Want to see me lose it? Talk bad about my bride!  Think about it - most men with an ounce of nobility would go to the crazy degrees to defend their wives.  So when people begin to talk about churches and criticize things that happen in churches - particularly when they do it in a public forum - I have something in me rise up!  The Church is Jesus' bride, and the thing that rises up inside of me is Jesus saying, “Stop talking about my bride that way!"  So, as I type these words and as you read them, please understand that I deeply love the Bride of Christ.  I hate it when people talk about her local expressions in all the various differences in a critical light.  This is not written out of criticism and superiority, but out of love and humility.

There is something major that we all (follower of Jesus or not) must heal from.  Our culture has created an atmosphere of "platform" and "opinion" in church that has removed the vital foundation of relationships.  I understand that, even in this medium of typing a blog, you may feel that there must be layer of the concept of "platform".  But please understand, I honestly have zero need for platform or for these opinions to reach the masses.  The purpose of the post is actually to say. . . I am sorry.

I have been a believer in Jesus for 28 of my 36 years.  I have worked in churches and grown up in churches.  I have sang in choirs and gone on mission trips. I have tithed and given to the church since I was a kid.  I have had, for 28 years, the HOPE OF THE WORLD within me and yet . . . here we are.  We look around at what feels like a hopeless world because of a broken church system that gets caught up in talking about Jesus's bride in terms of what she does or doesn't do for me  - just like a man might do with his trophy wife.  Jesus never intended for His bride to be showed off to impressed crowds by a pastor, yet that is how we have created this church culture.  I am sorry.

My intentions, like many of us, have been true and fueled by a pure motive and some gusto, but just like a compass that's off by just 1 degree, we can miss the mark severely by getting just slightly off course.  Since the beginning of 2018, I have seen the worst of this culture we have created.  I am not talking about one person or one specific church; I am talking about how I have seen God purify and rend my own heart of this problem which I have been a part of propagating - this culture of “church”.  I am sorry.

This church culture has been so changed from the original design because of the enemy and by human sin to the point that Jesus doesn't recognize His bride anymore.  When a man or woman takes the vision God has given and claims it as their own, even in the smallest of ways or convinced of pure motives, the enemy gains ground inside the most precious thing on the planet - the bride of Christ.  This has been stirring in my heart for a long time but it has taken this incredibly strange 2018 for the Holy Spirit to shine His powerful spotlight into my soul and give space to rend away other things so that God could clearly recalibrate my heart to His heart and purpose for His Church. The fact that this process of rending and recalibrating took some time and that I was blind for so long to my need for it is scary.  I am sorry.

There are many pastors in churches today doing their best trying to make ready the bride of Christ.  But I firmly believe Jesus is asking, “Why?”  That is his role as the bridegroom.  Think of it this way: the week before my wedding if my best man were to come to me and say, “Ryan, I’m going to take Anne out and get her plastic surgery to make her look great for you.”  Firstly, I would be offended that he had alluded to her appearance not being what I desire.  Secondly, it is not his role to step into our intimate relationship like that. But if that same best man spent time with her as her friend talking about me and how good of a man I was, ensured her about how much I loved her and what a loyal husband I would be, and even helped her in some way that mattered to her, then I would cherish that as a gift from him.  In the same way, the role of the pastor of a local church is to encourage and support.  Pastors are not called to dress up or improve upon Jesus’s church.  I have no special ability to "make ready" anyone for when Jesus returns for His Bride.  That is the job of the Holy Spirit alone.  But as a pastor I am the cheerleader and the waterboy, resourcing and encouraging those whom God has given me the privilege to pastor. Unfortunately, myself and others too often have looked at the role of the pastor as one who judges the "spiritual maturity" of the church, deciding where people fall on some spectrum of godliness and, thus, how those people can serve.  This is wrong.  We ALL, corporately, should taste the fruit from the tree to see if its good or bad - just as Jesus said in Matthew 7:

Matthew 7

16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

Fruit is meant to delight and refresh.  Your spiritual maturity is meant to delight and refresh, and so is mine.  Spiritual fruit isn't something that we should stockpile to admire or store up to feast on at some unspecified later date.  We can’t test the goodness of the fruit by the amount of it, but by the joy and refreshing delight it either does or does not bring to others.  That’s it.  The pastor is to encourage and support the fruit of those in the church according to the fruit in his own life.  

Imagine this is what I’m like with my kids; I sit back passively, speaking up only when I feel it is necessary to point out their flaws.  That would make me a horrible father!  But to encourage my children in the areas where God has gifted each of them is my role.  To help grow the giftings in the lives of the members of the church is the role of the pastor as well. This is what can change the church culture.  A church where the pastor serves by encouragement and support without seeking a bigger platform or more respected opinion.

I think this is the root problem of this church culture that I have sadly participated in creating: organization vs. organism.  Now wait for a moment.  I'm going to ask you to not pigeonhole me here. I'm not talking that about a church with a business-minded approach. I am talking about how deceptive the enemy is in having us think that we must develop processes and programs.  I know there isn't a pastor out there that would willfully and consciously choose processes and programs over people.  However, this idea of the pastor developing processes and programs that he uniformly uses to lead people can be found everywhere.  When interacting with anyone, the heartbeat of the pastor should be one of curiosity, trying to discover what the Holy Spirit is revealing and doing through the conversation. 

Here is a universal, everyday example of this:  When most churches tell you how they do ministry, they are informing you about the programs they run or the processes they follow.  But what if the people are the revelation of the “how” of ministry? Discovering the gifts God has given the people He has placed in this specific community is where "development" of ministry takes place.  The ministry and work the Church is to do is found inside the gifts of the people He has given to do it.

In this season at Selah Memphis, we have made the decision not to program our church, but to allow the people who are the Church every opportunity possible to flourish in their gifts.  Out of that will come the impact and ministry of the church simply because the people ARE the church and their gifts are its ministry to the community.  

This is when the "Body of Christ" comes into full function: when the pastor is equipping and encouraging the other parts of the body, when the people are stepping into their destiny and operating in their gifts, and when the community is being impacted by the people of God in its midst.  That's Jesus's beautiful, pure bride.