The Trick to Success (or how to choose a church)
My ordination in August of 2003
It could be that I had gone most of my life knowing what I didn’t want in a church, including my college years, but for for a few reasons, I got it right the third time out.
By the time college came and went, I moved to Atlanta to begin my life and to try to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of it. I started as a teacher. At this point in time, this was not for me. After wrestling with God for a while and sharing with Him why I didn’t want to serve Him anymore (I’m glad He won), I headed to Massachusetts to help some friends of mine on their “church journey.”
This church mirrored the one I grew up in and was used to – an independant, fundamental, Bible-believing (as if the rest of the world was not), pre-millennial, King James only church. I could stomach it for all of 11 months, until my gut told me to get the heck out of Dodge, and to me, this also included new England.
At the time, I decided some things. First, the next place I served God would be a place where I could serve Him the way I felt called to serve Him. Specifically in the area of music, I would be able to develop a band that could lead people into musical worship. Not that this was the only way to worship, but it was a way God had gifted me to express that worship that found itself in my heart. Then, the next place I followed God to would be a place that reached people in my generation and would prepare itself to change to reach people in the next generation that arose after me. (That definitely is one of the worst sentences [gramatically] I have ever written, that’s why I kept it – for your enjoyment)
So then I decided to move north to Holden, Massachusetts, and specifically Wachusett Valley Baptist Church. “Oh Lord, not another Baptist church,” I thought to myself, “I’ll never be able to drink alcohol.”
The reason I came to this place, complete with about 20 members (3 of which are here now), is because I felt that the vision of the pastor linked up to my own vision for serving God, and my gifts could be used to further His kingdom. Really it was about trust and respect. I trusted that the pastor believed that God wanted to do a great work in this generation of believers just like He did a great work in the centuries and millenia before me. And because of that trust, I respected His position of authority- not blindly, but understood that he had the right to make the decisions for our church.
Oh yeah, and I liked him. This always helps.
Eventually he left. Another man came in, and by this time I had been here for a few years, and could have made things difficult for the church by “becoming the authority.” Instead, I humbled myself (this was not easy – I’m a pretty amazing guy) and placed myself under his authority too. If his vision for the church would have been drastically different, I would have stepped down quietly, and found another church (probably outside of the cold tundra) that shared my vision.
But what I found was that the more I respected the pastor, and the more I humbled myself to learn from him (he was only 2 years older than me), the more our visions collided, and I began to find God growing me in ways I could have never imagined. Eventually, he mentored me into a position that could fill his position because this fulfilled the gifts God gave me.
I laugh now when people say, “Wow, you must love it here”, because it is not my love for new England or Massachusetts that keeps me here. If this were the case, I would have left a long time ago. No, what keeps me here is that this is where God’s vision for my life has brought me.
Because I a) sought God’s vision for my life and a church that linked up to that vision and b) humbled myself before God and the authority He placed in my life, I believe I have been successful during my time here in Holden.
As the pastor of Fellowship Church now, when someone comes into our church community from a churched background, this is what I’m looking for. I don’t have the attitude of anyone who wants to come can come. To me, church is more important than that. There are plenty of other churches someone can go to in New England if they want to find a church community. But if you love church, and are looking for a church in this area (whether you live here already or not), before you “check out” Fellowship Church, please make sure you attempt to activate letters a) and b) above, because if you don’t, eventually you will get mad at something this pastor has done, and then…
you’ll blame it on the church.
p.s. maybe we can start a conversation about what it means to be churched or unchurched? What do you think it means?
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Hey Marty,
Just wanted to say that it looks like you are doing a great job at the church. I always compared churches to that one and found something missing. I always felt at home at (Wachuset) and always admired you for all the work you did there and for sticking with it. If we ever are in the area we would love to check it out!
Interesting story, and yes, that sentence is horrific.
I don’t know what it means to be churched or unchurched, I suppose those terms may refer to one’s upbringing…if so, I fall into the “unchurched” category. I feel unchurched. For example, I still don’t know all of the church protocols (can you just walk in if your late, or do you have to wait for some kind of pause, like after the Pastor makes a point. Can you walk in during prayer, or during the middle of worship, or must you wait?) I think “churched people” might know the answers to these questions.
If I apply A and B to my life, I don’t think I’m at the right church, but I live in the country and there aren’t many choices. My husband and I tend to get fed by pastors we respect throughout the week via listening to sermons on our ipods during our long commutes – this can often amount to 5-10 hrs of sermons per week. The point I’m making here is that the 40 minutes of what can sometimes be whacked sermon on Sunday is made up for during the week. Same with worship. On most Sundays we withstand worship and try to have the attitude that it’s not about us, it’s about Him. But I’m not big enough, or I guess Godly enough to fully buy into that cause many times I get consumed with why our worship sounds so slow and sad, shouldn’t worship be happy? But I digress. What keeps us coming back to this church is the body. The people are rock solid. The pastors are rock solid believers as well.
So while I think I understand your points A & B, I don’t know if it’s all that easy to apply them in every situation.
[...] a chance to fail. Once again, if I had some boundaries in which to work from, and I understood the vision of the church, I could make decisions that many pastors would not have allowed me to make, and sometimes I failed [...]