Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A Phrase That Needs To Go Away

“It’s my church…”

That is never a phrase that leads to positive outcomes. It’s used almost exclusively to stifle change, new opinions or even the welcoming new members. It is a claim of power and status, of insiders and outsiders and of exclusiveness in being able to decide what is going to happen.

But here is the reason the phrase needs to be removed from everyone’s vocabulary: It’s not your church. It is God’s church!

Anytime that we try and take ownership you can be assured it is the same time that we stop following God’s will and desire for what we should be doing. Saying “it’s my church” puts the power, authority and importance on the person saying it instead of on God.

I have had several conversations recently in which this phrase was used. All of the conversations had to do with potential changes to the church which would certainly upset the status quo. Each time this phrase was used it was done as a way to stop the change not only from being implemented but even from being discussed. It was the line being drawn in the sand in which the person was saying if they didn’t get their way, which was to preserve the way things have always been, then they were going to take their ball and go home, thank you very much.

"It's my church..." is also often accompanied by the statement “I give my money to this church.” Threatening to withhold money is another power play which inverts where the focus of the church should lie, and is another phrase that should be eliminated.

We are God’s church, hopefully doing God’s will in the world, and therefore we should always be thinking about what God want us to do for God’s church, not what should we be doing for "our" church. If we approach things from that perspective, I believe that many of our churches, including this one, would be doing things very differently. So, let us please remove this phrase from our usage, and also be ready to call to account anyone and everyone who uses this statement.

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