Bridging the Gap - A Great Divide

We need to bridge the gap between the pulpit and the pew. I know we do not have pulpits or pews in most churches, but it sounds better than bridging the gap between the bistro table and the cushioned interlocking chair. I am willing to bet, most pastors want to motivate their congregation to action and many Christians know there is more to their spirituality than the Sunday service. When did this great divide occur?

Continental drift is as real in Christianity as it is in geology. Church history gives some indication when the slow gradual shift happened from the church we see in Acts to the reality in how our church acts. The church history recorded by Luke in the book of Acts was not a flash in the pan event, but it recorded highlights over about three decades.

A product of the first church was a man named Ignatius (AD 35-107) of Antioch, Syria (modern day Turkey). He thought there should be only one pastor of each church. He wanted to centralize the church under one leader. Ignatius seemed to lean toward extreme oversight with this quote, “It is not lawful either to baptize or to celebrate a love feast without the bishop, but whatever he approves of, that is also pleasing to God” (Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 8). Then Evaristus, the Bishop of Rome AD 99-107, divided Rome into parishes with a supervising priest. Fabion about 100 years later divided the cities and districts led by a deacon. By the fourth century a centralized congregational framework was accepted to unify the church under one leadership. The reformation helped decentralize teaching to the individual, but leadership structure remained. A priestly class developed and then a laity class of Christians. The professionals giving a service to the consumer who attended. The divide from the first to the fourth century came from leadership structure to manage the church rather than enable the church (Christian disciples) to carry out their mission. These structures and behaviors shaped minds away from the biblical model.

The current reality in most churches is there are a few people held responsible for “doing ministry.” The ripple effects from the great ministry divide are felt today as Christians do not see themselves as disciples and they drift further from their purpose. National Geographic gives a good synopsis of “continental drift” now the theory is known by the science of tectonics.[1] The theory of continental drift was modified because it “lacked a mechanism for how it works – why did the continents drift and what patterns did they follow?”[2] Just like centennial drift, we need to see what is happening.

Most people inside and outside the church recognize there is a problem. People outside the church do not want to have anything to do with “organized religion.” People who tell me this usually cite their experience or a general understanding of abuses of power that lead people astray. On the other hand, people inside the church often feel like they are not growing enough. I have heard people say things like “I wasn’t being fed,” “I didn’t get anything for worship,” or “they didn’t have enough for my kids.” Many people can recognize a problem, but we need to find a solution. Part of that is what we are trying to do to identify the mechanism causing the divide.

The Apostle Paul wrote to a group a Christians in Ephesus, a city located in modern-day Turkey, and he noticed the same issue of the church getting out of order. In the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to this church he noticed a drift and tells them, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3, NIV). He recognizes the divide and the current reality they are “infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14, NIV). As any good leader, Paul leads with vision for what they should be and does not leave them to figure it out themselves. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:15-16, NIV).

Paul noticed the problem at Ephesus, and maybe your church, is people expected something from the pastor he cannot give. God made His church a body that is meant to work in concert with each other and not co-dependency. God does not just show us the problem, but He gives us the solution.

“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11-13, NIV).

The healthy church is operating effectively when it is organized according to God. When people say they do not want organized religion, they are really saying they do not want the disorganized religion they see. We can start reorganizing and lead with the vision to move in the journey of discipleship!

[1] Caryl Sue, Continental Drift, (National Georgraphic, 2015), https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/continental-drift/

[2] Ibid.