Shaking things up at church

Sorry its been so long since my last post. As always, so much has been going on. We are near the end of our exams. We had 2 exams last week and are sitting 3 this week (the last one is on Friday). Ive never been so mentally and emotionally drained before. The exams plus some problems at church have really taken a bit of a toll on me. Im really looking forward to the holidays next week. Plus we have a few close friends coming to visit us (Dave, Jules and Celz) over the next few weeks, so I cant wait!

As for our problems at church, over the past year, Chester and I have been through so many ups and downs with our church. Ive never felt so many emotions like this due to ministry. Most times, at St Lukes, ministry is such a battle because of the complacency of the congregation. They are loathe to serve and to be part of the church family. It ends up being the same handful of people serving and being relied upon week after week. In our May newsletter, I mentioned about how the congregation was largely ‘religious’. However, I hope you understood that I didnt mean it in a good sense – they are very legalistic in their religiosity; they attend church because it’s what you do. After church, they mentally tick the box that they’ve attended church and can breathe a sigh of relief and feel good about themselves, going back to their ‘real’ lives and living any way they want, not thinking about God until the next Sunday.

It sounds like Im very cynical, but things have happened over the past year to make me realise that there is a definite spiritual battle happening at St Luke’s and if we are not godly, wise and discerning about it, Satan will defeat us.

Recently, there have been a lot of underlying tension at church over numerous things. This all really surfaced a few weeks ago when Chester preached about ‘fellowship’ in an effort to get people at church to genuinely love and care for each other. As part of the sermon, Chester wanted them to practically fellowship with each other by looking at the bible and answering some questions as a group. So he split the congregation up into 4 big groups.

Unfortunately, some people walked out because they believed that ‘this isn’t church, this is bible study’. Its so sad that they have such a rigid view on what church is, that if you change any of their ‘traditions’, then they walk out or cause other troubles. So, over the past weeks, in an effort to try and make them understand that their idea of church was wrong, we kept splitting into groups. Each time, more and more people would leave (about 8 out of a congregation of 50).

Apart from that, there has been other troubles that these same people are causing. So last Monday, Jan, our pastor quit from the church. It was such a sad day because it all came down to these pews that we have in the church. They are bolted into the ground so we cant move them around and use the space for youth group etc. Jan has been fighting to remove the pews for so long, but he has been met with fierce opposition for strange reasons - they want to keep the pews as they believe they have ‘paid’ for them through their offertory, they cant imagine having to sit on normal chairs and like the look of the pews etc etc Again, legalistic thinking creeps in.

So in the end, Jan gave the church an ultimatum – he asked them whether they preferred the Pews or him. They chose the Pews!!! I cant believe that – in between that, a lot of other things happened that really crushed Jan and he had to quit.

It was one of the saddest days when we found out, as Jan is one of the most Godliest people I know. He and his wife Bonny have put everything of their life into this church and just got kicked in the teeth in the process.

Please please pray for our church – Its such a terrible thing to happen that our pastor was in some ways, ‘driven away’. Please pray that some good will come of it – that those people will repent and Jan can come back and that the ‘real Christians’ in the church will stand up and do something! This Sunday, the congregation will be meeting with the Bishop to discuss all that’s happened and for everyone to air their grievances. Please pray that I will be loving towards people, even though they have treated Jan unjustly.