Two Questions

 

Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.

—Luke 9:10-11

Question No. 1:

What kind of church do you attend? I’m not talking about the architecture, or the denomination, or the version of the Bible in the pew rack, or the hymnbook the congregation uses, or the size of the projection screens. I’m asking you what central purpose does your church espouse? What kind of church do you attend?

Some churches seem to have developed the intentional flavor of a well-meaning social club. Lots of like-minded people gathering together from time to time in order to catch up on the latest gossip. Along the way they may sing some songs or hymns, read some Scripture—or maybe some poetry from another source—and listen to a (hopefully) quick few words from the “main man” or “main woman.”

Other churches have adopted a pattern set by the Lord Jesus Christ in the Scripture passage at the beginning of this blog post. Because healing drew people’s attention to the benefit of a relationship with the Savior, they see their church as a place for healing. Here’s how one church states this goal:

Our Church—A Place for Healing Among the distinctives that will, over time, come to define our church, inform our missional approach to the ministry of the church, and help us reach out to our community, we want our church to become a place for healing. As the Holy Spirit leads us, we want to become a place where wounded people can bring the heartaches and disappointments of their daily lives and find healing within a community of believers through the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. We recognize that every person has some difficulties through which he or she must pass in this life. Many times such people feel they must conceal their struggles. But, hiding our hurts does not allow us to heal. Denying that we have difficulties in our lives only makes it harder to find healing and true God-given peace. If we speak honestly, each one of us at our church knows, first hand, what it is to experience the hurt, pain, and ache deep within our souls when the circumstances of life turn against us. Sometimes these hurts may seem minor, petty, or insignificant. But, we serve a Savior who understands every difficulty and knows that sometimes the smallest bump in the road of life can become an impediment to spiritual growth. If you, or friends you may know, are looking for a safe place where the ordinary and extraordinary troubles of daily life can be dealt with compassionately and with sincere understanding, we invite you to come and join with us. Together, we can support each other and find the healing that only Christ can give us. Together, we can become whole again and move forward with our lives. Together, we can experience the joy of being a part of a loving, caring community of believers.

Whatever the flavor of your church—hopefully more intentionally spiritual than the first one I described above—I believe the church must be a place for healing. I agree with the statement of the second church. I believe a church should be a place for healing. Please let me explain.

A church, any church, must not begin without purpose, nor without mission, nor without a great deal of thought and prayer. After spending time earnestly seeking God’s leading, those who formulate the foundation of a church must make certain the endeavor serves as a means to meet certain well-defined goals.

For example, if I were starting a new church, I would set forth four goals that would meet the needs of displaced people—displaced by society, displaced by their family, displaced by their friends, or even displaced by a former church. These four goals would include the following:

1. To provide a safe place for people to gather for worship who have become displaced, for whatever reason, from the normal group with whom they identify.
   
   
2. To provide a place for healing.
   
   The events that led up to the displacement of so many families and individuals from whatever group with which they normally identify have likely inflicted different kinds of wounds in various individuals. The church leadership must recognize that each person will need a safe place where he or she can learn to recognize the nature of his or her particular hurt, and also learn how to express his or her particular hurt in a healthy way that would allow the Holy Spirit to begin a healing process in each one’s individual life.
   
   
3. To provide a place where the healing process can become actualized by a new pathway of spiritual formation.
   
   The groups from which people have become displaced may not have afforded them the privilege, nor the opportunity, to systematically experience a deliberate process of spiritual formation. If that group from which they have become displaced was another church, the new church leadership may discover a people who were quite ignorant of key truths from God’s written Word and did not even have a solid grasp of the very theology that informed the foundations of their previous church.
   
   Seldom did any sermon they heard in their years at their former church ever require any specific response from the people. Seldom did casual conversations dwell on the things of the Lord. Some individuals who may have developed their own rich personal devotional lives—and who may have come to that former church from other church backgrounds—did seem to possess the kind of heart knowledge that could form the foundation for developing a church that would serve as a proper expression of God’s Kingdom here on earth. But, these people were too few to move the “behemoth” of their former church—especially if it was one with a large church roll and significantly smaller church attendance—forward on behalf of the Kingdom.
   
   In the midst of the pain inflicted by the displacement, perhaps God may have provided this event as an opportunity to gather a remnant who could heal together, learn together, and grow spiritually mature together in a way that would enable them to minister effectively in bringing the Gospel to a very, very needy community.
   
   
4. To provide a safe place for people to exercise their spiritual gifts, and thus preserve a sense of ministry that would promote healing from the horrific treatment they received from their “brothers and sisters” at their previous church.
   
   Such people often have significant skills that God has clearly given them, first and foremost, as spiritual gifts. Each of them has taken those spiritual gifts and explored what talents God may also have given them to enhance the effectiveness of those spiritual gifts. Each of them has then proceeded along a pathway of education and training to hone those spiritual gifts and talents by developing them into crucial skills that will enable them to put their spiritual gifts to use on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Kingdom.
   
   By providing these folks with an opportunity to continue to use their spiritual gifts, while they make their way through a pathway of healing, the new church can accelerate the healing process and also confirm in them God’s continued hand on their lives and ministry.

Every person experiences hurts and difficulties in making his or her way along the road of life! No one is immune. The only difference is how individuals process those hurts.

For example, many, many people hide their hurts, pretend they don’t exist, “buck it up,” or in some other way deny the hurts that they have experienced. Others subjugate their hurts into activities to keep them from having to deal honestly and openly with what they are feeling. Others seek secular professional help. Others turn to drugs, alcohol, illicit sex, or some other harmful activity that will hide their pain from themselves. Still others seek some secular group where they can find a mutual caring—at least on the surface—to provide some level of healing. Such groups include all the 12-Step programs, but also include social clubs and other similar organizations.

A few people find a community of genuinely loving believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who have deliberately provided a safe place where people can heal. The pathway to healing is one provided by the Holy Spirit through the proclamation of God’s written Word, the development of rock-solid spiritual formation, and the expression of deep, abiding, God-breathed (agape) love.

A church can choose to embrace these four very specific and “deliberately missional” goals. “Deliberately missional” because, until a hurting people begin to heal, they cannot begin to have an impact in spreading the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to others in need. However, by providing a safe place for hurting people to heal, a church does, in fact, create the very venue for reaching hurting people through the demonstration of God-breathed love at work in the hearts of individual believers and in the heart of the entire congregation.

If the members of your church are not allowed to heal, all throughout the future life of your church the un-healed hurts will pop up to provide barriers to effective ministry. Show me a church that is ineffective and I will show you a people who need genuine healing. We all know at least one such church.

I assert to you that a process of healing is essential for every person. An environment fueled by God’s love is essential for any lasting and effective healing. Only within the church—the body of Christ—can the expression of God’s love provide the safe place that every person needs to heal.

Whether you determine to focus the ministry of your church on the displaced people at local rescue mission or the displaced people who reside in the mansions along the avenues in the affluent part of your community, providing a conscious, continual, deliberate, safe place for healing does, in fact, make a church “missional.”

Question No. 2:

I began by asking you a question: “What kind of church do you attend?” I conclude by asking you another question: “How do others perceive your church?”

To give you something to think about before you answer my second question, I invite you to please view this video. It attempts to illustrate what a Starbucks would look like if it was marketed like most Evangelical churches.

 

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