Governing the Body

I'm going to endeavor to keep this post shorter than some of my other posts, but we will see. I tend towards clarity over brevity, but in this case I believe that both can be accomplished.

Over the past few years, and this year especially, I've seen a change in our meetings. They have become more politically charged than I've ever seen before. Who should be in charge, how should we do things, where should people sit, what meetings to attend, the list goes on and on, and quite frankly sickens me. I hear statements like "did you hear what happened in that meeting" more and more frequently and it disturbs me. When did we forget about Jesus in our meetings, and when did worshiping Him take second billing behind body operation? We don't yet totally ignore the moving of the Spirit when we assemble together, but I wonder how long it will be before this happens in one of our meetings.

All the bickering and posturing that goes back and forth is hardly different from a session in one of the houses of Congress. The threshing floor that we all hold so dear has been replaced by the thrashing floor, and clandestine decisions are made in back room meetings. Later, when a minister questions one of these decisions, there is another squabble about who is in charge, and who the greater ministers in our group really are. Jesus had something to say about this, but we've forgotten it (Matt 23:11).

I'm starting to hear terms like "special ministers meetings" or "closed session meetings" in common conversation and it leads me to think that these meetings are only about dealing with a specific issue or so that only a few people who we want involved are. Even in general meetings and at the campground taking care of issues has become much more important, and I wonder just how much room we are going to leave for the edifying of the saints and for simply worshiping Jesus. I ask myself, are we holding church meetings or business conferences?

As a group, I see ministers as less likely to participate in a "down front" service unless it is to bear the burden of praying for someone. I see more ministers at meetings sitting around their chairs while the laity is pressing in, bringing down the Spirit and I ask myself why this is so? Shouldn't our spiritual leaders be on the forefront when we're praising God and getting blessed by Him? Still, I wonder to myself why the seats that most often remain occupied at a meeting when the Spirit is falling are on the platform.

I've come to the conclusion that it is because of the burden that these men bear. There is a burden for each gift, something I plan on writing about later, and what I'm seeing is that many of these men have taken on too much of this burden themselves and that there is too much for these men to do and still pastor their churches effectively. There used to be a time when there were four to six meetings a year, but now there are so many more than that. You cannot go four weeks without there being a meeting that needs to be attended, and because they are so prevalent, they have ceased to be as special for those who attend so many of them, and those often attenders also happen to be the ministry that I am talking about. Even if a meeting is missed, the DVD's of the meeting are available so we can keep up to date and informed about what happened. Our meetings seem to me to have become little more than a repetitive task for our ministry, and this is not something that should be allowed to continue.

So I have a proposal, one that I think would take the pressure off of these men, at least for a while, and help them regain their focus. I think it would alleviate some of the political infighting and stress that has become so prevalent, and restore a joy when it comes to attending these meetings instead of it being the chore that it so obviously is. I suggest a six month hiatus in our meeting schedule starting as soon as is possible.

Some are probably thinking, we can't possibly do this, everything would fall apart in the body, but this is just not the case. What we need is a vacation from meetings. Taking six months off from our busy meeting schedule with a determination to just lay down our issues as they are and pick them right back up later would be a blessing in our group. The time would allow us to take some of the heat out of our arguments and allow tempers to subside. A break could remind us of the good times we've had in our meetings, and strengthen our resolve to not let the current situation reoccur.

Now I know that this post will be thoroughly ignored by those who have any chance of making this happen, and that even if there were a six month break in our meeting schedule, some enterprising church would only see this as an opportunity to have a meeting, but the fact remains that if we don't step back and remind ourselves about what meetings are for and why it is we have them, we will lose what makes meetings special, and eventually meetings won't be any good to anymore other for the entertainment value they can provide while seeing who is mad at whom.