think before you speak
Had a great lunch with Mark today. I really enjoy his company. Mark is the pastor of Rosemont Baptist Church, the first church we visited when we decided to move on from Calvary. We found Rosemont doing a search for Reformed churches in the area, at which point we were still somewhat conflicted about leaving Calvary, so we e-mailed him for advice. He sent back a prompt, thoughtful treatise detailing his take on the subject, and that solidified our good first impressions. Wanting to learn more about Rosemont I contacted him a few months ago and we had lunch together, and have just struck up a friendship since. He tells me how his oldest son is doing in college and he younger son playing basketball at a local high school, and I ramble on about the travails of young family life. We talk about theology and books and all manner of things. It’s a great time.
Diane and I still haven’t found a church, and my friendship with Mark makes it a little difficult, seeing as how we have visited his church a few times, and might not end up committing to it, which would have the potential to make our get-togethers a little awkward. He’s well aware of our struggles in finding a church home, and I addressed the potential awkwardness today, telling him I appreciated him taking the initiative to want to have lunch again even though he knows we might not commit to his church, and admitting that it might be an “elephant in the room” during subsequent meet-ups. He replied immediately, “That’s not true,” and went on to explain that he and his wife just want us to be where God wants us to be, whether that’s Rosemont or not. It’s a very gracious attitude and one that’s indicative of a high degree of confidence in the Lord to grow his church, if it’s even His intention to grow it at all (sometimes it’s not–and church growth isn’t nearly as related to a church’s health as some assert). Needless to say, I really appreciate his friendship, encouragement and insight.
Interesting.
So what led you to leave Calvary? Can you write about it here?
I can write about it here; I don’t mind. Sorry for the delay in responding, too–it can be hard to find a moment with young kids, as you know. :)
What led us to leave Calvary was a combination of theology and methodology. Calvary is a big church, with around 5-6000 members, and suffers from a lot of problems that inherently plague churches of that size and larger. One of the main issues is that the values and priorities of the institution begin to take precedence over Biblical values and priorities. In effect, there becomes a “Calvary way” to do things, which can be at odds with the Biblical way to do things. Not only that, the church members can become recognizably “Calvary churchgoers” rather than being first recognizable as members of the larger Church.
Calvary has many Sunday school classes as well, at least three or four dozen any given Sunday morning, and these become the main points of contact and fellowship with those who want to do more than just sit in a pew for 45 minutes and leave. That said, in the absence of strong spiritual leadership and teaching from the pulpit, the Sunday school classes fill that need for the attendees, and become effectively “little churches.” Having four dozen mini-churches under one roof when, Biblically-speaking, the bulk of the spiritual direction and leadership should come from the pulpit, was very frustrating. One of the marks of a true church is a place where the Bible is rightly preached and explained, and as much as we liked our Sunday school class, we found ourselves disappointed Sunday after Sunday with the milquetoast content of the sermons. That ties in the theological reservations we had: It’s not that the pastor was preaching anything explicitly (or even implicitly) heretical, but it was always aimed at the lowest common denominator instead of expositing the Word and challenging the congregants to apply their minds to the Scripture.
Other minor issues including the fact that Diane had gone there for the better part of 30 years and it was time for a change, and the lack of substance in Luke’s Sunday school class. We had also tried to be agents of change (always our first instinct) in teaching and encouraging the churchgoers to be more culturally-engaged instead of being so insular, and to apply themselves to knowing why they believe what they believe, but were met with mild to moderate resistance.
So it was time for us to move on. There are still excellent people committed to Calvary and we have many friends who attend, but the Lord was leading us in a different direction.