“It’s not a bad thing to take a break from Sunday Morning meetings. It’s important that people feel wide-open spaces, room for their faith to breathe. And there’s no deadline for going back to anything (i.e.; the organised church).”
“Realize that not everything about the organised church is wrong, but appreciate that everything is back on the table for discussion.”
“Organised religion is putting these definitions on what church is, but the Bible never said, ‘You have to go somewhere every Sunday.’ Instead, church was meant to be a fluid, interactive, ongoing lifestyle.”
“Find a spiritually mature person (of the same sex) and let them pastor you. The corporate and men’s group sub cultures already model this mentoring paradigm. Why can’t the body of Christ? (Jesus did!)”
Jaded believers have been boxed in, and they’re searching for the freedom God intended all along. The institution has squelched a lot of great things God has built into his people.”
“It’s okay to ask risky questions; it’s okay to disagree with a pastor sometimes. We have to give people the ability to think, ‘maybe what I think is right for a change, and he pastor is wrong.’”
“The institution makes people afraid of possibly stepping into heresy, without the covering of a church or a pastor, but being in an institutional church can actually make you more susceptible to heresy because your taking what other people - or one man / women – says is the truth, hook, line, and sinker.”
“Parents, instead of abdicating the spiritual teaching of their children to Sunday school, may find themselves stepping up to the plate.”
Taken from Jaded by AJ Kiesling (Baker Books, U.S.A, 2004) pg 100
For years I’ve tried to put my finger on it – the reasons why I left the professional pastorate. And you know, more than anything, I think it’s this: I left my first love.
The reality is that much of what we call ministry today is really administration. It’s about adding things – programmes, strategies, and rules. In my 22 years as a pastor, I often administered more than I ministered, if that makes sense. I’ve come to see that I was an add-minister more than a minister…
Nevertheless, it seems I’m a pastor again. My friend mat and his wife, Krista, are pastors as well. And so are my wife and my five year old son, Alden. Yup, we’re all pastors at church.
No really. That’s what it’s called: Church. Not first Presbyterian. Not Solomon’s porch or Scum of the earth or some other cool post-modern name. It’s just called church – and it meets, well, when eve we want it to meet…
We’re breaking pretty much every conventional church planting rule, I know. Why? Because we want to be of service, not just a service… But I would be lying if I said it was easy to let go of the programme: it’s not…
I’ve worried about my children. What will happen to them without the safety of an administered Sunday school programme? And yet, time and time again, they’re wowing me with their grasp of the gospel and their ability to understand the heart and soul of Jesus. Will they miss flannel graphs? Maybe. Only time will tell. I guess.” (Spencer Burke, founder of www.theooze.com
