This is part II in a series written by Dr. Ellis Orozco. See Part I for further reading.
I had an uncle who worked for the city of Pasadena. I only saw him at work once when my Mom was taking us to the McDonald’s that had just opened near our house. We spotted my uncle in his hard hat and orange reflective vest standing on the steamy asphalt road. He was directing traffic around a four-man crew working on a water main. One crew member had a shovel and was digging a hole. The other three stood around watching him.
Fifty years later that image strikes me as a metaphor for the American Christian church: A few people sweating profusely with shovels in hand, while the majority stand around watching.
In part one of this series, I described the perilous decline of the American Christian church. I proposed three theological shifts that could reverse these downward trends.
The Shift from Professional Clergy to Laity
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).
The first theological shift is a move from an emphasis on “professional clergy” to “lay leadership.” This involves an erasure of the hard line that creates a false dichotomy between clergy and laity. We must turn our upside-down ecclesiology, right-side-up.
Long ago American Christians co-opted one particularly pernicious aspect of the American dream: Why do something that I can pay others to do for me? This capitulation by the laity to the clergy is a fairly recent phenomenon. The New Testament record doesn’t support it.
Few of us begin our Christian journey as preachers, teachers, missionaries, or spiritual counselors. However, there is a grave danger of short-circuiting our spiritual growth and larger kingdom impact with the belief that those roles should only be filled by professionally trained clergy.
Paul was clear: His call to preach the gospel and his authority as a leader did not come from any person or man-made office. It came directly from the Lord (Galatians 1:11-12). In the first century, a faint dotted line separated the established church leaders from the laity. It was a line that was constantly being challenged.
When the early Christian church in Jerusalem encountered its first controversy over the distribution of funds, the leadership recognized the need for the laity to be more involved in the decision-making process. They chose seven laypersons to oversee the benevolence ministry of the church. In short order, some of these laypersons were not only “waiting on tables” but also preaching, teaching, and evangelizing (Acts 6:8; 8:4-6, 35).
They didn’t wait for permission to exercise their gifts. They saw a problem and moved to solve it.
When the Apostle Paul experienced Christ in Damascus he immediately took the church by storm. Paul’s preaching upset the status quo so much that they had to sneak him out of town in the middle of the night to escape an angry mob. He went to Arabia and later to Tarsus and Antioch where he would have had plenty of elbow room to share the gospel.
Paul didn’t wait for someone to ordain him, or even train him. He blew by the faint dotted line so quickly that I doubt he ever noticed it.
Our concept of ordination plays a role in perpetuating this false dichotomy between clergy and laity (I will examine ordination in my next article), but the bigger culprits are the ways we practice evangelism and discipleship.
A Shift in Evangelism
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people” (Mark 1:17).
Traditionally, our motivation for evangelism has been “to get people into heaven.” The carrot stick we use to coax people into faith in Christ is, “Do you want to get into heaven?”
Jesus didn’t do that. Jesus never said, “Follow me and I’ll get you into heaven.” I believe Jesus gives us the gift of eternal life in heaven, but that’s not the motivation he used to gather disciples.
Instead, Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17; Matthew 4:19; NAS). The motivation was to roll up your sleeves and join Jesus in changing the world.
Jesus promised his disciples a hard life if they followed him. They wouldn’t have a place to lay their heads (Matthew 8:20). Ultimately, they would have to deny themselves, pick up their crosses, and follow him (Matthew 16:24). For most of Jesus’ first-century disciples this meant deprivation, persecution, and even death.
Jesus preached these hardships plainly and forthrightly to prospective disciples before they decided to follow him.
In contrast, the church pulls a bait-and-switch, coaxing people into the life of the church with the promise of a free ticket to heaven, and then only after they agree, slamming them with all the things they now need to do to serve the church.
It takes most new Christians some time to recover from the whiplash. Some never recover and are destined to languish in a life of nominal church attendance grumbling under their breath that this wasn’t what they signed up for.
There must be a shift in the way we present the true nature of the gospel.
A Shift in Discipleship
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations …” (Matthew 28:19)
In addition, discipleship has effectively been reduced to a series of classroom lectures on how to be a follower of Jesus. When Jesus instructed his followers to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you …” (Matthew 28:20, emphasis mine) he didn’t mean to corral them into a classroom and lecture them on the rules of the game.
Jesus led by example. He taught through osmosis more than didactics. He walked through life with his disciples teaching, modeling, and empowering them to do even greater things than he had done (John 14:12).
There must be a shift in discipleship from the classroom to the market square – a shift from cloistered Bible studies to active modeling, empowering, and releasing every Christian to do the work.
A Re-evaluation of Spiritual Gifts and the Church as a Body
“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12).
The apostle Paul wrote repeatedly about the critical role of the laity. He made it clear that it was the combination of gifts within the body of Christ that empowered the church. Any success the church achieved was attained through a community effort.
Leadership almost always arose organically from within the community and the role of the “overseers” (pastors) and other recognized leaders was to nurture the gifts of each Christian without using their place of leadership to “lord it over” them (Ephesians 4:11-13; Matthew 20:25-28; 1 Peter 5:1-3).
The American Christian church tends to involve the laity in certain aspects of leadership but outsources preaching, spiritual direction, and pastoral care to paid professionals.
In contrast, Paul envisioned churches as egalitarian missionary outposts where every Christian was involved in exercising the gifts of the Spirit, including preaching, teaching, evangelizing, and pastoral care (Ephesians 4:11).
No matter the person’s background – whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female – everyone walked through the baptismal waters on equal ground (Galatians 3:28), exiting as empowered ministers of reconciliation and vocal ambassadors of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20). Every Christian was a member of “one body and one Spirit,” and was “called to one hope … one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).
If the church is to survive the massive paradigm shifts of the twenty-first century she must quickly hand out a lot more shovels.
This insight was written by Dr. Ellis Orozco, the Public Theologian in Residence at Stark College & Seminary. Dr. Orozco served in ministry as a pastor for 30 years and is the founder and CEO of Karooso Ministries.
Visit Dr. Orozco’s Blog to read more.