The Church Now And Then: Any Commonalities? Part 1

(Samuel Tengey, PhD)

Email: samuel@strategicresourcers.co.uk; URL: www.strategicresourcers.com

Introduction

In this article, I diagnose the position of contemporary church, identifying the major challenges and their causes, and proposing a solution, which I believe, works effectively. I, together with others have tested many such solutions, which have proved very useful in various ways. My focus on the problems of the church should not be used as a resource for people who are tenaciously opposed and resistant to the church to strengthen their position. It should be noted that there are several instances where churches have played tremendous roles in addressing varying types and degrees of needs both within and outside the church environment. As a Christian, a preacher, Bible teacher and church leadership development consultant, I have complete commitment to seeing the church grow, mature and occupy its responsible position in the word’s scheme of affairs. What I do hope to achieve by this article is to point to areas that are crying for attention for improvement.

The issues I raise in this article reflect questions, issues and concerns people, including committed born again Christians, have but which, many do not, unfortunately, articulate. With little or no means of expressing these issues, many Christians, overwhelmed, distressed and disillusioned, have quietly walked out of church, tending to become the strongest, most outspoken advocates of ‘not going to church’. The article is far from being an attack on the church; on the contrary it seeks to chart a path-though admittedly rough and rocky-through which the church can return to its glory bestowed on it by Jesus as the ‘the house of the living God, the ground and pillar of truth’ (1 Tim 3: 15). I invite you then to come along with me on this objective exploration into the inner court-the political and ideological terrains of the church. But I also enjoin you to seriously engage in the act of prospecting for the discovery of the best or some of the best ways of addressing these sets of challenges.

Background

There is a vast difference between the church today and the strong, united, sinner-focused church Jesus left behind two millenniums ago. The strength and authority of this first century church essentially reflected the tenacity, discipline and consecration of its leaders whose uncompromising character reinforced and consolidated their authority and image before the world. Indeed so tremendous was the impact of the church in this era that its leaders came to be referred to as ‘those who have turned the world upside down’. Strong, faithful leaders, through effective discipleship (2 Tim 2: 2) became the conduit through which the early church influenced lives and communities.

Sadly, the tenacity, unity and enthusiasm that propelled the early church have suffered a serious decay in our day, threatening the robustness, identity and the very existence of the church in the face of the world especially in the UK and across Europe. Today, with the exception of a few noble cases, the church is left divided, weak, with considerable loss of sense of direction and focus, and can, with few exceptions, be described as at best a caricature, and at worst a distortion of what Jesus has left behind. While a number of factors could be blamed for this weakness, I reckon the leadership factor stands tall among the list. Like Prof Adei (Professor of Leadership and former Rector of GIMPA, Ghana), I am sufficiently persuaded that leadership is cause, and everything else is effect, hence to fix the church, the need to fix its leadership is mandatory, and must receive topmost priority.

The Nature and Extent of the Problem: the Church at a Glance

The church is supposed to be the most resourced and resourceful organisation against the backdrop that it has members with natural, intellectual, academic but most importantly, spiritual endowments. Paradoxically, the church looks generally handicapped, is woefully poorly managed, least organised, and makes the least, if any, use of its rich human resources. God brings people with great gifts, passion, drive and enthusiasm (human resources-HR) to help build his body for ministry (Eph 4: 11-14); the decision to use them to build them rests with the church leadership, not God. The decision to equip and allow the saints to do the ministry work however, rests with us, not God. Noticeably, today the business of developing, resourcing and empowering the saints for ministry has come to be shadowed by a winding range of trivial objectives and commitments. Like Jesus observed, the weightier matters of the law have been intelligibly laid aside while the most trivial issues receive the greatest attention. There seems to be a lot of elbowing and domination from the more powerful of the less powerful; a scenario similar to one below can be garnered from what is happening in the church today:

(i) the church at best has little use of its HR, and at worst sees them as threats (especially the intellectuals) to the security of the already few superstars and hence resist and elbows them out; (ii) where the church identifies and decides to utilise the HR it (the church) is limited in its ability and capacity to effectively train and develop them, so they either end up messing up or produce substandard quality work; (iii) many of those who feel gifted fail to grab the purpose of their gifts, get puffed up, failing to submit to authority, and eventually break away to begin their ‘own ministries’. Because the gifts are meant to be used in unison to complement each other, and not in isolation in competition with each other, they fail to be effective, and tend eventually to specialise only in one or few areas, and remain generally ineffective.

This has left the church weak, fragmented, divided, and excessively denominationalized, each trying to protect their own enclave, promoting their selfish interest. The picture that emerges is a church that is prevented by denominational sentiments and objectives from pursuing kingdom aspirations. This raises legitimate questions about the extent to which most churches and their leaders understand Jesus’ message ‘seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,…(Matthew 6: 33)’; and his prayer, ‘that they may be one, even as we are one (John 17: 21-22)’. (To be continued).

CEO of Strategic Resourcers, Samuel Tengey (PhD) is Director of Business School, and Vice President (African University College of Communications, Ghana). He lectures in Human Resource Development and Organisational Behaviour, and consults in leadership and management development with special interest in church leadership. Contact: samuel@strategicresourcers.co.uk; URL: www.strategicresourcers.com