BLOG 10/31/13. THE CHURCH AND THE OTHER SIX DAYS
Dr. John Knapp, president of Hope College in Holland, MI, has recently written a book entitled: How the Church Has Failed Business People (and what can be done about it). I haven’t yet read the book, but I do know John Knapp, and I know of his credentials internationally as a profound resource on ethics and business. He and I are friends and we have discussed this subject on several occasions. There is too often a disconnect between what we consider ‘church’ with its own institutional life . . . and the other six days of the week when we are engaged in our homes and workplaces. It’s not just business people that have been failed, but all of us if the church is not equipping us to be functioning children of Light, or God’s New Creation people in Christ, in all of the vicissitudes of the other six days (after Sunday). Those other six days are the arena of our calling and of God’s mission for us.
I remember quite clearly when on an occasion a pulpit search committee had been given my name and came to visit me to solicit my response. The church they represented was a very large and wealthy First Presbyterian in a major industrial and financial center in this country. In its pews, week by week, sat the influential citizens of that influential city. When I inquired what they were looking for in a pastor, they gave me a glowing report on what qualifications they sought, and what a marvelous opportunity it would be for me. (My friend John Knapp would have choked!). They wanted someone who was eloquent and inspirational in the pulpit, who affirmed them, and who also could be an entertaining speaker at their Tuesday Businessmen’s Lunch (and who would manage the church from his ‘throne’ in his study).
When I asked what role the pastor had in forming them in their lives of discipleship, to instill in them the responsibilities of Kingdom citizenship, to engage with them in discussions on the meaning of their work, on Kingdom ethics, on the responsibilities such persons of influence had on the large number of lives their companies affected—they looked at me and were speechless for a few moments, before admitting that this hadn’t been in their purview.
Make a note: such a prestigious congregation had (in John Knapp’s words) failed in its responsibility to these men (mostly) and women.
In that same city was another acquaintance of mine who, at that time, was the vice-president in charge of sales for another giant multi-national company. In a discussion group with him, and with a note of bitterness, he let us know that he had been in that church for twenty years and the church loved to have a person of his stature on their membership rolls. They wanted him to service on its official boards, and to support it financially. His anger was that in all of those years no one had ever asked him what he did during the week, though he was responsible for a huge international sales force. His conclusion: “They didn’t give a damn.”
Another failed church.
Let me conclude this blog by saying that these are stories of a church of a generation ago. The emerging generation has no traditional reverence for such disconnected church communities. These younger adults will not ordinarily invest themselves in such time consuming, and vocationally disconnected church activities that don’t equip them for their lives the other six days. Good for them: “Six days shall you labor, but the seventh you shall rest.” If the church ‘gathered’ doesn’t equip the ‘church scattered’ to engage the complex and ambiguous realities of their place of calling, then it has surely failed.
This will probably require the radical re-conception of church and of pastoral leadership. Stand by …
