Monday, July 1, 2013

Last week I was reading an old, pretty fundamentalist book about church growth and renewal. What made me pick it up again was a story I thought I remembered reading there. I never found the story, but I did find an interesting article in which a former Nazarene pastor was talking about how so few of their churches ever grew very large.
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My contention is that, in an age when there is such staggering loss of family, community, tribe, and clan, when a church begins to grow that sense of closeness and connection is threatened. Inevitably someone will act out and cause the church to decline again until it is the size of an extended family. Meeting that need without making a church into a private club is one of the great challenges we must overcome.
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As I read this old book in my library, I wondered if I had learned that concept of family dynamics from it. As it turned out, though, that was not at all what this former Nazarene pastor thought kept their churches so small. His answer was that the problem is that clergy and lay leaders lack courage.
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He went on to talk about the fact that, in our culture, anyone who dares to raise their head risks getting it shot off. No wonder there are so few leaders, and no wonder our leaders so rarely take bold stands, the Nazarene pastor said.
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Now, I knew that this man himself had pastored one of the largest churches in the country for many years, so I was hoping he was going to share his secret source for courage. He did not. Instead he wrote simply, “Everyone is afraid of being criticized or failing. The people who succeed are simply those whose greater fear is wasting their time and wasting their lives.”
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I often ask, “What would you try if you knew you could not fail?” Perhaps that isn’t the right question. Maybe we need to ask what is so important that we are willing to try it even if we fail or people criticize us. In fact, what is so important that criticism is a cheap price to pay?
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This is not a philosophical question for me. Last week, I read a page full of slanderous lies all about me. At first, I reacted as defensively as anyone would, but then I realized that what I was trying to do must be more important than I thought. This wasn’t really about me, though we are would be tempted to take it completely personally. Our critics are either trying to help us be better so we can succeed or they are trying to keep us from succeeding because what we are doing is important enough to scare them. Sometimes it is both, but never is it a good enough reason to sit down and throw a pity party.

Blessings,
Rev. Michael Piazza

Rev. Michael Piazza
Co-Executive Director, Center for Progressive Renewal


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