The Prince goes to church

A Machiavellian Primer on Church Growth

• The greatest moral good is the preservation of the church (denomination).
  
• Any actions to preserve the church (denomination), no matter how cruel, are always justified.
  
• The only real concern of the pastor (denominational leader) is the acquisition and maintenance of power.
  
• The pastor (denominational leader) must do whatever is necessary to keep his power.
  
• The pastor (denominational leader) should seek to be feared and loved, but it is more important to be feared than to be loved.
  
• During a siege a pastor (denominational leader) will "keep the morale of his subjects high while removing all dissenters."
  
• The authority of the organization must be supported by a show of power that makes obedience inevitable.
  
• While the pastor (denominational leader) comes to power by his own initiative, skill and talent, it is useful to convince others that he is under divine appointment.
  
• Most followers do not want freedom. They want security. The few who want freedom can be bought off with honors or eliminated.
  
• A pastor (denominational leader) must contrive to earn for himself the reputation of a great leader.
  

It may seem to some that these principles are extreme. But let me reassure you that they are practiced in many places within the western church. While they are never stated so explicitly, these principles are currently being taught in leadership books and seminars.

Just as sports fans are ultimately responsible for the absurdly high salaries of star athletes, consumer Christians are complicit in maintaining this situation. They flock to the church or denomination that has the most visible trappings of success. They ignore the machinations of the leaders because "they are doing so much good."

God have mercy on us.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

He Gets It, He Really Gets It

I hear people using the word "missional" as if it is a style of ministry or a new technique of church growth.

Very few have any idea what the concept is. But here's a guy who gets it. And he's not even a pastor.

It's real easy to love The People. It's much more difficult, much more challenging, much more exhausting, much more a test of the heart to love actual people: The people who work for you. The people in your home. The people who slip you a heart-rending note when you're getting ready to impress The People.

Ministry is loving people you didn't handpick.

So here's to those with pastoral hearts, who love each inconvenient human around them -- each person who offers nothing but a mess. Blessed are those pastors, for theirs is not an ego trip.

May his tribe increase!

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Gratuitous Love

Think about this:

My relationship with God is useless. It cannot be boiled down to functions of healing or well-being. God's purpose is not even to forgive me and be done with me—God looks beyond that to true love, to completely useless relationship.

Kester Brewin, Signs of Emergence, p. 160

In the evangelical church we talk about "having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." But I don't think most of us have the least idea what that means. I think it means more than having Jesus in our "fave five," as one of our MySpace friends, or as a trusted contact on LinkedIn.

A "relationship" that is purely transactional isn't much of a relationship.

In our fuss to succeed, to get a good grade on the series of tests we think he has proposed, we miss the main point of the affair: that we already are the beloved.

Robert Capon, The Romance of the Word, p. 276

We have more in common with the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son than we do with the younger brother. We are out slaving away in the fields trying to earn our Father's love, when what he wants is for us to come in and join the party.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"