Value-adding a Church

“Value-adding” is a term used by economists and others to refer to how a product or service can be enhanced, added to, or improved so that it can attract a higher price. I want to apply this term to a church.

In one way this is a bit foolish! The value of a church is in Christ and all He brings to a church: salvation and hope, love for one another, the power of Word and Spirit, the unity of the body of Christ, and the growing impact of Kingdom promises being fulfilled. His presence in the church gives it a very high value. We cannot make the church more valuable than Christ Himself!

Yet, the value of a church is also a matter of how well the church lives out these truths practically. How well is Christ seen and experienced in your church? As the various letters to churches in the New Testament make clear, all churches have things that must be worked on if Christ’s glory is to be fully revealed in the church.

I want to focus on one collection of people who bring much value to a church simply by being there. They bring opportunities for the church to be what it is actually supposed to be. How well the church welcomes, accepts, loves and serves these people is one of those things at the heart of glorifying Christ in the life and ministries of every church. I am referring to the difficult, needy, and burdened people.

These people come in all sorts of variations and degrees of severity: the disillusioned, despairing, lost, lonely, hyper-critical know-it-alls, hurting, angry, ignorant, anxious, bewildered, with psychiatric illnesses, sinners of all kinds, addicted, fearful, depressed, socially inept, the indiscrete, bad-mouthers, divisive, stuck, frail, sick, eccentrics, under-dressed or overdressed, cultural minorities within the church, those with disabilities. Often, the ones who leave others feeling uncomfortable, the high-maintenance people. These are “the least”, the vulnerable, the easily overlooked, the too-readily dismissed.

While it is true that everyone has flaws and struggles in these areas, my concern is for those not coping so well, those struggling with inner realities that debilitate them in more than just a minor way, and those that the church finds hard to care for (sometimes because the church is not even aware of their struggles).

These are the people God brings into our churches because He loves them. God brings them into our church so that we might learn to love as God loves. Love of the un-lovable and undeserving is at the heart of agapē.

I often say that the most valuable person in our international church (IC) in Phnom Penh was a paranoid schizophrenic, who was stateless, poor and unemployable, and living in the illusion that he was a refugee. He mumbled, was hard to understand (ESL), behaved strangely, and sometimes did inappropriate things (like asking single women he did not know if they would marry him). But he was harmless, came to the prayer meetings, was willing to serve, and tithed his meagre income from those who helped him. Loving him with warmth and ensuring he was included facilitated the maturation of the church.

The bigger the church, the busier the church, the more mono-cultural the church, the more doctrinaire the church, the more legalistic the church, the greater the risk that these people will be overlooked and invisible. Consequently, the church will have effectively dismissed this gift of God to the church. Sometimes, churches can become too task-oriented, too caught up in their own rhetoric of the self-congratulating kind, too concerned about feel-good spiritual experience, or too inclined towards social cliques.

Amongst other things, the calling of the church is to love the unlovable, with warmth and affection, generously, and wholeheartedly. Yes, it can be hard when those who need us most are simply inept in conversation, largely just keeping quiet or responding with just a few words, and offering little. Sometimes they can be sociable and gregarious thereby effectively hiding the realities within (like many church leaders). All are to be welcomed and accepted at least as much as the easy-to-like, multi-gifted, psychologically healthy, mature Christian who is willing to serve.

When we do so, it brings maturity to the individuals of the church and to the whole church as one body. Such people are a valuable asset for the church as this facilitates learning the lessons of love and unity, justice and compassion, personal Christ-like sacrifice, patience, and a much-improved understanding of human suffering and human vulnerabilities.

Jesus, Paul, and James each advocate for the wholehearted inclusion of these hard-work people.

Jesus likens the Kingdom of God to sharing meals together or a great banquet (Luke 14:1-24). In both, Jesus expresses judgement against those Jewish leaders who elevated themselves and their friends above the most vulnerable and alienated people in the community. Priority should be given to those least likely to receive an invitation, “the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame” (Luke 14:13 & 21).

Jesus is even stronger in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46). Failure to love and care for “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40 & 45) brings extreme condemnation. Here the least are hungry, thirsty, strangers, needing clothes, sick, and imprisoned. Why? Because serving the least is the true measure of what we really think of Christ Himself. Yes, we can debate who exactly is Jesus referring to as “these brothers of mine” but however inclusive or exclusive we understand Jesus here, we best remember The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)! Of course, multiple other passages in Scripture feature caring for the poor and needy. In the practice of love, as soon as we start to fixate on “Is s/he one of us, or one of them?” then we have lost the plot.

Paul’s brilliant exposition of the character and practice of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:1 – 14:40) lays out the same valuing of the least in the practices of church life and ministry. Every member is needed, every member has a part to play (NB: 1 Corinthians 14:26), and no one is merely just there to fill the pews. Here is every-member-ministry, each one giving and receiving. That well-known statement of love neatly comes in the middle of this exposition by Paul. While we might like to feature this passage in weddings, Paul wrote it to ensure we understand that the body-life and every-member-ministry of the church is an outworking of genuine love. True love for one another facilitates the being and doing of the body of Christ, and love must be a priority in how all ministries are practised and received.

We do well to routinely consider how well this might describe our own church. “²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and the parts that we think are less honourable we treat with special honour. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, ²⁴ while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honour to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honoured, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:21-26).

James, like Jesus in Matthew 25, is hard-hitting. When we favour the rich over the poor, the well-dressed over those in rags, then we blaspheme the name of God (James 2:1- 10). Any kind of favouritism in the life and ministry of the church is completely unacceptable. Yet we can so easily do so as we gravitate towards those we like, those who serve the church well, and those with whom we feel most comfortable. People like us: same ethnicity, or nationality, or denomination, or generation, or gender, or sexuality, or theology, or personality. We can favour some over others so easily. The bigger the crowd at church, the easier it is for “the least” to be lost in the crowd. The greater our role in the church, the more likely we will overlook the invisible people as we rush around organizing this or that after church.

Let us get a little more practical. But remember, there is no one-strategy-fits-all solution for all churches and every needy person in the church. Each church is unique and each needs to figure out what is best in their own context.

• Managing culture. Our faithfulness to God is measured by how well we love and serve that collection of people outside the mainstream of church life and culture. Most international churches do have a dominant culture even if being inclusive is worked on. Including the least is facilitated by identifying the dominant culture and intentionally looking out for those who are different. Those in the dominant culture usually underestimate just how much others are not like them.
• Small groups are indispensable. A routine gathering of 10-15 people is essential if the least are to be served well. The larger the church the more this is true. Here the least can most readily be included in mutually supportive friendship and fellowship. And given a role in which they serve others as much as anyone else.
• Train up the whole church. Preach, teach, exhort, and train not just the leaders and pastoral carers but work towards a culture in the church of looking out for others, for those they don’t know. Help them to be able to identify those in need, from the welcomers at the door through to those serving coffee afterwards. Train up the pastoral care team to likewise look out for the invisible ones, the vulnerable, and the struggling. Sensitivity is needed because it is easy to be impatient and rush people. Remember, some simply want to be invisible, to be ignored: social engagement is just too stressful.
• The larger the church the greater the risk. There is a need to understand how your church is at risk that the least will be routinely ignored, invisible. The larger the church, the greater the risk, and the more needed is serious critique: and strategies to ensure no one is left out. In larger churches, it is so much easier for the vulnerable and hurting to be lost in the crowd: especially in large gatherings.
• In the IC. We need to understand the ways in which ICs, with their high turnover and greater diversity of people, must work extra hard to ensure each one is loved well, and welcomed and included warmly.
• Everyone serving. Find ways to enable each one of the least to be a contributor, to have some kind of ministry in the church, a real contribution and not tokenism. For example, there are roles in the church that do not require so much social engagement, and some that do. Perhaps, just ask someone to help you in your role in the church. Being involved in some way can be quite effective in helping others feel they are included. Care is needed here as the larger the church, the more there is to do, and the greater the risk of burning out the workers (a common characteristic of mega-churches).
• Do not implode. Mission works best when the least are loved well in the church community: and the love of one another in the church works best when the church is missionally oriented. Do not sacrifice the mission of the church to the wider society by putting time and energy into caring for those within the church. Nor the reverse. Both the internal and the external engagements are essential and each facilities the effectiveness of the other. Christ calls His church to take both seriously and proactively.
• A key player. Assign someone to focus on identifying the least and linking them up with others who will love them well. I remember one couple in Phnom Penh who after every service would invite several people to join them for a meal in a relatively cheap local restaurant. They would ensure most were people new or on the fringes of the church with a view to helping them feel welcomed and facilitating connections between people. When they left the country, we noticed the difference in the church.
• In the Western world, failure to care for the least by trampling over sensitive people, is a major factor in the negative image of the church in the minds of many.

Many years ago, two people talked with my wife about how they felt in the church. One about a week before the other. Both said that they did not feel like they were part of the church community – and named the other as an example of someone who was!

The glory of God in Christ is revealed and expanded when the church functions in all the ways the Scriptures feature that we are individuals-in-community, together engaged in God’s mission in every nation. Doing church His way may be quite different to the ways of the world, but His ways increase the impact of the Kingdom in the church and into the world. The more the least are served well, the greater is the revelation of the character of our God. May the Spirit and the Word make it so!

Graham Chipps