try. “What a breath of fresh air!” Sherri exclaimed after their first visit; attending the Vine wasn’t a hard decision for them at all. After all the traditionalism of FBC, they liked the warehouse environment and the rather raucous worship. Jim thought the preaching was creative, almost conversational. He told Sherri it was much easier to listen to than the theological lectures at FBC. But before long, the preaching began to drive Jim and Sherri crazy. The rambling style, marked with a heavy dose of humor, started to irk them, so they began to look again.
They found Fleet Street Presbyterian Church almost by accident. It was a block away from a restaurant they tried one Friday night, and the only place to park was right in front of the church. They decided to give Fleet Street a shot. That first Sunday they thought they had found the best of both worlds. The service included some traditional elements in a more traditional setting, but the congregation was young, the music was lively, and the pastor had a very contemporary way of communicating biblical truth. At the same time, as they began attending Fleet Street, Jim and Sherri started experiencing some bumps in their marriage. They were happy to see that Fleet Street had a well-developed counseling ministry, so they sought help for their marriage. But after two sessions, Jim was so upset by the counsel they received that he said he not only lost all confidence in his counselor but also refused to attend a church that would promote that kind of “help.”
Jim and Sherri learned about Immanuel, a little church plant, through a flyer they received in the mail. They had no other options, so they thought they would give it a try. The first Sunday was very uncomfortable because only about sixty people were there. It felt like they were attending someone else’s family reunion. But the people were very friendly, and they decided to go back. Just as Jim and Sherri were beginning to think that Immanuel would work for them, their teenage children began to protest. Emma and Josh hated the church because only one other teenager attended. They both said they couldn’t understand why their parents would choose a church that had nothing for them. With reluctance, and without a plan, Jim and Sherri left Immanuel.
Jim and Sherri now go to a megachurch about twice a month. They love that they can slip in and out without being noticed, and they have no intention of joining. Their children reluctantly go with them on Sunday morning but express no interest whatsoever in the church’s youth ministry. Jim says they would leave this church in a second if they could find a better alternative, but they’re tired of looking.
Now go back and read the verses that open this chapter again and reflect on your personal relationship to your local church. Think about how your church approaches its ministry. Consider the expectations your church has for you. Colossians 3:12–17 puts before us a radical, countercultural view of what God designed the church to be and do. It is a singeing critique of the passive relationship that most believers have to the church to which they have for the moment committed themselves. (Because this is such a pressing issue, I plan to make an extended unpacking of Colossians 3 the topic of a future book.)
Why do so many Christians act like Jim and Sherri? Why aren’t most Christians living the local church lifestyle captured by these words in Colossians 3? Why do so many of us think of church as something we attend rather than a central mission of our lives? Why do we most often expect the paid church staff to shoulder almost the entire burden of ministry? Why don’t more of us share Paul’s understanding of what the church is? Why aren’t more believers trained and ready for the ministry to which God has called them? What is at the root of Jim and Sherri’s struggle with the church?
The answers to these questions are embedded in the opening words of Colossians 3: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col. 3:1–2). The radical ecclesiastical lifestyle of Colossians 3:12–17 will never happen until God first radically recaptures your heart, as these verses depict.
Understanding the State of Things
A shocking amount of Christian consumerism exists in the church of Jesus Christ today. Many, many believers think of their church as a place to attend rather than something with which they are intimately involved. They think of church as a worship gathering, a weekly duty that is part of the religious dimension of their lives. It is sad, but most pastors seem content with an ever-increasing attendance, enough financial giving to fuel church programs, and a small percentage of people who will volunteer in episodic ministry. In most churches, the paid staff carry the burden of the church’s spiritual health, while the members happily play their role as the recipients.
People move from church to church as if the churches in their community are nothing more than ecclesiastical department stores. They’re shopping for just the right preacher, women’s ministry, youth ministry, or worship style. These Christians’ relationship to the church mirrors my relationship to Macy’s. If I go to Macy’s looking for a certain color and style shirt and they don’t have it, I feel no guilt whatsoever in leaving Macy’s and going to look for it at Bloomingdale’s. I move from store to store until I find what I want because my commitment is not to a particular store but to myself and the satisfaction of my desire for that shirt.
Hordes of Christians have this kind of church lifestyle, and they will, like shoppers, chase the deal of the moment. Maybe that’s running after the celebrity preacher, the cool Saturday night worship band, or the best youth program ever. They are high-expectation and low-commitment attenders, and there is a good possibility that they will soon be worshiping somewhere different from where they are right now.
Many Christians also live inside the church virtually unknown. They slip in and out of the weekly service almost unnoticed. Sure, they will exchange niceties with the people near them, and if they do that, they will learn a few cursory details about one another’s lives, but they don’t really have a relationship with the people with whom they worship. Most of what they call fellowship simply isn’t. It seldom reaches deeper than the kind of conversation you would have at the local pub. I think we should just be honest and call it “pubship.” Many Christians live in a Christian community where no one knows the condition of their marriage, their struggles as parents, or the places where they feel overburdened and overwhelmed. No one knows what goes on in the private moments of their lives, where they are defeated by temptation again and again or where they are tempted to doubt the goodness of God. Their life in the church is not the life of an essential member of an organic body of faith where each member feels the pain when another member hurts. No, they are spiritual shoppers looking for the best religious store in town.
Even more believers have no personal commitment to ministry. Sure, they put a little money in the plate to pay for professional staff to shoulder ministry, but they don’t live with a ministry mentality. To them, ministry is a formal religious thing conceived, programmed, and scheduled by their church. In this view, if you get involved in ministry, you step out of your life for a moment of ministry and then back into your life. Here ministry interrupts the regular routine, representing an exceptional thing for the spiritually zealous. How many believers really live a lifestyle that results from believing that God has graced them to be not just recipients of the work of his kingdom but instruments of the work of the kingdom as well? When you believe this, you live with a constant ministry mentality that results in an everyday ministry lifestyle. Here ministry is no interruption but an essential part of the normal routine.
Many more Christians than we would imagine have attached their Christianity to their pursuit of the “American dream.” Whether they know it or not, they have bought into the cultural definition of success, and they are pursuing the culture’s portrait of the “good life”: career success, financial ease, the big house, the trendy wardrobe, the fancy food, and the extravagant vacations. And because they are, they spend most of their physical, emotional, and spiritual energy gaining, maintaining, keeping, and enjoying these things, rather than investing in the eternal treasures of the kingdom of God through the vehicle of their local church. Sadly, the cultural dream is their vocation, and their Christianity is relegated to a religious pastime.
You have to ask yourself, why? Why has this become the regular state of things? Why do so many Christians have such a passive relationship to the church?
And Now for Our Passage
When it comes to the church, Colossians 3 presents to us a radical lifestyle that results from a commitment of the heart. Let’s look at the radical lifestyle first. This lifestyle is rooted in an understanding of what I have called in another book God’s “total involvement paradigm.”10 What does this mean? It means God has designed that all his people would be involved in his redemptive work all the time. It means no one is given grace just to be a recipient but to be an instrument of that very same grace in the lives of others. This passage highlights five characteristics of this radical ministry lifestyle to which God has called each of us. If you are committed to this lifestyle you will do the following:
1. Take your local-church relationships seriously (vv. 12–14). These verses list several character qualities—compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness—and God expects every believer to commit to nurturing these qualities in all their relationships. They form the bedrock of this ministry lifestyle, and they immediately confront us with the fact that God owns our relationships—we do not—and that he has a higher purpose for them than we do.
If we were honest, I think most of us would have to admit that we rarely look at our everyday relationships with a ministry mentality. We tend to view our relationships as little more than containers for our personal happiness. When you have a personal-happiness agenda for your relationships, four things will tend to happen: (1) You will turn moments of ministry into moments of anger, seeing another person’s sin or need as an interruption or hassle rather than an opportunity for grace. (2) You will tend to do this because you will personalize what is not personal. You will make it all about you when, in actuality, that person has in no way plotted against you. Rather, God has chosen to reveal their need to you so you can be his tool of grace. (3) Because you’ve personalized what is not personal, you will likely become adversarial in your response. It won’t be you for them but you against them because they are in the way of something you want. (4) And finally, you will settle for quick situational solutions that don’t really bring God’s grace to the heart of the matter. You will strike back or walk away, but you won’t be a tool in God’s hands.
God intends these character qualities to transform the relationships of your daily life, changing them from containers for your happiness to workrooms for the transforming grace of the Redeemer.
2. Rest in the peace of the gospel (v. 15). Why does Paul call for the “peace of Christ” to rule in our hearts? Well, that phrase is a hint that he is first talking about something more foundational than relational peace. We must first have the peace of Christ if you and I are ever going to experience lasting peace in the community around us. Why peace of Christ? Because this rest for the heart only comes when you are getting your identity and personal security from the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because you rest in his forgiveness, you don’t need to fear being exposed since nothing could be known about you that hasn’t already been covered by his sacrificial work. Because you rest in his acceptance, you are freed from riding the roller coaster of people’s responses to you. Because you rest in his indwelling power, you are not afraid of the difficulties and challenges of personal ministry. You see, the gospel frees you from focusing so much on yourself that you have little time to minister to others.
3. Be a committed student of God’s Word (v. 17). It is my experience that most Christians are barely biblically literate, let alone equipped to use their Bible appropriately and effectively in personal ministry. When you don’t know your Bible well, you will tend to use it as an isolated collection of wisdom statements for daily living, and you will tend to look for the verse that best seems to fit the situation you are discussing. This method completely misses the genius of the Bible’s grand redemptive themes that form the basis of the hope and courage of the brand-new way of living to which God has called us. Or a second thing will happen, and sadly, I think this happens very often: ministry opportunities will tend to devolve into human advice giving. Because we don’t know God’s Word well, we will dip into our own experience and tell people what we think they should do, ignoring God’s call to them, his grace in them, and his wisdom for them.
4. Look for ministry opportunities (v. 16). Paul says you need the Word of God dwelling in you richly so that you are ready to “teach” and “admonish.” Think about these two words. They tend to be ministry terms that we apply only to formally trained, full-time, paid ministry staff. Yet Paul is saying here that these two words capture God’s call to every believer. For the church to be the church—not just a place where you can find ministry but where the people are a ministering community—every believer must accept his or her role in the life of every other believer. It may sound radical, but it is God’s plan that all of his children would teach and all of his children would admonish. What does this mean? What does this look like? To teach means that I am always committed and ready when God gives me the opportunity to help others see life from God’s perspective. And to admonish means that I am always committed and ready when God gives me the opportunity to help others see themselves in the mirror of God’s Word. No church will ever be able to afford enough staff to cover all the teaching and admonishing moments that God will give his church in any given week.
5. Recognize that your life no longer belongs to you (v. 17). Here again is a reminder to do everything in God’s name. We have no separate, private lives that belong to us. God owns us, and he owns every one of our relationships. A lifestyle of ministry begins with a surrender to the ownership of the Lord over all we are and all we have.
So why don’t more Christians live this way? The answer is found in the words noted earlier that I will repeat here: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2). This sentence really does yank us back to the core message of this book. It takes us back to the fundamental struggle that rages in my heart and yours, which is why I decided to write what you now have in your hands.
Here’s what we all need to understand. The church (by which I mean the people, not the institution) doesn’t first have a people-mobilization problem or a people-training problem. The church of Jesus Christ has an awe problem. It’s not that the church is losing the ministry war; it is losing the awe war. And because it is losing the awe war, very few people participate in very much ministry.
Let me give you a practical example and then explain it. I have been convinced for a long time that evangelism classes don’t produce evangelists. Evangelism classes are a way of training people who are already committed to an evangelistic lifestyle. Without that commitment, the class won’t turn you into an evangelist. Counseling training doesn’t produce counselors. It can simply impart necessary understanding and skills to people who are already committed to a lifestyle of personal ministry.
So Colossians 3:2 goes right to the heart of the matter, which happens to be the heart. It addresses what has captured the awe capacity of your heart. Remember, your heart always functions in the awe of something. The thoughts, desires, motivations, purposes, and choices of your heart are all shaped by whatever your heart is in awe of. This passage simplifies this profound struggle down to two possible options. Either your heart lives in a fundamental, life-shaping awe of the horizontal, physical, created world (“things that are on the earth”), or your heart lives in a foundational vertical awe of God, his work, his grace, and his kingdom.
If your heart has been captured by the glories of the physical world’s people, places, experiences, and things, that’s where you will invest the majority of your physical, emotional, and spiritual energies. And because you are seeking to find true happiness and fulfillment here, your relationship to your church and its work and to your community with other believers will exist as an adjunct, or add-on, to what your life is really about. I think hundreds of thousands of believers live this way. Yes, they are God’s children. Yes, they have been redeemed by his blood and accepted by his grace. But to them, church is a place that they attend thankfully but that constitutes no essential aspect of their living.
Yet if your heart is being progressively captured by the awe of God, his work, his grace, and his kingdom (“things that are above”), you will see your church not just as a place you attend but as a major commitment of your life, and you will live with a ministry lifestyle in the place where God has put you. When awe of God has captured your heart, ministry will fill your schedule. You won’t need the church to schedule ministry for you; you will approach work, marriage, parenting, extended family, friendships, and community with a ministry mentality. Awe of God will free you from thinking of your life as belonging to you and of ministry as temporarily offering pieces of your life to God that you will quickly take back as an episode of ministry ends. Awe means that you will look at everything in your life through the lens of God’s existence and glory, and you will surrender all your life to his purpose, humbly recognizing that, when you do this, you are not offering what is yours to him but returning what he already owns back to him for his use.
If the church is populated with people who have set their minds on the things that are on earth, then the bulk of people in the church will have a passive relationship to the church, and the burden of ministry will fall on the shoulders of a few paid staffers. But if the church is populated with people who have set their minds on things above, then widespread daily ministry will take place in the hallways, bedrooms, boardrooms, family rooms, and vans of everyday life. There is a direct connection between what kind of awe has captured your heart and the amount of ministry that occupies your life.
If you have read this chapter and thought, “Paul, I’m one of those passive people,” don’t be paralyzed by guilt and regret. No, run to your Redeemer. Confess what has ruled your heart, and cry out for his delivering and enabling grace. And as you do, remember once again that your Lord will never turn a deaf ear to the cries of one of his children. You too can experience a rejuvenated awe of God that issues forth in a ministry mindset that will transform your church relationships.