Last Friday, I posted the first installment of ten people who contributed to the death of my church. The countdown began with three people who really turned out to be the least of our problems, only breaking our spirits enough to prepare us for the real problems ahead…

This week, our problems build for the final showdown!

Last week got tons of feedback, all of which I welcome. There were positive comments and praise, along with people calling me a bent-out-of-shape malcontent, armchair quarterbacks pointing out how much we sucked at being a church, and those who said I had no business criticizing other Christians.

So, with no further ado, let’s see what you have to say today:

Ten People Who Will Kill Your Church: 4-7

The Hijacker
Picture the perfect church visitor. He walks in, eager to meet people. He’s enthusiastic about your little church and wants to participate. He even has skills to contribute to your worship service! He seems mature and willing to serve.

Nothing makes a little church wet its pants faster than new visitors. And if the visitor actually wants to contribute? Let’s get you a nametag right now, new member!

Our hijacker fancied himself a musician. Like many, his skills did not match his ego. Strike one.
He was seminary trained, but not a minister. Strike two.
His family just couldn’t find a church like the one back home. Strike three.

He had designs on us. We were small and thus malleable enough, that he would’ve made short work of molding us into his image. He had the controlling personality of a minister but a weak stomach for the responsibility. And he was bent on recreating us into that blessed church he so missed.

For the love of everything holy, no matter how good a visitor looks, make them sit down and shut up for six months before you let them do anything beyond bringing cookies. Fortunately, our hijacker aborted his mission when a message from God told him there was a church down the street that needed him even more.

The Snake Oil Salesman
Pastor: “I think we need to expand our influence on our community beyond Sundays and Wednesdays…”

Elder: “I agree, we should do something. We need to look more important than those Baptists down the street. But how?”

Deacon: “We don’t use our building more than twice a week. How do we put it to good use?

Enter: Snake Oil Salesman: “Friends, I couldn’t help noticing your empty building and monitoring your conversation from the bushes outside. The name’s Lanley. Lyle Lanley. And I come before you good people tonight with an idea. Probably the greatest… Aw, it’s not for you. It’s more of a First Baptist idea.”

Pastor: “Now just a minute. We’re twice as smart as those Baptists. Just tell us your idea, and we’ll vote for it.”

Snake Oil Salesman: “Okay, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You’ve got a building I want. I’ve got people you want. You open your building five nights a week to my non-church related community group. Why, I guarantee that this building itself will make strangers automatically convert and join your congregation! And it will cost you practically nothing, though we can’t pay you anything. It’s win-win!”

From the time you start a church, there will be people who want to use the church, the people, and the money for non-church purposes. And you will want to give in because it might make your church important to people who don’t go to church. Fact: anything the church sponsors that doesn’t directly relate to worship or missions will cost more than you think and probably yield almost nothing.

The Usurper
Every hero needs a villain. If you’re a pastor, you’re Batman. And your villain probably won’t be likable or charming like Catwoman…unless she’s that Catwoman that came out a few years ago, because that was the worst.

It will be the Usurper’s job to love the church more than anything else…and hate the pastor more than anything else. In fact, the Usurper will love the one and dislike the other so much, she’ll want the pastor’s job! Sure, she may not have seminary training, leadership skills, basic hygiene, or even a calling to the ministry. But an undying lust for power is enough qualification to run a church.

You may find a Usurper already in the woodwork when you get hired at a church. If you’re starting a church, your Usurper will play nice until she gets her grubby paws on some seemingly insignificant responsibility. Once that happens, the gloves are off, as she tries to influence every aspect of the church, hoping people will begin to think her indispensible.

Our Usurper became pivotal once all the pawns were in place for her to make the perfect play…

Everyone in your church may be ‘Christians,’ but that doesn’t mean a Christian can’t be an enemy who God will take away if you pray hard enough. Enemies who at think they’re saved fight to the bitter end.

The League of Rebels
Even the strongest villain needs an army of darkness, and it’s likely that your Usurper won’t be alone. Where you find one bug in the house, there’s bound to be more.

If you don’t take care of your Usurper right away, you’ll find she’s spawned, like a giant disgusting termite queen birthing tons of hungry little worker-Usurpers, all tearing down, causing disunity. They’ll be everywhere, sowing seeds of dissent against the pastor for any reason, real or imagined. Because when people are fighting for the church they love, it’s not just a fight, it’s a holy war.

Now we’re having fun! Next week, all the pieces are in place for our church’s exciting conclusion! How will it all turn out? Share your stories if you’ve got them!

There’s a bunch of houses for sale in my neighborhood. A couple of them are actually getting sold. Normally, this is the time of year that people sell their houses and move into bigger, better houses. I’ve always heard this phrase from people who are moving that they just ‘outgrew’ their old place, and need to move up.

I always got a sneaking suspicion when I helped people move that what they meant to say was that all the unnecessary, useless crap they never use outgrew their home, and they need to purchase a bigger junk/human storage facility.

This year, since people aren’t moving, they have to stave off the urge to move by having extra big garage sales. There is an incredible surplus of Bowflex laundry organization systems for sale.

Of course, no one’s really downsizing if everyone in the neighborhood is buying each others’ old stuff.

Summer is also the time (besides New Year’s, and right after eating at Denny’s) for people to look at themselves in disgust and try to improve how they look, right after regretfully selling their Bowflex laundry systems. A bunch of people in my neighborhood are trying this new fad called “jogging.” I believe it’s jogging or “yogging.” it might be a soft j. I’m not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It’s supposed to be wild.

I’ve been going back to the gym. Not because I care about being able to lift heavy things. No part of my everyday life requires me to lift various denominations of steel weights. I go there because I don’t really like how I look, and I think if I put myself through enough pain, I will look better. I don’t even really enjoy the gym. It’s all vanity.

It’s funny how it’s so hard to just find contentment. No matter what people have, they aren’t happy. Doesn’t matter if you’re overweight or skinny and lanky like me, no one’s just happy with how they look. It’s hard to be content with our jobs, our churches, our possessions, ourselves.

And I’m the worst.

I think one of the few benefits of the economy we’re in is that people may take a little break from the rat race. Rather than looking for a bigger house, people empty out their own home and fix it up a little bit. Rather than buying the next best thing, people stay content with the stuff they have a wee bit longer.

Where is the quest for “better” justified, and where is it better to be content? People should be content in their marriages, or their churches. But that contentment also includes fighting the good fight for better churches and marriages, constantly reforming.

I think I come across to some readers as a complainer, as someone who isn’t happy with anything, and wants to ruin everything for everyone. The truth is that though I struggle with my own unmet ambitions and discontentment with myself, in reality my life is very worthy of contentment and happiness, and I’m a pretty positive guy.

However, there are plenty of things out there that are not worthy of contentment. And one of the things I love most, the church, is fraught with them. The church is full of frightening and funny things that Christ did not intend. So I like to think I write as one unimportant soldier fighting his little part in the good fight for something worth fighting for, warning about and laughing at the stuff that deserves it.

Some people don’t like complainers. They prefer that everyone just be positive at times, no matter what becuase it’s a mark of spirituality…or it’s just easier. Sometimes, I feel the same way, because I’m actually an easy going guy who likes to be an eternal optimist and doesn’t like being brought down by a Buzz Killington.

But complaining has led to a lot of good things, like the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, or the end of slavery or America itself! (Along with a bunch of other places.) Discontent with the status quo has its place. So Christians are kind of stuck with both, contentment and complaining, both in their rightful places!

I have loads of contentment in my wife. But our marriage is a work in progress.
My contentment is in Christ. But His church is a work in progress.

What do you fight for? What’s still a work in progress in your life? What do you find contentment in?

Last week, I talked about the insane number of self help books there are at Barnes & Noble.

I focused on the idiocy of non-Christians self-help gurus and their philosophy of self-love as a path to self-healing, and the incredible success they’ve had at building a cycle of self help. People feel like crap, buy book, still feel like crap, realize they are not worthy of that self help program, author is in no way held accountable for their inane ideas, people buy another book…

I had some comments urging me to talk about the Christian self-help section, just across the aisle. As always, all in good time, my friends. I wanted to do that in the first post, but just couldn’t squeeze it in and do justice the many spiritual sages and prophets of prosperity.

Yes, it seems that despite our Bibles and preachers, Christians aren’t any better off than anyone else. Christians need to be given just as many “steps” and “keys” and “secrets” to unlock their full potential in every aspect of their apparently pathetic lives.

But I wondered what makes a Christian self help book any better than a secular book. Are the Christians on the covers of books with their pearly white smiles and perfect hair, and their cuff links any different from their non-Jesus-loving brethren? I came up with a little experiment to find out.

I opened a bunch of random self help books – both Christian and secular and wrote down some chapter titles. Read these and count off how many you think are from Christian authors. This will be fun!

Christian or Non-Christian Self Help Chapter Titles?

Believe in Yourself

A Peaceful Mind Generates Power

Developing a Prosperous Mindset

How to Realize Your Potential

Maintaining Your Fitness Lifestyle

Meditation is the Key to Renewing Your Mind

The Power to Get Wealth

Try Prayer Power

How to Use Faith in Healing

Expect the Best and Get It

Make Your Way Prosperous

It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This

It’s hard to tell who’s who, isn’t it?
Well…I sort of deceived you. They’re all from Christian books. Need I say more? They could be any other book on business, wealth, love, sex, health, or being a giant corporate tool, just with some magic Jesus fairy dust sprinkled in for good measure.

Oh, and that last chapter title? That was from Jon and Kate, of Jon and Kate Plus Eight idiocy, whom I also mentioned two weeks ago, not knowing a book had been published with their pictures on it. I think it came out last year, when they were on top of the world and their bank account was overflowing and were willing to give Jesus some half-hearted credit. Obviously “it” could now definitely get better than this. Step one: resist the urge to sell out your family, and keep your lives to yourselves, because no one cares. Step two: preserve your marriage and your dignity.

Look at that advice I just busted out. I’m so awesome, I should write a self help book! It would be called Unlocking the Secret Keys to Find the Steps to Making Self Help Books Work for You.

You know what? Non-Christians aren’t the ones keeping the shelves stocked full of sort-of Christian books…it’s Christians. We have more choices than ever on who we select to teach us, and we go for the stuff that’s barely distinguishable from the tripe that everyone else is reading. If everyone else weren’t flocking to the other self-help books, I might suspect that non-Christians are actually better than Christians at sniffing out hypocrisy and phony righteousness…but, nah, that couldn’t be!

Who’s your favorite Christian teacher right now – the person you most like to go to in between church and Bible readings?

I was part of a church that died.

What made it even more painful was that my family had planted the church. My Dad was the pastor.

Despite our best intentions, our plans, our prayers, the church did not just die, but was killed. It was as if no matter how many times we put Satan on notice to leave us alone, he kept sending the most ridiculous string of characters, the exact wrong people to our doorstep. The church wasn’t killed all at once one day, but over some years as each person came in, chipped away at the rest of us, and left.

There were ten people who killed the church. I could’ve written a book about it, but I don’t have time to debase myself for the sake of getting published, so you get it in shortened blog form. I already debase myself for far too many other reasons. Today, and over the next two more Fridays, I want to tell you about them. I write this not to sound bitter, but to share and warn, and perhaps relate to others in difficult circumstances. Watching your church die is painful. You’ll have to wait until the end to see how our story turned out!

Ten People Who Will Kill Your Church: 1-3

The Musician
I know there’s a lot of musicians who read this blog, so I’ll just ask you directly. Why are so many of you a bunch of whiny, insecure-yet-pretentious prima donnas? Honestly, we had a string of musicians all the way back to the beginning of the church who felt they were much more talented, worth more money, and more indispensable than they ever could hope to be. I’ll take an average musician with a good attitude any day over these characters.

Ironically, one of the musicians selflessly gave up her paycheck as part of the financial campaign. God bless her. Her subsequent music went from mediocre to just terrible. Way to make a sacrifice for Jesus.

The musicians killed the church because the church believed they were indispensable. And we thought we needed music, and a particular kind of music. Wrong. Try having worship without music. People did it for centuries, and still do it. If you’ve got a musician with a bad attitude, throw them out, put them in charge of children’s music, but don’t let them control the church.

The Building
Okay, this one isn’t a person. But this is the only non-human that had a hand in killing the church. Our church had a rented space, then we bought a piece of land with a little house which we met in. We were living the dream, building a church! Our time in the ‘church house,’ right before we achieved our dream of being a ‘real’ church were the best couple of years of the church’s life.

You know how you always wanted a pony or an elephant when you were a kid? If you had actually gotten one, you’d be ecstatic! That would’ve been great until you realize how much animals eat and digest and you’re the one filling up grocery bags with pony poops. Church buildings are the same way. Even if they have ribbons in their hair, they still poop. And someone’s got to pick it up. Thank God, Dad didn’t get you that pony.

However, God did give the church the pony we wanted. By the time our tiny church had built the building, our energy, our money was spent, but we had done ‘the job.’ The novelty wore off when the realization came that we had not grown into this large building, and maintenance and money were in short supply.

That building became our idol while it was still a drawing. Then it became our pet pony.

The New Recruit
New churches can have a particular eagerness about them. The people want to please others, do the things the ‘big’ churches are doing. Sometimes that means getting ahead of themselves.

We were eager to hire a second pastor.

Here were his qualifications:
He answered our ‘want ad.’
He had not yet graduated seminary.
He was from a troubled past and still had emotional baggage.
He was willing to be paid poorly.
He had visited our church twice.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Yet even ‘big boy’ churches do the same thing. They don’t properly evaluate a new pastor, and the fit isn’t right. Well, this guy wasn’t just a bad fit, but a bad pastor, lacking in social skills, preaching ability, pastoral empathy, common sense, and the ability to not secretly solicit money from old ladies for personal use.

Let’s just say, a panda bear would’ve been a better pastor, and that’s saying a lot. Have you ever tried to get pastoral counsel from a panda? It’s even worse than having church in a pony.

You’ve probably got all the pastors you need. This enterprise of churches hiring strangers to be their friend/pastor for a few years, I find increasingly strange. So the next time someone wants to pay a stranger $40,000 to be friends with the 38-42 year age group, maybe think again.

I’ll be back next Friday with another round of people who helped knock out our church like fat in a George Foreman grill.

Anyone been in a church that died? Was it for any of these causes?

People today like to talk, stay in touch, touch base, have face time, drop a line, hit up, holla back, or whatever stupid thing kids like to call it…a lot.

Since the telegraph, we got telephones, the radio, the television, emails, instant messenger, pagers, cell phones, blogs, Blackberries, Facebook, and Twitter, all allowing us to talk more quickly and frequently than ever.

And yet, I can’t help thinking that for all the ways we can communicate, very few people are able to communicate. As someone who tries to cultivate conversation skills, I notice that it’s a lost art.

And teenagers who are growing up with IMing from the convenience of their phones? I lose all hope seeing a bunch of typeractive textrovert teeny boppers having textual intercourse. Yes, those are all real terms in the urban dictionary. NFSP! LOL!

I broke up with two girlfriends partly over our instant messenger conversations (on our primitive computers.) IM was supposed to save our long distance relationships! We could talk all night while studying and not rack up huge phone bills! But I discovered that it really is tone and body language that makes up most of communication. Let’s just say our feelings were shared through many vulgar emoticons. :0 >:[ :/ :’(

Though I’m resolved to keep it out of this blog, I love politics. I like to follow the news, debate it with friends. I can get pretty passionate. Yet for all my interest in politics, I find most politicians to be extremely boring…and that’s at their best.

It used to be when someone wanted to get elected, he’d go on a whistle stop train tour, giving impassioned speeches. Winston Churchill practically won the British half of WWII with pithy speeches! These days, politicians are so careful about their words, so worried about their self image that they never get excited about anything! They never say anything worth getting excited about! The last great Presidential quote I can think of off the top of my head is, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Our standards for what passes for good communication have lowered from “Ask not what your country can do for you…” to, “Malaise…”

And I’m tired of hearing official ‘statements’ from ‘spokesmen’ when anything happens. Doesn’t matter if someone dies or some tragedy happens or something great happens, every statement is the same generic buzzwords. Someone dies and every last public figure issues a statement saying, “Our thoughts and prayers go out to their family…blah, blah, blah.” Well I can really tell you care based on that Hallmark quality statement your intern wrote for your press secretary to say. The only reason ‘statements’ are made is to make sure everyone knows they care, All they care about is that we care that they care. Well we don’t care.

And people say they don’t go to church because the sermons are boring.

Well many of them probably are. And it shouldn’t be that way. Maybe it’s just one more way that the culture is shaping the church. Some pastors settle for being poor communicators. A lot of pastors who don’t want to be boring seem to feel like they’re trapped by only having one boring book to use, so they have to go exploring other topics. Or they feel the gospel is too offensive to a seeker’s delicate ears, so he softens it with vagaries and platitudes like a politician trying to please gullible voters.

Many people don’t pay attention to current events or political goings-on because the people are boring, and their words are vague, generic, or outright lies. I’m no great preacher. No one records me to listen to dozens of times. No one will quote me when I’m dead. But if I can just speak clearly about what I believe and why I believe it, and sound like I believe what I say, I’m doing better than most politicians.

If you aren’t a pastor, you can help your pastor. If he gives an impassioned sermon, be sure to encourage him afterward. Pastors don’t always get a lot of personal encouragement. And not every pastor is equally gifted or funny or handsome, so go easy on him. You don’t have to switch churches just because your pastor’s sermons don’t always ‘feed’ you. Coming from most people, that line is baloney too.

And everyone can help by being able to clealy articulate your own beliefs. Don’t put it on your pastor to articulate to your children or your friends what your faith is. The church needs to be the best communicators in the world, not the best side shows or comedians, and certainly not the best politicians.

Most people at a funeral would rather be in the casket then giving the eulogy. What about you? Do you feel like you could communicate in most contexts if the need arose?

Have you seen the ‘self help’ section of Barnes & Noble? It’s insane.

From the looks of things, it seems that despite the thousands of books, all the pithy wisdom dispensed by Dr. Phil and Oprah(tm), and all the self esteem training we got as kids in our public school feel-gooderies, most people don’t have one flipping clue about how to take care of themselves, and their lives are in shambles. If one were to visit the self help section for the first time, he might assume that most people are barely capable of pulling on some dirty sweatpants and dragging their dysfunctional selves from their vermin infested homes just to buy the book that will change their lives in five easy steps.

Of course, I don’t believe that. I believe most people’s lives have some modicum of order, are pretty well put together, more or less. Just look at the people who are at Barnes & Noble to buy the self help books! They have jobs that pay the bills. They’re wearing shoes. They have families. Sure, there’s divorces and teen pregnancies and whatnot. There’s problems. But most people who watch Dr. Phil and buy self help books are pretty normal, average, semi-put-together people.

So what’s the real problem?

People still feel like crap about themselves. Despite having it all together, being flipping middle class Americans, most people just feel like their lives are awful or meaningless. They don’t have anything wrong with them like clinical depression. They’re just lazy or selfish or obnoxious. So their little bottom lips start quivering and they buy a book that promises to kiss their boo-boos and make it all better!

So that’s the last realm that the self help industry can help most people with – the one thing wrong with their lives – despite being taught that they were special all their lives, people don’t feel special.

You remember those The More You Know segments on TV? They’re usually geared toward telling people about domestic abuse or something. I actually saw one recently that wasn’t about violence or anything even tangible. It was about the rampant, swine flu-like epidemic of sad sacks feeling sorry for themselves.

The punchline of the 15 second spot? “Before you can love others, you have to love yourself.”

And that’s pretty much the wisdom of Dr. Phil, and all the other gurus of modern society.

What a crock.

What a load of a crock of a bull of complete baloney.

I can’t love others until I love myself? Let’s run down what a day of ‘loving myself’ looks like. I spend the day watching TV. I order all my meals from a fast food joint, because I’m even too lazy to put any effort to feed my lazy face. I don’t do one blasted thing to contribute to society, the economy, or make anyone else’s life better. I purchase myself some sweet DVDs, despite not having worked for them that day.

Guess what. At the end of the day, I feel even worse about myself. But how can that be? I spent all day loving myself, so now I can go out and love other people tomorrow! Of course I feel awful! I was a lazy idiot who didn’t do anything that a man is engineered to do to feel good about!

That’s the problem. Most people spend their whole lives with their eyes on their own special belly buttons loving themselves. There might be a few people who simply don’t have any self respect, or expend themselves on others to their own detriment, but this message is like preaching to the choir that is America. It’s not like everyone is saying, “That’s what’s missing in my life! I’m not spending enough money, time, and energy making myself feel good!” Yeah, aside from all the self-help books you waste money on, you really don’t take care of yourself!

Now I’m not all down on Americans. Americans are the most charitable society on Earth, and no Frenchman can argue with that. But it’s just money. We’ve kind of got a lot of it. So do Canadians, but they still act like babies just because they haven’t seen the sun shine in eight months!

Celebrity tragedies have proven time after time that all the money and power and fame doesn’t amount to squat when that entertainer is alone at night. There’s a bunch of people who are acting like little mini-celebrities, living out their own lifelong pity parties.

You want to not feel like your life is worthless? Make yourself worth something to someone. Love someone like yourself, and you just might feel better about yourself!

This concludes my Public Service Announcement.

What do you do that makes you feel good about yourself?