From the 1975 classic “WHAT’S GONE WRONG WITH THE HARVEST” by James Engel
THE CRISIS AT FIRST CHURCH
No one can deny it — First Church had lost its cutting blades. When Al Cranston and the others first banded together in 1961, things were different. The Cranstons and the Richards had just moved to Rollingwood. Al and Chuck, the new corporation counsel at the plant where Al worked, soon discovered that they shared something in common — a personal and vital relationship with Jesus Christ. After a few weeks they began to meet together for Bible study, and their small group grew until twelve couples, all living within two miles of each other, found their lives united in a common eternal purpose. The most natural thing to do was to form a new church, since there was no other church that seemed to meet their needs.
Because the Cranstons had the largest home, First Church began there in 1961. For two years, everyone shared in the pastoral duties — and things happened! The joy of this group was contagious and one after another of the neighbors became touched with the presence of the living Christ. Some found Him for the first time. Older Christians discovered that practical Christianity is more than a formal once-a-week activity. First Church grew!
By 1963, it was necessary to move into the grade school on weekends, because the Cranston home had long since become inadequate. It was in that year that the church was formally chartered and called its first pastor, Henry Patterson. Once the constitution was ratified, a more formal organization took over, headed by a Board of Deacons, and six commissions were established to organize the affairs of this growing body. Membership increased, and there still was that undeniable quality of joy, of love, of real community. In retrospect, it was clear that Henry Patterson was the ideal pastor for that time. Although he wasn’t great in the pulpit, he had the ability to inspire others and to encourage them to take their rightful place in the Body and to grow in the faith.
Things started leveling off a bit in the early 1970s after the group moved into a new building. The life of the church had been great up to then, especially when everyone was involved in getting that building together. That was just before Tom Bartlett was called to replace Pastor Patterson who had accepted a call to a seminary faculty in another state.
Somehow, something was missing after that. People didn’t get together in homes as they once did. Sure, the program was much more organized, and things did work more smoothly. But it seemed as if that early quality of life, that sense of community and vibrant outreach, had been lost. This was the situation Tom Bartlett inherited.
Like many Christian organizations, First Church had progressed through a cycle of effectiveness shown in Figure 1. In the early years of the existence of an organization, it is common for effectiveness to grow very rapidly. In the case of First Church, effectiveness was clearly evident both in the spiritual life within the Body and in outward witness to the community. Meanwhile, the numbers in the congregation, the budget, the size of the physical plant all continued to grow. Yet these can be misleading measures of success, because all too often they mask an often subtle, yet very real, decline in effectiveness in performing the very purposes for which a group comes into existence. Unless checked, this slump can quickly reach crisis proportions.
Yes, First Church was in effectiveness crisis. Tom knew it was happening, and the congregational analysis only confirmed what was becoming obvious. The tragedy is that a church or a parachurch organization may be in a crisis and be unaware of it because of a focus on external measures of success, many of which are irrelevant when viewed from the eternal perspective of a God-given mission.
Tom was right — he had failed thus far. In one sense, he was a product of the system. Four years in one of the best seminaries taught him how to exegete a biblical passage, plumbing the depths of Greek, Hebrew, or even Aramaic. He knew the Bible thoroughly, but he never really learned that biblical content must be related to the felt needs of people if change is to result. In this fundamental sense, Tom escaped the real meaning of communication. Furthermore, he somehow missed the practical significance of ecclesiology in all his theological training. He had never learned how to take his role within a functioning body of Christ, serving in the biblical role of pastor/teacher and shepherd of the flock. The upshot is that Tom had learned mostly how to be a preacher — and this is important — but he had not learned how to be a pastor.
However, the blame was not all Tom’s. The membership of First Church also shared the responsibility for effectiveness crisis. In sharp contrast to the early days, they had come to expect “church” to be little more than a Sunday performance by the pastor. They expected to leave “feeling better” and “feeling inspired.” But when it came to developing and using spiritual muscle, there was precious little to use. For many, Christianity had come to be just another activity, rather than a pervasive lifestyle characterized by a single-minded purpose to follow the Lord of life and harvest, laying all else aside.
First Church has its Deacons Board. Its role, carefully defined in the constitution, is to govern the church and manage its affairs. Al Cranston in particular saw that the effectiveness slump began about the time that the constitution was ratified. Somehow the biblical pattern of the deacons as spiritual leaders escaped them and responsibility was shifted to one man — the paid pastor.
The constitution further compounded the problem by establishing a formal organizational chart of commissions and committees. Each group has its own task to perform, precisely spelled out. In fact, Cranston had been heard to say in earlier years that “this organizational chart looks better than ours down at the plant.” The commissions and committees dutifully meet, carry out their programs, and mostly perpetuate the activities of the past. A spirit of innovation has been replaced by an insidious sense of the routine. After all, why rock the boat when things are going well?
AN ENERGY CRISIS
In short, First Church has come to resemble a secular organization. First Church, which once was so vital, now is doctrinally orthodox but spiritually sick. It must wrestle with Tozer’s prescription for restored effectiveness:
The Church must have power; she must become formidable, a moral force to be reckoned with, if she would regain her lost position of spiritual ascendancy and make her message the revolutionizing, conquering thing it once was.1
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1. A. W. Tozer, Paths to Power (Philadelphia: Christian Publications, Inc., n.d.), p. 5.
Books by James F. Engel:
- What’s Gone Wrong With the Harvest?: A Communication Strategy for the Church and World Evangelization
- Promotional Strategy : An Integrated Marketing Communication Approach, Ninth Edition
- Changing the Mind of Missions: Where Have We Gone Wrong?
- Contemporary Christian communications, its theory and practice
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