Great Commission, Great Confusion, or Great Confession?

The Mission of the Holy Christian Church

Lucas V. Woodford

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781610978774
  9781498262620
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630875701
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

There is a great debate going on in the church today. It centers on one question: "What is the mission of the church?" From culturally relevant, emerging congregations to strategic methods of organization and outreach, many claim they have the answer. They say the mission must become "missional." Yet the churches of North America continue to struggle. Uncertainty is growing. "What does it really mean to be 'missional'"? Competing claims abound. "Get the message out!" "Get the message right!" Great confusion has set in, particularly in the postmodern North American church. The Gospel is getting lost. Yet, throughout the ages, the creedal confession of the Holy Christian Church has carried her through uncertainty and struggle. The Apostles' Creed has steadied and stayed the mission of the church for centuries. It centers on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit--the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. This book celebrates the historic mission of the Holy Christian Church, and it invites the North American church to do the same.

Chapter 1

The Great Confession

The Apostles’ Creed

A Difficult Beginning

When I arrived at my second congregation, I encountered a number of significant challenges. Perhaps a more seasoned pastor would have handled them better. Nonetheless, the Lord saw to it he was going to make a pastor out of me. To be sure, I know he is not done yet, but my prayer is that I will never have to be refined as intensely as I was during my first two years serving the saints at Zion.

A few years before my arrival, the congregation had put together a strategic plan with the help of, as I was told, a “very expensive” church consultant. (I am not sure how expensive, but I do know German Lutherans are notorious for being extremely frugal.) It had as its bottom line the directive: “Through wise stewardship . . . build a new Christian Outreach facility that is technology oriented for Worship and Education, to meet needs of current and future generations.”

Part of my role as senior pastor would be to ensure the congregation was outreach-oriented. That outreach was understood, at least initially, to occur primarily through the construction of the new technology-oriented outreach facility, as well as the proposed accompanying differing worship styles. The thought and verbal expression to me was, “If we build it, they will come.”

Upon my arrival, the congregation was all set to buy sixteen acres of land on which to build the new worship facility. I was excited. The congregation was excited. We were all excited, that is, until another piece of land became available. The original sixteen-acre parcel was more centrally located in town but more expensive. However, when a twenty-acre parcel became available a half-mile or so outside of town, at what was thought to be a cheaper price, the congregation became intensely divided. (Did I mention that German Lutherans like to be frugal?)

At my first building committee meeting, I was politely but very directly encouraged to keep my mouth shut about my own opinion of which parcel might be better. I obliged. Thus, I listened as committee members battled it out for a number of hours. Then, a few weeks later, I experienced what would become one of many very heated congregational voters’ assemblies. (To this day, I still have a hard time keeping a normal pulse at voters’ assemblies.) In the end, the congregation elected to go with the cheaper land, though it was not by unanimous agreement. Unrest lingered. Hurt feelings remained. Challenges were imminent.

Lord, Have Mercy

As festering wounds can do, they began to grow. Unresolved strife became painfully apparent. There was a divide between the church and the school that I wasn’t aware of when I took the call to serve the good people of Zion. The land issue only intensified this divide. Sides were taken. Parties were formed. Secret meetings took place. The troops were rallied. Paranoia developed.

Then it was budget time. (Oh, the joys of budget meetings!) Having money to buy land but not enough to keep the school operating in the black created hard feelings. Salaries were frozen. Expenditures had to be preapproved. More feelings were hurt. Mistrust only grew. The words of the Kyrie were often on my lips: “Lord, have mercy!”

I was reading every congregational leadership book I could find. I was putting out fires left and right, only to end up creating a few more on my own. I was working seventy hours or more a week and regularly telling my wife that it would get better the next week. (By the way, if you are a young, married pastor reading this, never go back to work on the same day your second child is born . . . or any child for that matter! Your wife will always remember it. I went back to work on the same day our second, Thaddaeus, was born. My thought was, “If I work harder, things will go better.” They didn’t. Please learn from my mistakes. Your vocations are ordered for your benefit—husband first, father second, and then pastor. Yes, there is always a balancing act to be done. But a wife needs her husband, and children need their father, particularly on those special days.)

In desperation, I encouraged the formation of an internal congregational Priorities Task Force to help study the congregation’s situation and give some direction to the congregation. Numerous open forums and listening posts were held. Congregational surveys were administered. Opinions were recorded. In short, the task force identified three primary ministry desires of the congregation: (1) worship and discipleship, (2) outreach, and (3) Christian education (a parochial day school).

However, through the process the task force also discovered that the congregation had a distinct lack of funds to continue with the congregation’s strategic plan to build a new outreach and worship facility. They were able to pay for the new land outright. However, there was a severe shortage of available funds to build a new facility, let alone try to build and continue to operate a parochial grade school.

The Great Confession

Amid all of the unrest, I continued to preach and teach. At one of the Bible classes I led, we were studying Matthew. Jesus’s exchange with Peter came up, and it began to stick in my mind:

Jesus said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matt 16:15–18)

It set my mind in motion. The more I thought, the more I prayed, the more Scriptures seemed to come clear. Did we really need a fancy new building to be the church or to witness to others about Jesus? Sure, a new building and new technological toys would be great. After all, new buildings and growing congregations are a fun place to be. I certainly remembered from my first pastorate what it was like to be a part of a church that had all the bells and whistles. And, yes, constructing a new building was what the congregation’s strategic plan called for, but bricks and mortar were not what Jesus built his church upon. Peter’s confession of faith gave me a clear reminder of this.

In fact, dwelling on Jesus’s words to Peter made the words of Peter’s first epistle become all the more clear to me:

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” (1 Peter 2:4–6)

It was plain to me. We did not need a new building to carry on the mission of the church. The building of Christ’s kingdom came through his Word. Though I was certain of this fact, I was uncertain of what people would think about the implications that this might have for our congregation. Nonetheless, I shared my sentiments with the task force at one of our final meetings. It was received well. I was reminded that God’s Word is powerful. It is not void. Yet, to be sure, the current financial condition of the congregation, no doubt, had a hand in it being received as warmly as it was.

Subsequently, the members of the task force and I encouraged the congregation to begin developing a new strategic plan that would focus on building relationships and the kingdom of Christ rather than being focused entirely on a new physical building. For the hard reality was that a new building would invariably create a significant and unsustainable financial burden on the congregation.

A New Strategic Plan

Thus, at a little over a year-and-half of serving the saints at Zion, we began to develop a new strategic plan. Again, a professional was consulted. (A congregational connection made this much more affordable and, therefore, much more palatable to the congregation.) More listening posts, open forums, surveys, and workshops were held, so that congregational input could be gathered. The congregation grew weary of these processes.

Nonetheless, from all of the data, a strategic plan was formulated. It was specific, detailed, and methodical. Unfortunately, it languished for two years, gaining no momentum, providing no real theological basis, and offering no real solution or unity.

Evaluation of the plan revealed that the congregation saw it to be too broad, too complicated and wordy, and offered no real tangible direction to unify the congregation. In reality, it was nothing more than a complicated peace treaty that tried to pacify the poles within the congregation. In that sense, perhaps it served its purpose.

As the context of Zion continued to change and my time as senior pastor at the congregation continued to increase, the time came for the congregation’s strategic plan to be intentionally recast and theologically reshaped...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Prologue
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Missional Mandate or Missional Misunderstand?
• Chapter 1: The Great Confession
• Chapter 2: Great Commission or Great Confusion?
• Chapter 3: Postmodern Confusion
• Chapter 4: Church Growth Confusion
• Chapter 5: Emerging Confusion
• Chapter 6: The Great Confession Part One
• Chapter 7: The Great Confession Part Two
• Conclusion: The Great Confession of the Worshipping Church
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1: Congregational Mission, Vision, and Strategy
• Appendix 2: Lectionary Based Sermons and Bible Study Examples of Teaching the Liturgy
• Bibliography