Bigger Than Baptist
It’s noon on a cool Saturday in Pensacola. A typical Saturday: after coffee, prayer (note the order), and reading, I drove to the gym for a workout, and as usual, returned home to cook my wife breakfast.
I’ve always spoiled Sherri, but now that she’s the one making money, I dote on her more than ever. Our daughter, Mary, reminds me that Mom is now the breadwinner and I, according to Mary, am the breadloser. The times they are a-changin’.
I never expected to be retired at 64. And frankly, I don’t really consider myself retired. I may not be a pastor of a local church, but I’m still a pastor. I’m reading and writing more than ever before. I record my weekly podcasts. I counsel and pray with people. I’m just not paid to do these things.
But that’s the point, and that’s what I’d like to reflect on briefly in this post.
When I began Church on the Edge, I wanted to be able to move beyond the boundaries of the institutionalized church. Webster defines institutionalized as “created and controlled by an established organization.” A secondary definition reads “established as a common and accepted part of a system or culture.”
The thing about institutions is they are man-made, but over time, they take on a life of their own. When, or I should say as, because it is a gradual, almost unnoticed thing, but as this happens, the institution no longer serves its people. Instead, the people serve the institution. And the priority above all others is maintaining the life and growth of the institution.
If you have been reading my rock ’n roll devotionals, you know, I hear a lot of deep, spiritual truths in lyrics that are often hard to understand and easily dismissed. The rock band Velvet Revolver had a song on their first album entitled “Big Machine.” Part of the lyrics describe how we are all slaves to a big machine, tied up to a big machine. Then comes the kicker, as Scott Weiland sings, “I guess I chose to be.”
Somewhere along the way, I chose not to be shackled to religious institutions. No, that doesn’t mean I believe we should do away with them. What it does mean is I believe the institution should serve our Lord and His people, not the other way around.
An example of this is how I handled membership at Seoul International Baptist Church. And I might add, how I handled people serving in positions of leadership. Becoming a Baptist was not the acid test for membership or service in our church. A desire to serve and glorify Christ Jesus as Lord was.
Bigger than Baptist. That’s how I described our church and its members. But when I shared this with a group of Baptist pastors at a conference in our Asia-Pacific Baptist Convention, you would have thought I was teaching heresy. It went over like a led balloon.
I’ll never forget one pastor of a large, prominent Baptist church in Asia, sharing about a man who attended his church regularly but was not Baptist. This guy wasn’t interested in becoming Baptist, but he was interested in serving in the church. “Not until you join our church and let me Baptize you,” is what this pastor told him.
The church of the Living God is not and never will be an institution. Like our Lord, it is a living thing. It is, in fact, His body knitted together with various people and gifts that point to the wonderful unity in diversity that only God’s kingdom can bring through Jesus.
“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier . . . Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household . . . being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:14, 19, 22.)
In Christ,
Dan
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