May 25, 2007
The Mandate
The back of our weekly bulletin asserts WE ARE A “CONNECTING” CHURCH. It then proceeds to list Our Mission, Our Mandate, Our Methods and Our Motive. I’ve never been comfortable with the Mandate, which reads “Grow up and Move Out”. Really now, doesn’t that just sound like something a parent would tell a kid who just lounges around the house and won’t get a job? Actually, a mandate as defined by Webster’s is an authoritative command; a formal order from a superior court or official. So, my question is who is giving this authoritative command? I suppose you could argue Jesus, Paul or the Gospels expect us to mature or grow up - and they do. However, I can’t think of any Scriptural context in which believers are told to move out. Personally, I think many of today’s church leaders don’t want the responsibility of shepherding the flock. It’s much easier to bottle feed the lambs and tell the older sheep to grow up and move out.
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Gail;
-----I am so thankful for the twenty three years I spent at your church. It indeed was a period of time in which I grew up, and…well…didn’t so much move out as I was thrown out. As a result of the church’s unwillingness to connect with the saints who had a real need for traditional church culture, I spent six years studying the Scriptures carefully on the topics of fellowship, honoring one another, pleasing one another, taking interest in each other’s interests, serving one another, agreeing with one another, unity, etc., etc. What impressed me most about what the Scripture was saying concerning fellowship is that it said so little about the leaders’ responsibility to shape and form it. Their role seems to be presented with more importance given to exemplifying fellowship. And from godly men living the life of humility, love, and self sacrifice, those among whom they lived would eventually begin to imitate the same. That is what the Scriptures seem to present as important in the church.
-----But as you point out in your blog, the leaders of your church show more enthusiasm to mandate than to exemplify. Their unwillingness to connect with their traditionally oriented brethren is not from a total rejection of them. It is rather from a condition placed upon connection, a mandate if you will. Those brethren were required to step away from the worship culture they understood, and to which they related, in order to honor the celebration culture of the leaders, please the leaders, take interest in the leaders’ interests, serve the leaders’ goals, agree with the leaders, and be in unity with the leaders. It is a pity these unfortunate souls were not given an example of how to do this by the leaders taking some interest in their needs and serving them. Instead the message to the brethren in that church with traditional needs is, “grow up or move out!”
-----The six years I spent trying to convince the leaders to love their brethren passionately from the heart and to stop serving with partisanship also led me to search the Scriptures deeply for just what the leaders’ authority covers, and what it does not. There is no easy way to prove a negative, and that is why it is so difficult to show that the Scriptures do not give the church leaders authority to write mission statements, mandates, methods, and motives for the church, nor to select a culture for the church. Instead, we are all told, including the leaders, to be undemanding, non-judgmental, and agreeable with one another about issues that are not Scriptural imperatives. This certainly involves what I feel my mission in the Lord is, what I feel my mandate by the Lord is, with what methodology the Lord has equipped me, and what motivates me in His Spirit.
-----I do not mean that a group of men have not the freedom in the Lord to form an association with their brethren directed towards a narrow purpose. I once served on the board of directors of a Christian school, which was certainly that. I also did some accounting and tax work for a missionary organization, which was also that. Consider the narrowed mission of the Salvation Army. Or Awanas. But we must realize that the more narrowing definitions, restrictions, and mandates we place upon our churches, the less they become churches and the more they become merely an association of brethren serving a narrowed purpose in the Lord. And I believe that is perfectly fine and admirable. The water just starts becoming murky, feelings start becoming hurt, and the truth of love starts becoming deceit when we call our own associations “church”. Only His association is Church. And His mission statements, mandates, methodologies, and motivations for it are no less nor more than the Word of God. How dare men think they can restrict, refine, or define it any further!
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