Will the Institutional Church Help the Church?
by Dick Wulf
I have a client who struggles with mental illness. He is a gentle man, very tender and caring. He is widowed and lonely. He would like to meet a Christian woman and spend the rest of his life with her, serving the Lord together.
My client is on disability. He works as much as he can and dreams of the day when he will be employed full-time and off of government aid. Because of his lack of funds, he cannot draw attention to himself by the clothes he wears. Because of his quiet, shy manner, he cannot approach a woman to meet her when he knows nothing about her.
This good man takes a handicapped teenager to church in a wheelchair. There he sees a woman he would like to meet. Perhaps she, too, needs a friend. But the structure of the morning, including an impersonal worship service, stymies any effort he could make. He can say hi in passing but then does not know what else to say on the spur of the moment. There is no down time for people to get to know one another in a relaxed, unstructured setting.
What if the leaders realized that their church would be much stronger if everyone who attended had a few friends they also thought of as key representatives of the church? Would that take away from the institution being the church?
Absolutely not! In fact, when friendships, families and marriages are not viewed as vital components of the church, then the “church in the building” or “the church in the home” cannot even begin to reach its full potential. As it is, my client is going to have to fight against the institutional church structure to find a mate. It doesn’t need to be that way.
Just imagine: What if the church my client attends instituted a 10-minute period in each service where people could express specific prayer requests? Over the period of a few weeks, the pastor could explain that there are things church members are expected to do to obey God, and caring for one another deeply from the heart is one of those Togethers. The pastor could work harder at helping each and every person express a prayer need to the church than he works on his sermon, knowing that actual obedience is more precious to God than mere knowledge about obedience.
If this were my client’s church, eventually the woman he would like to meet would stand up and perhaps ask for prayer for her uncle who was going into surgery. Then my client could ask her how her uncle was doing after the surgery, beginning a relationship out of Christian concern rather than something more selfish.
Perhaps you think that is what small groups in the church are for. I will not argue with that as I am professionally trained as a group worker and group therapist. I have taught small-group leadership skills to churches in various cities across America. However, small groups are often dedicated to Bible study or pursuing something other than building relationships in the group, which is the same thing as building the church. Besides, the woman my client might need to meet may not be in the same small group.
If I were a pastor, I would feel tremendously privileged to teach my congregation that the church is Christians in deep relationship with one another and together in deep relationship with God. I would do all I could to make sure everyone had a few close Christian friends inside or outside of my church. I would teach from the pulpit how the world needs those friendships to spread out and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through loving concern first (Jesus did it this way), followed by an explanation of the Kingdom and an invitation to accept Christ and enter that wonderful Kingdom.
If I were a pastor, I would feel tremendously privileged to teach the families of my congregation that each family is a vital building block of the church. I would do all I could to help every family see how important they are. I would be suggesting things week after week that their family could do to walk the city in Jesus’ steps. I would rejoice when a family helped out a handicapped person with yardwork, took a lonely older person for a drive and picnic, or any of the thousands of things that can only be done by a family.
If I were a pastor, I would feel tremendously privileged to show that the marriages in my congregation could become three times as meaningful when a husband and wife saw themselves as a team with a mission from God. I would absolutely love to lend these marriages a vision of how they could be the light of the world to other marriages, to homeless people, to neighborhood children of harsh parents, to their own children’s friends — together as a team.
If I were a pastor, I would feel tremendously privileged to teach each person that his or her friendships with other Christians are a powerful means of the church accomplishing its mission. I would show them example after example of where the world needs Christians to go out two-by-two or three-by-three with Jesus to help hurting hearts, befriend the friendless and help the poor.
I have a client who struggles with mental illness. He is a gentle man, very tender and caring. He is widowed and lonely. He would like to meet a Christian woman and spend the rest of his life with her, serving the Lord together.
I have a client waiting for his institutional church to help him become a key member of the church in friendships and marriage.