Hey John,
I agree with this pastor's observations for the most part.  I just 
don't get how staying away solves the problem.

By the way, Just an aside,  you might like our church.  We don't have 
any professionals, except Greg, I suppose, and we're screwing up all 
the time.  If people are coming for a show, they may get it, but it 
won't be the polished variety.  We just worship.  What I am pleased 
about is that our people are really working at taking relationship 
and building community seriously.  That Veteran that I had written 
about a while back who is staying away over the flag issue is really 
on the minds of a lot of our people and we are all continuing to 
reach out to him in love.  I know that, when he comes back, he will 
be welcomed with open arms by everybody.  I used to joke that food is 
our spiritual gift, but our people are starting to get the hang of 
community.  Go God!
Kathy


At 10:03 PM 9/2/2006, you wrote:
>This is part of why I am not in a church.
>
>Text of forwarded message follows:
>
>>Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 15:07:23 -0500
>>From:  "a pastor"
>>To: Tom Lamb <mailto:[log in to unmask]><[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>Tom,
>>
>>Thanks for the article and your willingness to share it with me. I 
>>also went to your website and read some of your other articles. I 
>>agree with your observations about the state of the modern 
>>institutionalized church. If you would be so kind as to indulge me 
>>for a moment, I'd like to make a few observations of my own about 
>>the "system" as you call it.
>>
>>First, let me confess that I am a pastor (I pastor a Baptist church 
>>in the Midwestern region of the USA). Let me also say that I am not 
>>apposed to the idea of church. It is the body of Christ and the 
>>bride of Christ. He loved her and shed His blood for her. I 
>>especially love the people God has entrusted to my care; they are 
>>wonderful; I have no gripes with them personally. What I am 
>>frustrated with is what the church has become. It has gone from 
>>being a vibrant, home-based, interpersonal, life-giving body (New 
>>Testament church), to an exhausting, often lifeless, 
>>institution-based, impersonal organization (today).
>>
>>I am not saying that nothing worthwhile ever happens in local 
>>churches; that would be an inaccurate statement. I have been 
>>blessed in many ways over the years through local church 
>>involvement. I just have many questions and frustrations about the 
>>way church is done, especially here in America today. I detect from 
>>your articles that organized churches in your country suffer from 
>>similar maladies. Anyway, here are the gut-level honest 
>>frustrations of an institutional insider: (note: from here on I 
>>will refer to the church as the "institution')
>>
>>    * As a pastor I often feel like the guardian of an institution 
>> rather than a participant in a revolution. The advancement of the 
>> kingdom of God, the spreading of the gospel, and the making of 
>> true disciples is often lost behind the seemingly endless busy 
>> work that must be done in order for the institution to continue to 
>> function. Everything gets bogged down in red tape and 
>> institutional bureaucracy. Rather than being on mission with 
>> Christ, the institution spends most of its time, energy, and 
>> resources promoting and preserving itself; i.e., keeping the 
>> "machine" oiled and running. I often wonder how many poor, 
>> oppressed, and spiritually lost people we could help in Jesus' 
>> name; how much human suffering we could alleviate; how many 
>> missionary endeavors we could undertake; and ultimately how many 
>> disciples of Jesus we could make around the world if we moved our 
>> gatherings back into homes, fired all the professional staff, sold 
>> all our institutional buildings, and pooled the proceeds together. 
>> (Shhhh..don't tell anyone that the pastor was actually thinking 
>> something like that)!
>>
>>    * As a pastor I am expected to be a fund raiser, vision caster, 
>> motivator, organizer, and administrator. It recently occurred to 
>> me: "I am not a shepherd, I am the CEO of a corporation called 
>> 'church." And my success as a CEO is often measured by how large 
>> my congregation is, how fast it is growing, how much money we 
>> have, and how fast we are building new buildings. Unfortunately 
>> none of these things are within my control, so you can imagine the 
>> frustration. And of course within the congregation there are the 
>> whiners, complainers, critics, and pathological antagonizers who 
>> love to torment institutional leaders. Oh, and don't forget the 
>> church politics, unresolved interpersonal conflicts, and 
>> denominational garbage that goes on. By the way, I read last week 
>> that 20,000 pastors leave the ministry forever every month in the 
>> USA! I wonder why? Hmmm.....
>>
>>    * As a pastor I am weary of continually trying to motivate 
>> spiritually lethargic, apathetic (and probably lost) people, to no 
>> avail. I'm convinced that our churches are literally filled with 
>> deceived people who equate being a Christian with institutional 
>> involvement, i.e, "I am a good Christian because I am active in 
>> the institution." There is no real life transformation going on; 
>> no submission to God; no being conformed to the image of Christ; 
>> no daily spiritual disciplines; no exercising on one's spiritual 
>> gifts; just attendance at the institution (and sometimes nominal 
>> attendance at that). And because of the way the institution is 
>> structured there is no accountability mechanism in place to 
>> address the issue with them. This is nothing but deception from 
>> the enemy. Jesus said that many faithful churchgoers are going to 
>> wind up in hell, much to their shock and dismay (Matthew 7:21-23). 
>> It saddens me more than you know. People say they love Jesus yet 
>> deny Him with their lifestyles. The hypocrisy is unnerving. They 
>> want to call themselves followers of Christ, they just don't want 
>> to do what He said (Luke 6:46). I'm really not trying to be 
>> self-righteous (I'm not perfect either). It's just that, as a 
>> pastor, it breaks my heart when people live under a deception that 
>> brings reproach on the name of Christ, destroys their lives, and 
>> jeopardizes their eternal destiny. How did we get here? One 
>> problem I see it that this modern-day monolithic institution 
>> called "church" has all but lost the ability to get people 
>> together regularly in small fellowships in intimate settings, 
>> where they gather around the Scriptures, encourage one another, 
>> pray for one another, and hold one another accountable. It seems 
>> to me it would be very difficult to live a double life and be a 
>> hypocrit in such an intimate setting.
>>
>>    * In many American "institutions" Sunday worship services have 
>> degenerated into little more than slick, high-tech entertainment 
>> designed to manipulate the emotions. The "auditorium" is 
>> constructed so that the audience (congregation) can sit and be 
>> entertained by the professional performers (singers, dancers, 
>> actors, and speaker) up on the "stage" or platform. Preaching in 
>> many of these places has reduced the Almighty to a Genie in a 
>> bottle and a cosmic therapist. The focus is man-centered (give 
>> sinners whatever they want so they will like us and hopefully 
>> accept Jesus). If I read my Bible correctly trying to make sinners 
>> like us is both unrealistic and futile (See Matthew 10:22; John 
>> 15:18-19; 2 Timothy 3:12). When God instructed the Hebrews 
>> concerning how His tabernacle was to be constructed He did not say 
>> to them, "Go survey the Philistines and Jebusites and find out 
>> what they would like in a tabernacle and then build it that way." 
>> No. Because He is holy, He gave them strict instructions as to how 
>> HE wanted the tabernacle to be built and to function. When the 
>> early church was forming they did not survey the Greeks, Romans, 
>> pagans, or Gnostics to find out what they might like in a church. 
>> No. They were consumed with radically loving God, radically loving 
>> one another, and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. They 
>> were too busy being the church to worry about how to do church. It 
>> was about substance, not style. They had no institutions, no 
>> buildings and no bureaucracy. They had no professional church 
>> growth consultants or mega church growth conferences or marketing 
>> strategies or seeker-sensitive services, yet somehow God added to 
>> their number daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:47). What a 
>> shock by today's standards! What can we learn from this?
>>
>>    * It seems to me that after 2,000 years of church history we 
>> have shaped, organized, and structured the church and its 
>> practices according to the traditions of men rather than the Word 
>> of God. So much of who we are and what we do is not prescribed in 
>> Scripture. I understand that as cultures change the church has to 
>> adapt in some ways. But we've become something I can't imagine God 
>> intended. How did we get here? As Greco-Roman culture overtook the 
>> early church, and as Constantine later united church and state 
>> (leading to what would eventually become the Roman Catholic 
>> church), we lost much of what early believers understood about 
>> what it meant to be the church. Regular gatherings of believers 
>> were moved from the homes to the cathedral; ministry was taken 
>> away from the common man as a sharp distinction was made between 
>> laity and clergy; an complex ecclesiastical hierarchy was 
>> instituted; the Bible was taken out of the hands of the common man 
>> and entrusted to the priest. All this had devastating 
>> ramifications. And the Protestant Reformation did not restore what 
>> was lost. We've never recovered. Unfortunately, we are what we 
>> are. And there doesn't seem to be much freedom to fix this. If you 
>> start trying to color outside the lines of tradition you are 
>> labeled a nut, a heretic, a troublemaker, or a cultist. As you 
>> well know, the Radical Pilgrim pays dearly for departing from the status quo.
>>
>>I could go on, but I will spare you. All I'm saying is, I 
>>wholeheartedly agree that the modern institutionalized, 
>>westernized, monolithic, materialistic, consumeristic church has 
>>evolved into something that is incapable of being what Jesus called 
>>His body to be. And frankly, I don't see the situation changing. I 
>>have recently had a rather sinister thought, however. Intolerance 
>>for Christians is increasing at a rapid pace in the USA as American 
>>culture has succumb to postmodernism (this represents persecution 
>>from within). Radical Islam is trying with all its might to take 
>>over the world. These nut cases want to kill everyone on the planet 
>>who does not embrace Islam, especially Jews and Christians. They 
>>have now declared Jihad against the "West" on every continent on 
>>earth (this represents persecution from without). If the 
>>persecution against Christians in America got severe enough at some 
>>time in the future, might this force the church back into a 1st 
>>century kind of situation? Would we have to abandon our buildings 
>>and structures and go underground, meeting once again in homes? I 
>>pray fervently that it doesn't come to this...
>>
>>Please don't interpret my words as those of an angry, embittered 
>>pastor. As I said, I love the church (Jesus loved the church and it 
>>seems to me that if I love Him I will love what He loves). I don't 
>>mean to insult His bride. I just think we could do church a better 
>>way. >From reading your articles it sounds like you guys have 
>>discovered one way to do it better. Thank you for your time.
>>
>>Blessings!
>>
>>A Radical Pilgrim wannabe
>>
>>
>><http://beyondcamp.net>http://beyondcamp.net
>>
>>
>End of forwarded message text:
>
>
>John