Do You Have A Hitchhikers Thumb?
As a pastor one thing you have to face is people coming in and out of your church. Some of my greatest sorrows are when people that you love and care about leave your church. Now, I know that God can and does call people to serve somewhere else. Often times people leave one church to go and thrive somewhere else, but sometimes the leaving is followed by a prolonged period of looking and looking and then never serving on the same level they did when they at their former church. I am reminded of a convicting section of Kent Hughes’ book, Disciplines of a Godly Man where he deals with what he calls “ecclesiastical hitchhikers.”
He writes: Church attendance is infected with a malaise of conditional loyalty which has produced an army of ecclesiastical hitchhikers. The hitchhiker’s thumb says, “You buy the car, pay for repairs and upkeep and insurance, fill the car with gas — and I’ll ride with you. But if you have an accident, you are on your own! And I’ll probably sue.” So it is with the credo of so many of today’s church at tenders: “You go to the meetings and serve on the boards and committees, you grapple with the issues and do the work of the church and pay the bills —and I’ll come along for the ride. But if things do not suit me, I’ll criticize and complain and probably bail out — my thumb is always out for a better ride.”
This putative loyalty is fueled by a consumer ethos — a “McChristian” mentality — which picks and chooses here and there to fill one’s ecclesiastical shopping list. There are hitchhikers who attend one church for the preaching, send their children to a second church for its dynamic youth program, and go to a third church’s small group.
So have you ever been a “church hitchhiker”? Is it right to leave a church because you no longer enjoy it? Why is that people always assume their spiritual problem stems from the church? Could it be the problem they have is between them and God and their pursuits of another church is only masking it? If anything being a pastor has taught me is that churches are not perfect, they are full of sinners who need each other to become the people God wants them to be. Read your New Testament the churches Paul all wrote to had problems, none were prefect, but Jesus died for the church. But God chose the church as His vessel to the world. So, if you are looking for a prefect church, then know this much if you find it then the moment you walk in the doors you will be the one to mess it up.
Pastor Kyle did a great job preaching Sunday and is an amazing guy! Have a great week and I am getting back to writing after my week off.
Pastor Phillip
2 comments :
Excellent post Phillip. As one who is current hitch-hiking, I will tell you that people leave for many reasons. Is it always God directing it?? Not at all. I can only speak from my own experience and say that I beleive that God led me each time I left anything (be it church, whatever). One of the greatest frustration I have had as a "staff" member is being called by God to do something that I stringly beleived needed doing, but realizing after a while that I could only do so much. I always sais, that God would help me leave when I had done what he told me to do. One final thought: it is way too easy for pastors and staff members to blame Satan, selfishness, etc. when people leave a church. While that is sometimes the cause, we need to always believe the best about others. In business or anything else, we need to look at ourselves to see if what our critics say is true. Too long of a response but one that will hopefully benefit someone. Till next time, I'll keep hitching.
Dang. My spelling was terrible. I should have spell checked:-)
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