What this minister says is so true. As I've said so many times before in my
articles over the years -- see "Where Are The First Century Churches?",
Churchianity Or Christianity: Which Do You Practice?", "Are You Just A Baby
Huey?", "Are You A Burning Ember For The Lord?",
"MP3's, Commercialized
Christianity And Christian Hypocrisy", "Musical Ministries And Wordy
Preachers" and others -- many American churches have for the most part
become spiritually dead. Many of them have become circus sideshows where
congregants just want the newest, latest, greatest thing. These worldly
Christians just want entertainment and the feel-good spirit. Forget about
teaching about repentance and the consequences of sin. Forget about truly
elevating the Central Message of our faith which is Salvation through the
Sacrifice of Jesus Christ alone. Forget about evangelism.

"Just give us pot lucks, bake sales, more music, fancy out-of-town speakers,
and more meaningless, insipid sermons which don't stir us to real Christian
action, and we'll keep giving you our money. Just do all you can to keep us
spiritually asleep, and we'll let you keep your job! Don't you dare say or
doing anything that might make us feel the least bit uncomfortable!"

As the Lord said to the Church at Sardis in the Book of Revelation:

". . . I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art
dead."
Revelation 3:1b, KJV

It's really sad. I hope to God that I never become like that! In the words
of the Apostle Paul:

". . . woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!"
1 Corinthians 9:16b, KJV

And by that, I mean the real, full Gospel!


Congregations Gone Wild

By G. JEFFREY MacDONALD - NYT

August 7, 2010


Swampscott, Mass.

THE American clergy is suffering from burnout, several new studies show. And
part of the problem, as researchers have observed, is that pastors work too
much. Many of them need vacations, it's true. But there's a more fundamental
problem that no amount of rest and relaxation can help solve: congregational
pressure to forsake one's highest calling.

The pastoral vocation is to help people grow spiritually, resist their
lowest impulses and adopt higher, more compassionate ways. But churchgoers
increasingly want pastors to soothe and entertain them. It's apparent in the
theater-style seating and giant projection screens in churches and in
mission trips that involve more sightseeing than listening to the local
people.

As a result, pastors are constantly forced to choose, as they work through
congregants' daily wish lists in their e-mail and voice mail, between paths
of personal integrity and those that portend greater job security. As
religion becomes a consumer experience, the clergy become more unhappy and
unhealthy.

The trend toward consumer-driven religion has been gaining momentum for half
a century. Consider that in 1955 only 15 percent of Americans said they no
longer adhered to the faith of their childhood, according to a Gallup poll.
By 2008, 44 percent had switched their religious affiliation at least once,
or dropped it altogether, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found.
Americans now sample, dabble and move on when a religious leader fails to
satisfy for any reason.

In this transformation, clergy have seen their job descriptions rewritten.
They're no longer expected to offer moral counsel in pastoral care sessions
or to deliver sermons that make the comfortable uneasy. Church leaders who
continue such ministerial traditions pay dearly. A few years ago, thousands
of parishioners quit Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., and Community
Church of Joy in Glendale, Ariz., when their respective preachers refused to
bless the congregations' preferred political agendas and consumerist
lifestyles.

I have faced similar pressures myself. In the early 2000s, the advisory
committee of my small congregation in Massachusetts told me to keep my
sermons to 10 minutes, tell funny stories and leave people feeling great
about themselves. The unspoken message in such instructions is clear: give
us the comforting, amusing fare we want or we'll get our spiritual
leadership from someone else.

Congregations that make such demands seem not to realize that most clergy
don't sign up to be soothsayers or entertainers. Pastors believe they're
called to shape lives for the better, and that involves helping people learn
to do what's right in life, even when what's right is also difficult. When
they're being true to their calling, pastors urge Christians to do the hard
work of reconciliation with one another before receiving communion. They
lead people to share in the suffering of others, including people they would
rather ignore, by experiencing tough circumstances -- say, in a shelter, a
prison or a nursing home -- and seeking relief together with those in need.
At their courageous best, clergy lead where people aren't asking to go,
because that's how the range of issues that concern them expands, and how a
holy community gets formed.

Ministry is a profession in which the greatest rewards include
meaningfulness and integrity. When those fade under pressure from
churchgoers who don't want to be challenged or edified, pastors become
candidates for stress and depression.

Clergy need parishioners who understand that the church exists, as it always
has, to save souls by elevating people's values and desires. They need
churchgoers to ask for personal challenges, in areas like daily devotions
and outreach ministries.

When such an ethic takes root, as it has in generations past, then pastors
will cease to feel like the spiritual equivalents of concierges. They'll
again know joy in ministering among people who share their sense of purpose.
They might even be on fire again for their calling, rather than on a path to
premature burnout.

G. Jeffrey MacDonald, a minister in the United Church of Christ, is the
author of "Thieves in the Temple: The Christian Church and the Selling of
the American Soul."



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