BLOG 12/16/15. MINISTERING TO THE ‘LITTLE ONES,’ THE CONFUSED, AND THE ‘NOBODIES’ IN THE CHURCH
In my weird and eclectic reading, I have been reading Work Rules by Laszlo Bock, who is the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google. It is his very readable account of how Google chooses, interviews, evaluates, oversees, motivates, and keeps the tens of thousands of its employed focused, happy and feeling ownership. I was interested in that because of how easy it is for those who are in the leadership of the church to be content with a functioning congregation, even if we haven’t got much of a clue as to how clearly so many of the individuals who are ‘members’ understand the church or are functioning as those who are the owners of the mission of God in their daily lives.
But reading Bock, it also becomes apparent that his task at Google, and ours as leaders in the church aren’t really comparable—excepting that we both should be focused on how our participants are functioning, on their clear focus, and on their fruitful engagement with the organization’s purpose. The reason they aren’t comparable is because Google screens its applicants, and engages in a rigorous selection procedure. The church, on the other hand, responds to those who present themselves as ostensible followers of Christ, but so frequently receives those who come with all kinds of confused understandings and motives. One only has to read the New Testament to see this illustrated in spades. Google selects gifted and enthusiastic (usually young and gifted), while the church is a community of grace, and receives (upon their profession of faith in Christ) the nobodies, the ragamuffins, the little ones, the broken, the weak, the “weak and heavy laden,” the “… sinners, poor and wretched,” along with the victims of all kinds of emotional and cultural scarring.
When his disciples came to him and asked who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, … he took a child and set him in the midst of them and let them know that one only comes into his kingdom when the become like little children. Elsewhere he reminds them that among the unbelievers (Gentiles) those who are great are those who lord it over others, but in his kingdom the great are those who are servants of all. So all of us who have served in church leadership find out early how many questionable and immature and insincere folk present themselves to the church for all kind of reasons. The question I am raising is: how does a Christian community equip, oversee, motivate, hold accountable all of the diverse individuals who inhabit our particular church family? Who understands when a person is really functioning in the mission of God? Or is irresponsible and passive in his/her life of obedience to Christ? Who comes alongside the weak, or the wandering, and becomes their encourager and guide? Who becomes the disciple-maker for new believers? Who looks for the lonely (or loners) in the congregation? And the larger the Christian community becomes, how does it maintain the focus on the individual that disallows anyone being anonymous? Google could be doing a better job of oversight than the family of God! In the New Testament letters there are those overseeing individual called elders or overseers/bishops to whom each member is to be submissive. But this easily becomes an organizational leader who is not really the model and teacher to whom individuals look for wisdom and guidance in their Christian lives. Plus, it is quite too easy for the aggressive personalities to dominate the scene and take the focus off of the ‘little ones’ and the struggling, and the immature. It happens all too commonly in traditional church institutions that the elders (by whatever designation they are called) become something like a board of directors, but not the shepherds and oversees and models to God’s individual sheep–and knows their name. As one forthright and outspoken young believer assaulted me with the telling question (at a very inconvenient moment): “How can I submit myself to elders who don’t even know my name?” Good question. (to be continued)
