Internal Needs-Based Churches May Miss God's Unique Missional Calling

[James Nored]

Jesus said that his mission was to seek and save the lost, serve people, and share the good news of the kingdom of God. As he went about this mission, he healed people, fed people, and met many needs.

 

But when you look at how he treated the disciples, other than healing Peter's mother-in-law, it would appear that Jesus focused more on teaching them how to meet other people's needs than their own. In fact, his call was to "lay down their lives, take up their cross, and follow him." This call was to service and self-sacrifice and meeting the needs--of others.

 

In his book, Church Unique, author Will Mancini talks about the problem of having a church that is focused on meeting internal needs and expectations. Note the following:

 

"On the needs-based slippery slope, leaders are constantly trying to meet people's needs and expectations within the church. Whether the needs ring of religious consumerism or are legitimate concerns of life and death, the slippery slope works the same. With the leaders' cruise control set to "react," thoughtful leadership becomes unnecessary because there is always a persistent parade of needs to be answered. The vision of the church is reduced to making people happy. The reality is that such a church is probably missing out on fulfilling its unique calling and role in the community by trying to be all things to all members.Sliding down the needs-based slope is perhaps the most 'spiritual' way of avoiding the hard work of self-discovery."

 

His point is that being an internally focused, needs-based church puts leaders in a reactive mode that does not allow them to effectively discover and implement God's unqiue missional calling for their church in that context. Time and energy alone from dealing with needs and complaints leaves room for little else. I have witnessed this problem many times.

 

What problems have you seen in reactionary, internal needs-based churches? What is the solution?

[Zonda Bodiford]

I think it's important to be missional, for Jesus tells us to go tell the world of God's love and God's word. God commands us to love one another. To be active in the community, and other places far and near is following what Jesus wants us to do. As a church in itself, you're always going to have internal needs, issues, complaints, etc. That's a given any time you deal with a mass of people. But do we ignore these needs in order to take care of needs in another part of the community or another part of the world? I don't think that was Jesus's intention. Perhaps the talents of some members could be utilized internally in dealing with member's issues, needs, complaints, etc., while strengths and talents of other members could be used more in the missional (reaching outward) aspect of the church. Probably prayer regarding this matter would provide a solution suitable to both members' needs and missional needs......... A lot of people attend/join a particular church because it feels right in their heart to do so, and they feel they have somewhat of a common worship fulfillment with the other members. A lot of people feel welcome, needed, and able to identify and further develop their role as a Christian when they can "relate" to a particular church, in good times as well as difficult times. ie when they can serve and/or contribute to that church's growth or when they have a particular need of prayer, or counseling, etc. This should not be overlooked. There are too many other churches they could seek out to have these needs met. Maybe we should take a closer look at what's "doable" and what is out of our reach........????

[James Nored]

Zonda, you have some good thoughts here. Yes, all of us have needs, and of course we want to love one another and lift one another up. Even this, though, points towards a larger purpose of fulfilling God's mission. Jesus said, for instance, that the world would know that we are his disciples by our love for another.

I think of it like an army, sent on a mission. Are there cooks and trainers and the like? Absolutely, and without them, the army would not function very well. But the problem is in so many churches, if the statistics are true (and my experience is, they are), the mission of the church becomes all of the feeding and training function. In fact, as you can see from another post, 90% of ministers believe that the function of the church is to reach the lost, while only 90% of members believe that the church is there to take care of them.

Jesus is our model for life and mission, and he said that he came to seek and save the lost.

As to being a good fit for a church, this is true. That is one of the reasons that I am a big supporter of church planting, as different types of churches can reach different types of people. It is easy, however, for people to engage in "church hopping," or to leave whenever they don't like something or because of the "cooler" church down the street. We have to challenge people to be a part of a church because it is the best place that they can serve, not be served.

I am thankful for all the ways that you have jumped in and served, Zonda. Thank you for sharing these thoughts. You have brought up some great questions.

[James Nored]

ere is a link from Will Mancini, author of Church Unique, called, "Five Keys to Developing Your Own Church Evangelism Strategy."