Who do you love more: Jesus or the local church?
For those of us who spend our time serving the local church, whether on staff, volunteering or in a business that supports churches, there is a tendency to equate serving the Bride of Christ with loving Jesus. To be sure, we are called to serve and we do so out of our love for Jesus. However, we can slip into a mindset of assuming that our relationship with the Bride of Christ is the same as our relationship with the Groom of the Bride.
In trying to serve local churches and help them become more effective, I find myself trying to serve the church above serving Jesus. Said another way, I can love Jesus and out of a grateful and obedient heart, serve his Church; but I shouldn’t serve His church first and love Him second. Our time and attention directed at serving and helping churches grow is noble. It is most likely out of a love for what Jesus did for us that we found ourselves focusing on local churches. But we must be aware of the imbalance that can happen when we let our priorities get out of whack.
This slippery slope can have some serious consequences. I read something that provided me with a different perspective:
If we’re not vigilant, the cares of the world creep in with so much pressure that we remove Jesus from his rightful place as the Lord of our life. It takes tremendous faith, dedication and obedience to make sure we keep our relationship with Jesus as the highest priority in our lives, right where it belongs.
All of this becomes amplified to an unbelievable extreme when we are among those called to serve God in full-time ministry. Suddenly, we feel responsible for the welfare and salvation of all those trusted to our care. The responsibilities are enormous. And in response, we plunge into our work with selfless abandon, offering everything we have to give.
But then, if we are not careful, a shift begins to happen. We begin to measure the effectiveness of our ministry in the only way we know how. Since we cannot be certain how many lives we have helped to change or souls we have helped lead to Christ, we start to examine book reviews, concert ticket sales, web site visitors or church attendance.
Suddenly, and often without warning, those measurements become the end rather than the means. Instead of seeing ourselves as being in the service of the Lord, we risk seeing ourselves as authors, public speakers, counselors or musicians who simply happen to have chosen a Christian message rather than a secular one. We are no longer laboring for the Gospel, we are laboring for our own accomplishments and accolades. God was part of the picture when we began our ministry, but now we’ve got work to do, and that work doesn’t always appear to have anything to do with God at all. – Michael Lane, Executive Director, Delve Christian Ministries
That’s good stuff! I think Michael rightly describes the slip that can occur when we begin to make the transition of making Jesus the focus to making the local church our focus.
Who do you love more: Jesus or the local church?
2 Responses to “Who do you love more: Jesus or the local church?”
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I'm Anthony Coppedge, a follower of Jesus, a husband to my uber-bride and father to four great kids. I help ministries leverage technology and communicate with a digitally-infused culture. I'm passionate about this, so that makes me a Technology & Communications Evangelist. I attend and volunteer at Gateway Church in Southlake, TX and love it!
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I agree. I just came out of full-time church ministry. It nearly destroyed my faith because it did become all about the numbers (attendance) and all about the church instead of Jesus. The sermons began focusing on "we're on the map!", "look what 'ChurchName" did", versus truly going out into the world and being the hands and feet of the church. And, it began to focus on inwardness — serve at a service, get in a small group with other Christians, versus go feed the hungry, go help a neighbor in need. It was about the show on Sundays, forgetting that the true way to reach others is through the example Jesus gave — RELATIONSHIPS, not smoke machines and a laser light show. To that end, we are unable to become part of a "church" right now.
I don’t normally jump up and down to self promote my blog but I couldn’t help but noticing the similarity in topic to the first post I ever wrote on my blog. It was surprisingly popular and had a lot of people giving some really constructive feedback.
“Are you loyal to Jesus or your church?” You can read it here:
http://www.adrianjackson.tv/2009/07/loyal-to-jesus-or-your-church/
.-= Adrian Jackson´s last blog ..Why Being New is Valuable =-.