Wreck the Roof - Christianity Today

I’ve never met a pastor who didn’t agree in some measure with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian during WWII. From his cell in the Flossenburg concentration camp, he wrote, “The church is only the church when it exists for others.”

Every pastor I know speaks well, stirringly even, of serving and blessing and winning those outside the church walls. But let’s be honest, it’s difficult at times to reconcile our speaking with our doing. If action is the fruit of conviction, if “by their fruit you shall know them,” then the conclusion is inescapable: many pastors and churches could not care less about their communities.

I call this “Roof-tile Syndrome.”

I derive that from Mark 2. Jesus is speaking inside a house, and “some men” bring a paralyzed man to the place, carried by four of them. They’re trying to get their friend to Jesus. But a crowd knots the door, creates a barricade of backs. There’s no getting past them to reach Jesus. So the men take the building apart. They rip open the roof and lower their friend through the hole. Jesus, seeing their faith (these are some men), forgives the paralyzed man, and then heals him.

And, of course, controversy breaks out among the religious folk.

Roof-tile Syndrome is when we are so caught up in the preaching of Jesus, we turn our backs to the needs of those still outside the building. We become barriers and not gateways. It’s when we care more about keeping things intact than about restoring lives that are shattered. It’s when we’re more upset when stuff gets broken than excited when the broken are mended. It’s when church gets reduced to the preaching of Jesus so that we fail to notice that we’re seeing very little of the forgiveness and healing of Jesus. It is when we are so fearful about upsetting the religious folk (or homeowners) in our midst that we stop taking risks to get people to Jesus.

It’s when my program, my office, my title, my privilege, my influence, my comfort takes precedence over others’ needs.

It’s when the church exists for itself; to hell with the rest of you.

Years ago I was invited to speak at a small church in a semi-rural lakeside community. I arrived a half-hour before the service, and the building was still locked. So I drove down the town’s main drag, which the church was on. There, between the main street and the lake, were thousands of people gathered for a community-sponsored half-marathon. A local band was already playing on a flatbed. Coffee kiosks were doing a booming business. Runners were stretching, limbering up. The local radio station was giving live color commentary.

It was a festival.

I drove back to the church and found the building open. A church deacon met me at the door, took me to a small office and, before we prayed, told me how upset he was: on Friday, the church’s parking lot had been freshly paved. On Saturday, someone (“probably one of those people here for the marathon”) had driven an RV into the lot. Turning it around, they’d creased the soft asphalt.

The deacons had called an emergency meeting for Sunday night, and the outcome would likely be that they’d use the church’s savings (they had over $50,000 in the bank) to hang a chain across the entrance of the church parking lot and prevent any further damage.

I decided, there and then, to preach Mark 2. I stood up, read the text, and asked, “What roof tiles do you need to break? What are you willing to suffer the loss of for the sake of reaching the thousands of people right outside your door?”

The parishioners sat unmoving, unmoved.

It was a dirge.

I’ve never seen a congregation clear out more quickly. I don’t think it was to join the festival outside.

What Are You Protecting?

Good story. Problem: it’s taken me a long time to heed its lesson. I went back to my own church and happily resumed the business (in my own way) of guarding roof tiles, all the while speaking about how important it is to care for our community.

And then one day I realized: this entire church body could perish overnight, and the community wouldn’t notice us missing. It was doubtful they would care.

We were huddled together, a barricade of backs, enjoying immensely the preaching of Jesus, but seeing very little of the bone-deep, heart-turning forgiveness of Jesus, lesser still of the heart-stopping, crowd-stirring healing of Jesus. We were avoiding controversy, to be sure, but by avoiding those who needed the forgiveness and healing of Jesus.

Thus began my own revolution. In word and deed (slowly, slowly), I am changing. In word and deed (slowly, slowly), so is our church.

We are repenting of being a barricade of backs, and training to be a posse of roof-tile breakers.

Here’s some of what that means.

We started to ask two questions about our community:

What are their needs and how might we do good unto them (contra, what are our needs and what would make us feel good)?
What are they already doing and doing well that we can celebrate and thank them for (contra, what are they doing wrong that we should protest and denounce)?

The first question—what are their needs—led us to discover two groups, hidden in plain sight, within our community: low-income families (mostly single moms) and First Nations (Canadian for Natives or Indians).

For a variety of reasons (low housing and rental costs, at least until recently, a year-round mild climate, easy access to health care, etc.), our community has been a magnet for single mothers on welfare and other low-income families.

A few years ago, a lady in our church went, with abrupt suddenness, from being married, owning a new home, taking nice vacations, to being divorced, renting a cramped basement suite, and worrying about having enough gas to drive to church.

She worked all day, then picked up her daughter and used what little time and energy she had left to be chef, housekeeper, bill-payer, faucet-fixer, and both mom and dad. She never got enough sleep. Never had enough time. Never made enough money.

She’s happily remarried now, and expecting her second child. But she’s not forgotten those days. As we asked people in the church to dream about reaching and blessing our community, whatever the cost in roof tiles, she came forward (at this point, still a single mom), and described that there were two seasons of the year she loved when she was married and dreaded as a single mom: back-to-school and Christmas.

What were once times of excitement and anticipation became seasons of panic and guilt.

She couldn’t afford new shoes and backpacks and jeans for her daughter to start school. She couldn’t buy her a new bike or doll or dress for Christmas. She couldn’t even afford haircuts and basic car maintenance.

So she started something we call JumpStart. We began with the back-to-school season. We set up a large free clothing and shoe store with new or as-new items, all free, in all sizes. We assembled our mechanics and worked out a deal with local auto parts suppliers. The mechanics work on peoples’ cars while they and their children shop, get haircuts from our church’s stylists, and then, on the way out, receive a new backpack stuffed with school supplies for each child.

We’ve done that for three years. Though some people abuse it—roof tiles, so to speak, get broken every time—we are also tasting and seeing more and more of the forgiving, healing presence of Jesus in our midst.

Last year we launched our first Christmas Jumpstart, two free stores, one for parents to gift-shop for their children, one for children to gift-shop for their parents. We’ll even do the gift wrapping. We’ll also provide a lunch, with live music and gourmet food.

Whenever we do this, I rally our church people with a speech that goes something like this:

“Today, you are Christ’s voice, his hands, his feet, his eyes, his heart. If these people see Jesus, it will be in you. And, like Christ, we are doing more than rendering a service. We are loving them as ourselves. We are not just serving, but having Jesus’ attitude—being in very nature servants.

“Life and circumstances, and often their own bad choices, have taken many things from these people. But what each of them needs most today is not clothes or a new backpack or an oil change. We can give all those things and fail to give the one thing needed, or even worse: we might give all those gifts with one hand, and with the other strip them further of the one thing needed.

“The one thing needed is dignity. It is their sense of being loved and worth loving. It is their sense of their infinite value in the eyes of God, and in the eyes of God’s people.

“If we give all those other things today but don’t give them dignity, we fail.

“Today, give the one thing needed. Today, we host kings and queens, princes and princesses. Let us act accordingly.”

Third World in My Backyard

The other group—and many of these are among the low-income families—is First Nations people. It would take another aritcle to tell the story about how I changed my mind and my ways toward aboriginal peoples. But in the summer of 2005, God broke my heart over this, and then he commanded me to get up and to act.

I wanted to book passage to Tarshish, but I knew that was the way of storm and sea-beasts, with the same results in the end. So I picked up and headed to Nineveh.

Only it wasn’t Nineveh. What I discovered was the Third World in my own backyard.

I discovered people with humble hearts and noble but wounded spirits who should hate us but don’t. We stole their land (literally: all the land in our community was taken from the tribes in 1862 and, though promised compensation, they never received it).

We stole their languages and their culture—outlawed their dancing, singing, feasting, their traditional garb. We stole their children—removed them by force from their families and sent them to residential schools, where many were sexually, verbally and/or physically abused. We taught them religion, but with a whip. And yet they don’t hate us.

If all we ever do in this community is change for the better the lot of our First Nations neighbors, it will be enough. I hope and believe we will do more, but it is clear that, God being our witness and our helper, we must do this. So I am calling our church and other local churches (as I am invited), to this: Let God break your heart and open your heart to love our First Nations peoples.

And then use what power you have to make a difference.

We work to create meaningful opportunities for this to happen. Again, that story requires another article. But in just over a year, we have seen the churches of our community go from apathy, inertia, fear and prejudice, all veiled beneath token prayers and pious speech, to a real desire to love, serve, and befriend our First Nations neighbors, regardless of what roof tiles get broken along the way.

I can’t wait to see where this one goes, and I’m willing to tear the whole roof off if that’s what it takes.

Thanking the Mounties

The second question we’ve been asking is, What is the community already doing and doing well that we can celebrate and thank them for? This has also led us to two groups: the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police), and teachers. Here are two groups of people who, though modestly paid, pour themselves out, often putting themselves in harm’s way. Yet they rarely get thanked and often get blamed.

We decided to do the thanking.

The RCMP are Canada’s federal police force, those men and women who are famously depicted in their red serge outfits and wide-brimmed Stetsons, astride tall horses. That’s now only their ceremonial garb, not how they dress to go to work, but the icon remains vivid and captivating.

The reality is otherwise. The RCMP perform vitally important work in our communities, yet they’re usually recognized only when one of them either fails or dies in the line of duty. Scandals and tragedies make us pay attention, but little else.

A RCMP chaplain attends our church, and so we began to work with him to change that, to express our genuine thankfulness in an ongoing and concrete way. During the summer we launched a barbeque, on site at the police detachment, one Friday a month. When we started, a few wary officers would come out, grab a burger, have a quick but guarded chat, and quickly leave. But repeated effort pays off.

Now, virtually the whole force shows up. Officers off-duty will stop by, and they talk to us and each other openly. We’ve become friends.

What changed the tone of those barbeques, besides our consistency in doing them, was a banquet we hosted last year for the officers and their spouses. I called up a financial planner from our church and told him I needed several thousand dollars to do this right. He immediately raised the money, and we set up a team, working with the RCMP chaplain, to organize the event.

We invited the entire ministerial alliance of our city to serve the meal. Then we had a banquet to end all banquets—an evening of prime rib and creamed potatoes and deep-dish apple pie. We had our drama team tell, in a fast-paced and funny sketch, the history of the RCMP. We had a taped interview with an RCMP couple, reflecting on how their faith had strengthened their marriage throughout their career (the divorce rate for police officers is very high). We had a slideshow of local officers and office staff doing their job well.

And then I closed, not by preaching, but by thanking them. The closest I came to preaching was when I compared them to the first-century police force, the Roman centurions.

“Jesus,” I said, “met a lot of religious people he could barely stomach. But he never met a centurion he didn’t like. Thank you for being our centurions.” To close, and we had gotten prior approval for this, I invited the police chief up to the front and prayed for him on behalf of the entire detachment.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Officers who had come in skittish and suspicious left joyful and freshly proud of their calling and their work. The chaplain told me that the next day at work, all anyone talked about was the banquet and the churches.

Turning to the Teachers

Now we’re about to do something likewise for the teachers in our public schools. Here’s another group that does a vitally important work in our community but who hear more complaints than thanks.

We’re gearing up for a banquet for them and their spouses, but we also encourage parents to make it a habit of thanking and helping teachers on a weekly basis. Our personal commitment to do that has earned our church a growing credibility with the schools.

Recently, I’ve been invited as a “motivational speaker” to address the teachers at two of our city’s public schools. There’s a possibility I may get to address the entire district at one of their professional development days. At such opportunities, I neither hide my deepest convictions nor crusade for them.

Mostly, I go to bless, trusting, as Jesus taught us, that “if a man of peace lives there,” the gospel can take root and flourish (Lk.10:5-7).

Of late, I’ve been reading Jonah, chapter 1, side-by-side with Acts, chapters 27 and 28. Both are about a God-worshiper aboard a ship with a pagan crew. Both involve a violent storm, such that the crew must jettison the cargo to keep the boat from capsizing.

But that’s where the similarities end. Jonah is on board because he’s fleeing from God. When confronted by the pagan sailors, he’s boastful about himself, disdainful toward them. It turns out, there’s only one way for those pagans to survive the storm: they have to toss the God-worshiper overboard.

Not so in Acts. There, the apostle Paul is on board precisely because he’s been following God. He’s a prisoner of Rome, but an angelos of heaven. When the pagan sailors panic, Paul is wise, humble, and helpful. He lets them know he cares deeply for them. It turns out, there’s only one way for those pagans to survive the storm: they have to put the God-worshiper in charge.

We’re finding that the more we genuinely care for the people in this storm-wracked community—the less we boast and denounce, the more we bless and serve—the more they let us drive the boat.

These days, by the week, we’re seeing single mothers and their children, First Nations people and their families, RCMP officers and their families, public school teachers and theirs—and many more besides—come through the doors of our church.

All it’s taking is the willingness to break a few roof-tiles.

Thinking about how these ideas could take shape in your church?

Our sister site Christian Bible Studies offers a six-course study to help leaders re-think evangelism.
Clark Cothern on how his church broke the tiles with a high-octane event.
Our Survival Guide Becoming a Missional Church can help you think through the macro-level issues you face.