The PASSION Blog

I was doing some research for an Ethics assignment that addressed the issue of churches and copyright recently. In the process I came across some information on the Australian Copyright Council website that deals specifically with copyright and churches.

I thought I would pass on the link as increasingly churches are using movies, soundtracks and other presentations in their church services which might be subject to copyright.

Just for interest sake copyright covers:

• literary works;
• dramatic works;
• musical works;
• artistic works;
• films (the moving images and soundtracks);
• sound recordings;
• broadcasts (the skill, effort and cost in assembling, preparing and transmitting programmes); and
• published editions (the layout, typesetting and format of published works).

The attached link is to the website page that deals with churches. It has information about copyright, training courses available and a number of free brochures that address various issues.

If you are interested you can click here

A question that I have been reflecting on lately is “When is my church, my church?” By this I mean when can we call the church we go to “my church”. And how often do we have to go to qualify it as our church?

Do we have to go to every service? Is a few times per month enough to call it my church? Is Christmas and Easter enough? Do we have to go to the Sunday service to call it our church? Can we just go to a home group or a craft group to call it my church? Do we have to be a member?

It is funny that over the years I have met people with very different views on the subject. One Pastor told me I wasn’t committed and that I shouldn’t call it “my church” as he hadn’t seen me for three weeks. It didn’t matter that I was on long service leave from work and had been sick! He still questioned my commitment.

Compare this to a friend of mine. We were driving past this old church and he said that is my church. I had never heard him mention that he went to church before. When I asked him about it he said he was baptised there, was married there, he went to the occasional Christmas and Easter service and he knew the Priest.

I just find this subject interesting that we all seem to have different ideas on when a church can be called my church. What do you think? Do you have to go each week or does Christmas, Easter and the ocassional home group count?

This semester I have been doing a unit called Pastoral Care. It has been really good to take this time to reflect on what pastoral care is and also the role a Pastor plays in the church.

In one of our recent lecturers we looked at some statistics from a recent church life survey. Pastors were confidentially asked a number of questions on stress levels, burnout and life as Pastors. The results are very interesting.

• 1 in 4 was experiencing significant burnout and 1 in 2 said they were in borderline burnout
• 1 in 2 said they would burnout before retirement, often in the first 5-12 years of ministry
• 70% said they had lower self esteem than when they became Pastors
• 38% said they felt overwhelmed by the complexity of daily pastoral demands
• 90% said they worked more than 46 hours per week
• many experienced high levels of loneliness and low levels of intimacy in relationships

I find these figures very disappointing and they raise a number of questions for me. Is it time to rethink the Pastor’s role? Do we expect too much from a Pastor? Do we allow them to take on too much work in too many different areas?

One suggestion that a friend had a while back was instead of paying one person say $50,000 per year to be “The Pastor”, why don’t we pay five people $10,000 to undertake the various roles of a Pastor. One could preach and teach, one could do the counselor type role, one could do home visitation etc. In a sense it would be a pastoral team approach that shares the work load.

Another suggestion that fits in with the above approach is bi-vocational Pastors. The Pastor could work part time outside the church three or four days per week and then work for the church a couple of days. This would give them interaction with their local communities and give them time away from the demands of being a full time Pastor. Of course the workload would have to be shared with others.

Now these are only two suggestions, but ones that might need to be considered if we are going to help Pastors stay in the role long term. The figures above suggest that we are going to lose a lot of Pastors over the coming years and I think we need to think outside the box if we are going retain some of them.

Every now and then as Christians we use the term Body of Christ. For those who are not sure what this means I thought I would share briefly what that means. The term Body of Christ is used in three main ways in the Bible.

1. The body of Christ refers to Christ’s actual physical body ie the Body of Christ was placed in the tomb after His death.
2. Body of Christ also is used when taking communion or as it is sometimes known “The Lord’s Supper”. The bread or wafer we use is to remember Christ’s death. It symbolises Christ’s body that hung on the cross.
3. The Apostle Paul uses the phrase body of Christ when talking about the church. When used this way He was talking about all people who called themselves Christians all over the world.

Sometimes as Christians we expect people to be at church every week. We reason that if they are not there each week and they do not go to all the meetings, then they must not really be committed to God.

What I have found though is that some people, including some Christians, really struggle with  a lot of social contact and find it hard to even walk into church a few times per month. Some people require less social contact than others and in many ways prefer to spend more time alone or just with their families.

In this post I will make some comparisons between people who need to spend more time alone and those who are naturally more social. I am doing this so we can understand that some people are just wired differently and that they need to be given space to be themselves.

• At the end of a hard week at work a loner might long for the solitude of their home after spending so much time with people. Someone more social might be ringing friends to arrange a group movie night, a party or to go to a club or pub.
• If a loner plays a sport they might chose something like cycling, swimming or running where they can do it alone. A social person might chose a team sport as they enjoy the team aspects and the social contact.
• If a loner does some studies they might chose to do it externally where they can really focus on the learning and reflecting on the content. A more social person do it on campus as they enjoy the relationships and discussing things with others as they learn.
• If a loner is going through a hard time or a busy situation they tend to withdraw for a while. A more social person might ring some friends and talk about things. Unlike the loner, they desire to be around people.
• If there is an extra church meeting a loner might prefer a small group or prayer meeting. A social person might want to hold a quiz night or pot luck church dinner.
• After church a loner might like to catch up with one or two people or read the church newsletter in their seat. A more social person will be off catching up with everyone and arranging outings.

I hope you can see what I am saying here. We are all wired differently and some people need more social contact than others. Some get energised from being around people all the time, while others get very tired and drained. Some delight at the chance of going to church and social events all the time, while others need to really mentally prepare themselves to even go to church once a month!

If we don’t see someone at church for a while it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are backsliding, less committed or falling away, they might just need a rest from all the social contact that most of us find comes easily or naturally to us.

Rodney Olsen had an interesting post today. He received an email from a reader of his blog that spoke about how Christians often get caught up in church activities and neglect their families. I found it an interesting subject so I felt I had to respond on Rodney’s blog. Here’s my 2 cents worth on the subject…

Yes I think at times we spend way too much time on church things. A few years ago I noted that I was doing something each night for church. Some of it was for God and some of it was for me or some for the church only. I had to really step back and pray and ask God what He wanted me to do, not what I thought I should do, or what people expected of me. Once I identified a few key things I have stuck with them and left all the other stuff behind. I did have to explain it to a few people in a way they understood. At first they didn’t, but in time they did. I feel I now have a much more balanced family, work and church life.

In the end I had to prioritise my time. My faith first (my personal relationship with God), then family, then work, then church. Some people say we shouldn’t do this or that we can’t really separate these things as they overlap. But I have found you can. Church and church stuff is vitally important, but for me it has to come down the list. A lot of the times we keep pushing on with church things, especially during the week nights, when we should take some time out to spend time with family and friends.

I firmly believe that after our personal relationship with God, our family is our biggest responsibility. Neglecting them to be busy doing church things is not what I think God intends or expects from us.

If you would like to make a comment on Rodney’s blog, you can do so here

One thing I have noticed since moving to the WA wheatbelt is the number of committed Christians I have met that don’t attend church regularly.

Up until the last few years I probably would have said that it was not possible to be a committed Christian and not go to church in some form (traditional or house church). However more recently I have met some very strong Christians who are on fire for God and are doing great things amongst their family, friends and neighbours who don’t go to church. In many ways they are like missionaries in their sphere of influence and they end up being like Pastors to without a church.

From the outside you don’t actually see the things they are doing and how much they are reaching out to people and praying for them. You could actually fall into the trap of being judgmental and questioning their commitment. However, it is not until you go to their homes and spend some time with them that you actually see the impact they are making. On a few occasions I have come away very inspired.

In major cities like Perth there are hundreds of churches. If you don’t “fit” into your local church, you can usually find another one within a few kilometres. However in some country towns there are only one or two churches, if you don’t find your place, you might have to drive 50-100 kilometres. That is something most people can’t afford to do these days with petrol prices.

So is it possible to be a committed Christian without attending church? From what I have seen since living in the country, yes it is.

One of the things I feel I have been drawn to over the last 12-18 months is the idea of a house church. House churches are small congregations of people who meet each week in a house rather than a church building. Many of the same things that happen in a traditional church happen in a house church, but it is just in a smaller space with less people. Typically you might find it is about 5-20 people that meet and share lives of faith together.

So why am I drawn to the idea of house churches? I guess I like the idea of being a part of a small group of people who share lives of faith together. I like the idea of being part of a large church with its resources, but I find the closeness and intimacy of relationship happens better in a small group. For me personally I have always enjoyed the small home group meeting during the week more than the hustle and bustle of Sunday mornings. I have found most of my breakthroughs have come during this smaller group.

The other thing is that a house church seems like a natural progression for us as a family. We are a home school family and we spend lots of time together in our small “clan”. We are not naturally drawn to big meetings with lots of people. Getting together with a couple of other families (or singles) each week and spending some time in fellowship, prayer, worship and learning together from the Bible sounds appealing.

If you are interested in finding out more about house churches, two of the resources that have really helped me learn about house churches are “Starting a House Church” by Kreider and McClung (link is to their website about the book) and “The church in the house - a return to simplicity” by Robert Fitts (links to the book itself in html).

The Bible says in Hebrews 10:25 “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching“. This verse tells us that as Christians it is important to meet with other Christians to learn and grow together. Meeting together also allows us to encourage each other in our faith and to look forward for Jesus’ return.

Traditionally this verse has been used to encourage Christians to attend a “traditional” church on Sundays. However I think it goes deeper than this. Yes church on Sundays is important, but we can go on a Sunday and have limited contact with others. We can walk in and walk out without making any real connections.

I think the key is this passage is meeting together and building each other up. This may be at a church on Sunday, but it might also be in a house church, a home Bible study group, it might be having coffee with a friend, meeting at the local park with some friends and their kids, going to a craft group or even playing golf. It doesn’t have to be in a big group as long a we connect in a real way and encourage each other in Christ.

As I write the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:20 spring to mind. “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

Colossians 2:6-7 says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness”.

If we need to “continue to be rooted and built up in Him”, how do we do this? I believe there are three main ways.

1. Read the Bible - I believe the Bible is God’s handbook for life and its power to transform our lives. Reading the Bible helps us to learn more about Jesus and His teachings. When we know about Jesus’ teachings and we try to follow them we are able to grow in our faith.

2. Ongoing Prayer - Prayer helps us to get in tune with God, but it strengthens us and makes a difference in our everyday situations. If you are not used to praying simply talk to God like you would with your closest friend. The key to prayer is to open the lines of communication with God and go from there.

3. Fellowship - Meeting with other people who share your faith is a key to going deeper in Christ. Meeting with others helps us to learn from each other and to support each other along life’s journey.