My Adventures with God Ch45: Early Diagnosis of Vermont Church

Ch 45 Early Diagnosis of Vermont Church.

Certainly I had been warned in a dream or vision (I don't know exactly what it was) that God was going to send me to Vermont Anglican Church, and that there was going to be a fight with the choir, but I went there determined not to be the cause of any fight!

However I was on the qui vive to determine what was the situation and spiritual health at this church.

My first impression was a purely sociological one. It was that the people in this suburb were predominantly in small business or middle management, and brought those models over into the running of the church. They wanted it organised, with planned growth targets. They also wanted to run everything themselves. In Australia we have a term “D.I.Y” meaning “do-it-yourself” which is applied to everything from home renovations to car repairs. My wife Sue called Vermont a “D.I.Y. Church”.

Now I had worked really hard in my first parish trying to encourage lay involvement in the work of the church. I had read the books and been to the conferences which at that time were all for every member ministry. So I was all for encouraging this, and indeed years later when we were building up again after the “unpleasantness” we achieved a very solid and functional form of having lots of people involved in ministry. So I was genuinely disappointed to find that this church had a dysfunctional sort of lay involvement

This church shared one of the pitfalls of D.I.Y. thinking.

D.I.Y. renovators seldom have the expert knowledge of a master builder – they just think they do! The main doers in this D.I.Y. church considered themselves experts in every field.

My fist brush with this involved the music ministry. Keen both to show my support for the people who sang and played instruments in church, and to familiarise myself with the songs for the coming Sunday I tried to attend music practice. I say tried because the moment I walked up the isle of the church I was challenged with a decidedly unfriendly: “what are you doing here?” from the music leader. When I explained, I was curtly told: “We don't want you here” As they had only electronic organ and acoustic guitars, I said I played the trumpet and would be happy to accompany them sometimes. This evoked an: “We don't need a trumpet, so-and-so is going to learn the French Horn” Of course so-and-so never did learn the French Horn!”

Their arrogant assumption was that as I came from a country parish I could know nothing about music. In reality I was used to both traditional and Charismatic music, people who had genuine expertise in music – for instance our band leader John who could write out arrangements for all the different instruments in the band – his “Onward Christian Soldiers” was brilliant; and people with genuine Spiritual gifting in music like Rosalie and Ross. By contrast this music leader at Vermont could not even read music!

My second brush was at a bible study I had organised for vestry members on ministry. I was expounding the Biblical nature of “The Church”, when one of the younger men openly challenged me. It was not a case of disagreeing with my doctrine – in fact what I was saying, had he known it, was standard teaching of the churchmanship he represented. Hewas simply disbelieving that I could possibly know any more about doctrine than he did!

It was the old D.I.Y. attitude: for renovators “what could a builder possibly know that I don't know” for churchers “what could a priest possibly know about Christianity that I don't know”. The answer in both cases is frequently: “Lots!”.

My third brush came a little later and would have been funny if it had not been so disturbing. At this time I had worked out that that the people who liked to think of themselves as the spiritual elite of the church were more like kids who had been fed high sugar diets. They were all fizzed up, but not in good health. For children the first thing to do is cut the sugar hits and give them a good balanced diet. I have always heard this referred to a “Meat and three veg (vegetable)” meal which was the traditional Australian dinner. So I resolved to give them “Meat and three veg” sermons. I didn't tickle their ears. I didn't preach psychology or other junk. I expounded the Bible reading set for the day and in amongst that taught them how to interpret scripture correctly, and cross reference with other passages. In the process I quoted a lot of scripture – but I quoted it from memory.

Some of the “spiritual elite” came and complained that I didn't quote from the Bible in my sermons! They were used to the preacher stopping, finding the passage in the Bible , and reading it out. When I quoted from memory, I assumed that the congregation had read the Bible enough themselves to at least recognise the quotation! These folk thought they were super Christians when they were actually biblically illiterate!

So that was an important diagnosis. I needed to solidly preach and expound the scriptures because, just as Paul complained to the church in Corinth, for all their pride they had not learned the ABC of the faith. Sadly in many other ways too St Luke's Vermont shared the faults of the ancient Corinthian Church.

I also found talking to some of this group that they were eager for the “gifts” of the Holy Spirit, and wanted to obtain the “power” of the Holy Spirit, but they did not want to be sanctified. That is of course impossible! The power of the Holy Spirit is first and foremost so that under the coaching of the Spirit we can fight sin in our own lives and be re-formed into the image of Christ. The gifts are not for our titillation but so that we can effectively serve others in Jesus' name. They had some very mistaken thinking!

The last thing I will mention which troubled me early was this: The people who occupied official positions of authority in the congregation were not the ones in control.

The shock of this discovery was a bit like seeing a vehicle (some garbage trucks have this) with the driver in the near-curb side of the cab. For a moment you think there is no one actually in control of it!

However this discovery continued to disturb me. Some sort of authority structure is just a sociological necessity in any human enterprise. Even pirates elect a captain! Churches have different doctrines and cultures and so have differing authority structures. But they all have some. So in any church to have the real power wielded by people other than the ones who occupy the position which should wield it should raise red flags!

It was to address this problem that I took my first definite action some six or seven months after arriving in the parish. Next post I'll say what that was and how it went!

During all this time I was not doing nothing! As well as the normal parish duties, and concentrating on “meat and three veg” sermons, I was watching, thinking, and above all praying.

For any ministers going into this sort of situation let me stress: Praying is incredibly important. Praying for wisdom – because both the problems and the solutions are rarely simple or easy to see.
Praying for your congregation individually – well, because that is your job! They are the “flock” which has been entrusted to your care, and God will demand of you an accounting for the spiritual growth and safety of every one of them. If that prospect does not fill you with a godly fear and drive you to prayer then you are in the wrong job! Also to be praying for them individually you have to be among them knowing their needs and their situation.

Praying for protection – because we only see the physical world but there are things we cannot see which can debilitate or even destroy us – so we need to run to God continually for protection, and rest safe under the shadow of his wings.

Praying for God to move mountains, because as the Bible stresses, it is not by our strength but in Gods strength that his purposes are achieved. This includes praying for God to send the human helpers he has equipped and chosen to assist in this situation. You won't be given all the skills and spiritual gifts needed – most of them will come attached to other people – one Biblical image of God's people is a body remember!