How to Identify the Specific Discipline Issues (in your church)
Gideon replied, "If the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about…?”
Judges 6:13
In the spring of 1987, I candidated for the church I ultimately pastored in Toronto. I remember the search committee sending me an inch-thick packet of information about the church, including a set of folders called “Board Initiatives” from previous years. These contained several outstanding projects the lay leadership had developed to strengthen the church and start a number of very dynamic ministries. These included detailed strategies for training lay counselors, determining and developing people’s spiritual gifts, planting a daughter church, and several others, back before such ministries were common in churches. I was impressed!
At our next meeting, which had several elders on it, I told them how interesting and exciting I found the initiatives of the lay leadership, and then I innocently asked “How many of these initiatives have you implemented?”
They looked at one another and color came to their cheeks. One of the men, who was an elder, cleared his throat and said, “Well, to be honest, we have struggled at the point of implementation.”
“Yes,” chirped another elder. “But this is what we believe our next pastor can help us do!”
I didn’t realize it then, but I was staring at one of the major symptoms of this church’s pain. If you read this in Healing the Heart of Your Church, forgive me as I repeat the story to make a different point.
A majority of the elders led a rebellion against the founding pastor back in 1976 (a hinge moment). The church split and lost about 70% of its congregation and most of its leaders, but the pastor survived. All the elders who fomented the split left the church. A new set of elders were voted in, but about six months later they realized that the pastor’s position had become untenable and asked him to consider resigning, which he did. However, with his resignation, another significant percentage of the congregation left, blaming the new elders for his leaving.
So the elder board was twice seen as the source of devastating pain for the congregation—and, as a result, they would not follow the elders any more, it did not matter who they were. Indeed, from that point, the congregation resisted every major leadership initiative presented by the elders, the symptom I uncovered so innocently while candidating. It did not matter that the elders were good, godly men who had the congregation’s best interests in mind. The role of elder had been “tainted, soiled” by the actions of those earlier elders.
They were now in a place found commonly in the Old Testament, where the “works of their hands”, even what might be considered good and godly works came to nothing. Haggai describes this exact situation:
“But now, do consider from this day onward: before one stone was placed on another in the temple of the LORD, from that time when one came to a grain heap of twenty measures, there would be only ten; and when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there would be only twenty. I smote you and every work of your hands with blasting wind, mildew and hail; yet you did not come back to Me,” declares the LORD. (Haggai 2:15-17)
God used the failure of their efforts to communicate with them of their need to return to Him. God always has this as the objective in discipline. Like the Israelites, these elders were not doing anything evil. Quite the contrary, these godly guys worked hard to bear good fruit in the church.
God used the failure of their efforts to communicate the simple message: “Return to Me!” My church felt its pain in the fruitlessness of leadership initiatives. Had we known how to listen to Him earlier, God signaled His unhappiness clearly. The role of elder had been tainted by the sinful rebellion of an elder board years before, and the taint had not been removed. Therefore the work of their hands and hearts came to nothing, just reams of paper, and the pain stayed right there with group after group of elders.
Understanding pain in the body of Christ
As the last chapter used the metaphor of the temple to understand the way God dwells with and communicates with His people at a local church level, this chapter will focus on the metaphor of the body and the unique role of corporate pain as a form of communication. In the verses which start this chapter, the great goal of Christ for the church is the proper working of each part of the body, each supporting joint and ligament working together and growing together. Agape love is the circulating “life blood” of this system.
God made our bodies remarkable organisms. One of the most amazing aspects of our body is the signals it can send to us from the most extreme point of any appendage, and fast. If you have ever stubbed your toe or gotten a thorn in your finger, you know. Sometimes when I am in my backyard, I will feel something bite me and look and can’t see what did it. They actually call these offending insects “no-see-ums” but my body can still feel the bite of these tiny bugs. Our brains know the exact location of the problem because of the pain. The pain draws our attention and our focus.
Our consciousness of the pain of a wound, sprain or break is only part of the miracle. The body immediately begins to send its own internal ambulance system with white blood cells and clotting cells and other medication to protect, mend, and start to heal the problem. If it continues to cause pain, we may attend to it with externally applied antibiotics, supports or covering. However, the healthy body always wants to heal and works to do so, whether inwardly or by our outward ministrations.
We would never think of severing a limb initially because of a cut or a broken bone. Even though God has supplied doubles of most appendages, we still don’t just cut one off and throw it away because of an injury. We reserve that desperate measure only for those times when an infection, necrosis or cancer threatens the rest of body.
God designed the body of Christ in a local church to operate similarly, with the same kind of messages attached to corporate pain and the same responses expected. Somewhere along the line though in our individualistic Western culture, we totally missed the significance and implications of the church as a body, especially as it relates to pain. The Church had a spasm of “body life” teaching back in the 1970’s which primarily focused on discovering one’s spiritual gifts, but that has been about it.
When I receive a call from a pastor or a board and they start to tell me the painful things which have been happening, I’ve learned pretty quickly to assess the painful areas in the corporate body. When we go on the retreat to unpack a church’s history, the original assessment and diagnosis almost always gets confirmed. Why? Because Jesus makes it simple so we don’t miss it. He puts pain in the body where the problem has been. He keeps it right there in the same spot for decades!
Some of this makes sense in terms of the principle of “sowing and reaping” as well (Gal. 6:7), a different metaphor, but an apt analogy when explaining pain in the body of Christ. If the pain has been caused by a rebellious associate staff member and no one takes responsibility for it, or if the pastor or church has an inappropriate or unrighteous response to that rebellion, wherever the sin is, the church “reaps” its pain where it has been sown—in the future relationships with associate staff.
How I admire the courageous, long-suffering pastors I have met who have faithfully stayed in their churches for ten, fifteen, twenty years in some cases when Christ has put the pain in the pastoral role through no fault of their own.
You see, if the church had an abusive or immoral pastor somewhere in its history, the succeeding pastors all experience pain even if they are not immoral or abusive. People will not trust them if nothing else, and broken trust means no intimacy and a resistance to their leadership. If the church has had rebellious, immoral or unfaithful lay leadership in their history, then ongoing pain gets experienced by present lay leadership, even if they are godly, even if they are new to the church. If a church had misbehavior or disrespect by its congregation toward spiritual authority at its business meetings, it will continue to do so. Old people may leave and new people may come, but the pain will remain.
This may not seem fair, but such a charge misunderstands the body that Christ made us. Jesus puts the pain where the problem is to do exactly what pain does in our bodies—get our attention because something’s wrong and has not been healed or corrected. The Bride experiences His loving discipline until she does what she needs to spiritually to make it right again.
Frequency and amplitude of pain
What happens though if a body does not listen to its pain messages or, worse, misinterprets them? This happens all the time in churches. The body metaphor can help us predict exactly what will happen. If I have sprained my ankle or broken my forearm and I foolishly ignore the pain messages I receive, two things will happen: It will increase the frequency in which I feel the pain; and the pain will get worse, its amplitude will increase.
Jesus speaks through this pain about the “fall,” the spiritual injury which occurred at the hinge moment and initially caused the pain, but He does not get heard. No one thinks to apologize to the Lord to whom the church belongs for the offense, or to do what He says is necessary to make things right! In churches which ignore what the Lord of their church seeks to tell them experience a cycle of pain where the frequency and amplitude will increase as time goes by as He seeks to gain their attention.
Most will not realize this cycle has been reoccurring because they don’t know their history. They think the only important problems are the present ones. They fail to understand that the wound that caused this ongoing pain occurred twenty-five years ago! The individual who caused the problem in the body may be long-gone or even dead. It does not matter. Jesus still waits for His body to listen to Him and do what He says. He will keep the pain right where the problem started, and make it worse and more frequent, until the body finally pays attention.
It’s stunning how much pain a church will endure before it finally asks the right questions. I watch church leaders use all the human techniques and management principles to fix things, but they might as well put band-aids on compound fractures or cancer. The spiritual body of the local church just does not respond to human management principles when the Lord of that church seeks to make a point.
I hate to think how many pastors and associates have been fired or quit and who now sell caskets or insurance (both highly symbolic!). They try not to be bitter, but it is hard for them not to hate the church which ruined their lives. How many good, godly laypeople on boards have been made miserable and quit, swearing never to serve in church leadership again? What a terrible waste and all because they did not know how to interpret pain in the body.
Once again listen to Jesus speak to the Laodecians about the “bodily pain” with which He has lovingly disciplined them. I am certain it did not afflict them all at one time. He tells them exactly why He disciplines them, and exactly what pain He inflicted on them as a consequence:
You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. (Rev. 3:17-19)
The Laodecians probably did not descend into smug self-sufficiency in a day, and their discipline probably did not start as intense as Jesus ultimately had to make it. The evidences of spiritual destitution (remember, in this rich church these are analogies) and pain came in increasing waves—first perhaps the nakedness (or some sort of corporate public shame—think of the Goshen First Church of God), then the blindness (or the inability to perceive what transpired around them), then the absolute wretchedness (losing everything of spiritual value). They finally get to the point where they leave Jesus—their Redeemer and Lord—outside their church, knocking to get in (Rev. 3:20)! Yikes!
We can picture such a church. I know I have consulted with churches just like it, churches filled with extremely smart people like doctors, lawyers, and CEO’s, who do incredibly stupid, hurtful, and insensitive things in their spiritual blindness. All the “bodily pain” becomes an expression of the church’s growing spiritual poverty—highly symbolic, but actually very simple to understand when eyes get opened. Jesus put the pain where the problem was, and He kept increasing its frequency and amplitude until (hopefully) they finally got the message.
So where’s your church’s pain?
Ask yourself that question. Ask it as a group of your spiritual leaders as you assess your ministry: “Where does our church experience its ongoing pain? Is it with failed leadership initiatives or in its business or board meetings? With its associate staff? Is it with gossip? Has our church had multiple splits? Is it with leadership initiatives? Does it fight over worship styles?” Stop and think for a moment: what would the message from the Lord of your church be if He puts pain in your worship? A lot of churches receive discipline in that area. I consulted with one church where the pain was with the custodial staff and had been going on for decades, different custodians, but always pain! The people who cleaned the church were a source of pain. Talk about symbolic!
Your corporate pain can be in several places, but God has a message regarding each place. Each speaks to the corporate body about issues the Lord of your church wants to address. They may be rooted deep in your church’s history and what’s happening today may only be the latest wave of His loving discipline. Learn how to “listen to your body” and gain this indispensible skill to spiritual leadership.
The preceeding article is an excerpt from Dr. Kenneth Quick's latest book titled, Body Aches: The Experience of and Response to Corporate Discipline of Your Church.