In his article “In Search of the Effective Church” (Fall 1990 LEADERSHIP), Jim Abrahamson identifies four types of churches, their strengths, and some “lingering questions” about each. We asked leaders from the churches mentioned to respond to these questions.
The Reaching-Out (Market-Driven) Church
Jim Abrahamson noted two major concerns about the ministry of Willow Creek Community Church. His comments were perceptive and similar in content and tone to discussions that might take place at a WCCC staff meeting or an elders’ planning retreat.
Concern: That clearly defined goals, tight organizational structure, and strong, high-energy leadership might foster conformity rather than individual authenticity, and might create the impression that people who aren’t goal-oriented, Type-A personalities are second-class Christians.
Response: The mission of WCCC is to help unchurched people become sincere worshipers of the true God, devoted disciples of Jesus Christ, and faithful servants in his kingdom. While this goal is clearly defined and regularly articulated at WCCC, it is certainly not narrow. A great variety of ministries can, and must, fall within the scope of this broad game plan.
Network, our service-placement ministry, teaches that believers will be most fruitful and fulfilled when their ministries flow naturally out of their God-given passions, make effective use of their spiritual gifts, and are in keeping with their unique personalities. We try to have ministries for all ages and for a wide variety of special-need groups, because individual believers have responded authentically to God’s specific call on their lives.
We need the contributions of all kinds of people: big-picture people to provide vision and motivation, detail people to turn vision into reality, creative people to plan programs, technicians to produce them. We need administrators to set up plans to reach the hurting. We need tenderhearted people to carry out the plans. In our teaching we regularly affirm the full variety of temperament types-high energy, action people and meditative people, thinkers and feelers.
So, while we make no apology for having a clearly defined goal, we wholeheartedly encourage people to further that goal in ways that are suited to their God-given uniqueness.
Concern: That values such as excellence, efficiency, and attention to aesthetics may inadvertently be presented as Christian values and create an environment where people may not feel free to fail.
Response: Scripture tells us to do whatever we do “heartily as unto the Lord.” We believe that means we need to serve God to the very best of our ability-whether we are singing a solo, building a building, preaching a sermon, cleaning a hallway, planning a program for unwed mothers, or communicating the gospel to Unchurched Harry. Doing our best, of course, means more than achieving a certain outward standard. It also means having the right attitude and motives; it means that the soloist has lived the lyrics of her song and the teacher has accepted the challenge of the lesson.
We also strive for excellence because many Unchurched Harrys turn off to church when they perceive it as substandard. We want to surprise Harry with excellence so he will take us seriously enough to hear our message.
As Harry listens and becomes more involved, he will learn about far more than excellence, efficiency, and aesthetics. Through teaching, he will learn about sin, forgiveness, and transformation. In worship, he will learn about confession and humility. In small groups, he will learn about vulnerability and accountability. In service, he will discover the joy of self-giving. And we believe that along the way he will find the warmth and safety of the spiritual family that Abrahamson described so well in his article.
We appreciate Jim Abrahamson’s frank review of our church and take seriously the issues he raises.
-Don Cousins and Lynne Hybels
Willow Creek Community Church
South Barrington, Illinois
The Reaching-In (Relational) Church
Jim Abrahamson asks, “Can affirming-relationship congregations be relational in style without sacrificing truth at the altar of love? For instance, I never did get a clear answer in some of these congregations when I asked, ‘When did you last exercise church discipline, and how did you do it?’ I was left with the impression that any kind of correction would be perceived as rejection, and exclusion threatened the overarching goal of love. The conduct that prompted the most disapproval was related to insensitivity or intolerance, not immorality or apostasy.”
To respond: We seek to discipline in the context of acceptance, as an expression of Christ’s love. Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). We expect people who come to Menlo Park Presbyterian Church to be sick with the effects of sin, not healthy. We are a hospital for sinners, and hospitals don’t tell patients, “Come back when you’re well.”
As people gain enough health to contribute in leadership, we seek to place and support them effectively. On occasion, people’s sin symptoms overwhelm their effectiveness in ministry, and we must give them a leave of absence (or, in some cases, remove them from office altogether). But the sinful patient is then put in intensive care, not discharged from the hospital.
Our intensive care usually requires the patient to participate in an accountability and support group, practice spiritual disciplines, and set a time frame for regaining spiritual health and strength. After that comes another evaluation.
We use this procedure several times each year, even with staff and lay leaders when necessary, and with good effect. Of course, a patient may choose to leave the hospital and refuse treatment, but God’s grace working through genuine care and spiritual skill saves many. On occasions when the personal safety of congregational members was at risk, we have had to prohibit a person’s access to church property and events, but intensive care is always offered.
Jim Abrahamson also wonders, “In what ways do these churches present the cost of discipleship?”
We contrast the cost and benefits of discipleship with the cost of nondiscipleship! We constantly seek to expose the hidden costs of sin and the false advertising of disobedience. In a profound sense, following Christ is the best offer in this world. We find the Bible presents discipleship in this way-an invitation to a lifestyle that is ultimately more rewarding than any alternative.
-Scott Farmer
Menlo Park Presbyterian Church
Menlo Park, California
The Reaching-Up (Worship-Oriented) Church
In describing the Anaheim Vineyard as a reaching-up church, Jim Abrahamson captures the essence of our highest priorities: worship and prayer. However, his analysis misses much of what we are, perhaps because he sees us only through the lens of a Sunday service, which is a sample and not the whole of our church.
The Vineyard is much more than worship, prayer, and power encounters. People may initially attend our Sunday services because we are a reaching-up church, but they stay only if we incorporate key elements of reaching out, in, and down. So we are committed to evangelism, caring for the poor, pastoral care, and discipleship.
Abrahamson’s lingering concerns were a good summary of questions I frequently hear from observers outside the Vineyard. The first, a concern about creeping subjectivism, is well founded. Churches that allow for and actively seek the Holy Spirit’s intervention risk drifting from historic orthodoxy into murky subjectivism, just as churches that discourage charismatic experience frequently fall into dead orthodoxy.
To avoid such dangers in the Anaheim Vineyard, I bracket our experience between two biblical constraints. First, direct revelations must always glorify the Word of God, Jesus Christ (John 16:14). Second, they must conform to the Word of God, the Bible (Titus 1:9).
Second, Abrahamson is concerned about the accountability of powerful leaders. He implies that charismatic leaders are more prone to abuse power than are leaders of other types of churches.
It’s unclear if Abrahamson thinks that (1) all powerful leaders are charismatic and are more prone to abuse their power, or (2) powerful charismatic leaders are more prone to abuse their power than other Christian leaders, or (3) charismatic followers are more easily duped by spiritual charlatans.
I feel, however, this is a moot point. Recent moral failures of powerful leaders have rocked every major Christian tradition, from fundamentalist to Catholic, conservative evangelical to Pentecostal-including those church systems with highly structured accountability.
The answer to this problem for charismatic leaders is the same as for any Christian pastor: accountable pastoral relationships in which leaders’ lives are “in the light,” and the fervent teaching of Scripture that emphasizes the importance of right belief (orthodoxy), right action (orthopraxy), and the personal responsibility of every Christian.
Abrahamson’s last question concerns the tendency of many charismatics to focus on spectacular experiences and neglect more mundane-though just as significant-spiritual disciplines: Scripture study, prayer, fasting, caring for the poor, and so on. It’s human nature for people to look for shortcuts to maturity, avoiding the personal spiritual disciplines.
I am especially sensitive to this problem, perhaps because the Vineyard has attracted more than its share of people looking for a quick fix. My recent book Power Points (Harper/Collins) addresses the extremes in Western Christianity-mindless enthusiasm on the one hand and dead orthodoxy on the other. The corrective to both extremes is a return to the knowledge and practice of the great core elements of the Christian faith: understanding the nature of the God we worship and what he has done for us, and practicing in the modern world the way of holiness-self-sacrifice, servanthood, and love.
-John Wimber
The Vineyard
Anaheim, California
The Handing-Down (Bible-Teaching) Church
Jim Abrahamson has served us well by sharing his sabbatical observations and reflections. Who of us has not desired to sit down with the leaders of America’s more effective churches to probe the secrets of their spiritual success? We were able to do that vicariously through his insights. I am grateful for his kind words about our ministry in Escondido, and I am challenged by his penetrating questions about a Bible-teaching approach to ministry.
“Is intellectual understanding of the truth rewarded even when it is not applied or integrated very deeply into life?” God’s Word has power in and of itself, and the Spirit of God can apply it personally and individually to each person (1 John 2:27). But the Word itself sets the pattern for us to follow. Those who taught the Scriptures (such as Jesus and Paul) applied them powerfully to the hearts and lives of the hearers. They showed people the relevance of the Word to daily living.
My seminary professors also drilled it deeply into my soul: all Bible doctrine is relevant to life, and Bible expositors have not finished their task until they have shown their hearers how God wants them to live in the light of the truth they have learned, that is, until they have answered the question, “So what?” I want my people to be excited about knowing Christ and growing in his likeness, and I want to model that kind of life before them.
Second, “Does worship have its own significance, or is it a sort of ‘pregame warm-up’ for the teaching?” As I view it, teaching the Word is an integral part of worship, just as much as singing praises to God, reading Scripture, offering prayers, or receiving the Lord’s Supper.
When I preach the Word, I don’t want people to say, “Isn’t he a great Bible teacher?” or “Wasn’t that a great sermon?” or even, “Isn’t that a great truth we learned today?”
I want them to say, “Isn’t He a wonderful Savior?” That’s worship. It’s also our greatest motivation for obedience and service.
A third question came to my mind before I finished reading the article, the question Pastor Abrahamson himself eventually addresses in his conclusion: “How can we maintain balance in our ministry?”
I was inspired by reading what other churches were doing, and found myself asking, How can we more effectively penetrate our community with the gospel? and How can we demonstrate more care for one another in the Body? and How can we magnify the Lord more in our worship and make prayer a more meaningful and powerful part of our fellowship?
We do what we do in our church because of our biblical conviction. As I read through the New Testament, I find the whole church gathered together primarily to be edified through the preaching and teaching of the Word. But these other elements cannot be absent. I’m grateful Jim Abrahamson stirred my thinking.
-Richard Strauss
Emmanuel Faith Community Church
Escondido, California
Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
