If you have ever read the Major Prophets, you have probably come across the following extraordinary passage. Those in pastoral ministry, upon reading it, may have chuckled to themselves or enjoyed a laugh with other pastors that they sometimes understand exactly how Ezekiel felt, preaching to a brick—the symbol of an unresponsive congregation—for weeks or months at a time!
“Now you son of man, get yourself a brick, place it before you and inscribe a city on it, Jerusalem. 2 Then lay siege against it, build a siege wall, raise up a ramp, pitch camps and place battering rams against it all around. 3 . . . This is a sign to the house of Israel. 4 As for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it . . . 6 When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah . . . 7 Then you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared and prophesy against it” (Ezekiel 4:1-7).
What God asks Ezekiel to do here is most instructive of what churches and Christian organizations often go through, but fail to fully grasp. Ezekiel was like CNN to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. As the city of Jerusalem was under siege by King Nebuchadnezzar, God asks the prophet to depict the siege in diorama form “as a sign to the house of Israel” by lying down on his side every day for 390 days(!!) and “besieging” the brick!
The Jewish exiles, through this method, got updated on what was happening over 900 miles and three to six months travel distance around the Fertile Crescent from them as it occurred! But they also heard God’s message to the besieged people, that this pain they were enduring was a direct result of uncleansed corporate iniquity. Amazing.
The idea that gets missed in this is that God wants Israel to know that Nebuchadnezzar’s army and the siege itself was a message from Him! Every day that they were in pain and distress with the Babylonian armies surrounding and besieging them, God is speaking to them through it about the uncleansed iniquity that the community is carrying. He keeps talking to them through their pain, but they do not listen.
At Blessing Point, we often come alongside of churches and church leadership in a lot of pain, being besieged by opposition, by frustration, by resistance to and distrust of leadership, but without a clear sense of how God might actually be in their pain, might be trying to speak to them through the painful things they are experiencing. The devil gets a lot of credit in these situations, but God’s message in it gets missed. The pain instead often causes both congregation and leadership to become defensive, distrustful, and insensitive, making them just like a brick.
Before churches experience things like devastating splits or mass exoduses, they are often “besieged” in this way. Is your church being besieged by painful episodes in your church business meetings, painful board meetings that last until 1 a.m. where nothing gets resolved, or an unhappy staff and lay leadership that feels like they are always under attack?
Learn the ways of God in such moments of siege; learn especially how He speaks through such events. Chances are He has been communicating with your church for quite some time, but no one has heard what He is saying. If you need some help and support in hearing and responding to this message, Blessing Point Ministries can come alongside you as well.
Have you ever led an unresponsive congregation? If so, what led to their hardened state?
Dr. Ken Quick serves as Director of Consulting for Blessing Point Ministries and is the author of Healing the Heart of Your Church and Body Aches.
