Church Disappointment Is Multilayered

 

Church Disappointment Is Multilayered

October 11, 2024

Interview by Harvest Prude

Like many in America I’ve reached my own pivot point in my walk with Christ and membership with His body the Church. There are so many layers to the glacial disappointments I’ve experienced in the church, outside the church, and in myself so a serious in-depth examination is worth the time, as apologist Lisa Fields demonstrates for us. Here goes:

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"Why are people leaving the church or their faith behind? Some answers boil down to platitudes, like a supposed desire to pursue a sinful lifestyle. But apologist Lisa Fields has found the reasons to be much more complex.

Fields, founder of the Jude 3 Project, which equips Black Christians to know what they believe and why, has sat across from many people leaving the church. During these “exit interviews,” she’s discovered that somewhere in nearly every story lurks the specter of personal disappointment with God or Christianity. She addresses this thorny issue in a new book, When Faith Disappoints: The Gap Between What We Believe and What We Experience.

CT national political correspondent Harvest Prude spoke with Fields about walking with God in the midst of a broken world and our own disappointments.

Something from your book that really struck me is when you talk about unanswered prayers. How do we navigate times in our faith when we’ve sought out God for something and we feel overlooked because he doesn’t seem to answer?

For me, when God doesn’t answer my prayers, I have to have a real conversation with him about what he has not answered. My relationship with God is very open. There are times where I’m angry, and I have to get those feelings out of my mouth and out of my heart—because when I don’t voice my frustrations, I end up filled with bitterness and resentment.

There’s a quote from Tim Keller where he says—and I’m paraphrasing—that if we knew what God knows, we would want our prayers answered the way he answers them. I’ve had this experience in my own life. I remember a time when I wanted to connect with a particular person, a major donor who could help my ministry. But I didn’t have enough extra income to get to New York City, where he was based. I remember being frustrated, feeling like there were all these obstacles to networking and getting ahead. Only later did I learn that this person had just gotten arrested for embezzlement.

Sometimes, in your disappointment, you realize that God is letting you see things that you wouldn’t see otherwise or protecting you from dangers that you didn’t know about. In the book, I talk about a man I had been dating for almost four years. In the middle of our relationship, he got married to a woman he had been involved with behind the scenes for most of the time. This other woman had been married herself during most of the affair.

That whole time, I had been praying that God would make this man my husband. But I didn’t realize that he was actually protecting me from someone who had poor character, despite being a preacher. In the middle of my disappointment, I voiced my frustration. Then I gave myself time to ask what God might be trying to protect me from. What different direction was he trying to push me in?

In the book you talk about doing exit interviews with people who are leaving the church. As a reporter, I cover the intersection of faith and politics. How do you think political conversations have impacted people’s relationship with faith?

I think the political climate in America has really impacted how people there think about faith. Christians often go to rhetorical and ideological extremes in the name of faith. Recently, I noticed a group of faith leaders on social media saying that if you’re voting for Kamala Harris, you can’t be a Christian. Rhetoric like that, I think, creates this confusion gap for many in our culture, where they don’t understand what we’re talking about. Because the Bible doesn’t tell you which political candidates to vote for. In fact, it doesn’t even speak about voting in any conventional way, because the world of the biblical writers was a world ruled by kings and emperors.

When there’s a gap between what the Bible says and what some believers claim it says, for political reasons, it makes a lot of people want nothing to do with the church, especially when political leaders hijack the church for their own gain. And it makes believers look like hypocrites, which creates a problem for those who want to be part of something genuine.

In your conversations, how often do you find that people leaving the church are struggling with its failures and flaws? And how often, by contrast, do they seem motivated more by a desire to live without moral restrictions or guilt?

I think both answers can be correct, sometimes at the same time. Church disappointment can have so many layers. Perhaps we’re disappointed with God. Or we’re disappointed with God’s people, or people in general. And then there are certain things we just desire and want to do in our flesh.

There’s always a multiplicity of factors. When I’ve done exit interviews with people leaving the church, I’ve seen that it’s never just one thing. It’s layers of things that rock them.

If you could design a toolkit of practices for being a faithful witness to those who are struggling with the church or their faith, what would you include?

The first thing I’d encourage is to live out what you believe as best you can. And that doesn’t mean perfection, but it does mean progression. If I hold to the Bible being the Word of God, then I obey the Word to the best of my ability.

Because we all fall short, though, we have to be honest about when this happens. If I portray myself as living a sinless life, I’m actually undermining the authority of Scripture, because Scripture tells us we’re born and shaped in iniquity. Living out our faith means acknowledging our sins and committing to repent of them.

Another essential habit is loving people well. In The Message Bible paraphrase, there’s a passage in Philippians that I post every Valentine’s Day, where Paul is saying, don’t just “love much” but “[love] well” (1:9–11). That really struck me when I read it years ago, because there’s a difference between loving somebody much and loving somebody well. I want to be someone who tries to love people well. That means listening attentively and holding space for their doubts and frustrations.

Third, I think we need to practice being merciful. Like Jude says, “Be merciful to those who doubt” (v. 22). Remember what it’s like to have doubts of your own, and treat others who doubt accordingly.

And finally, remember to pray with people. With my own friends, I’ve been enjoying a beautiful season of us praying together. I can’t give any prescription on how to do it right. It’s not like we’re doing anything grand. We simply share our frustrations; I pray, they pray, and healing has taken place. And it’s not like my friends are well-known spiritual leaders. But that’s just a reminder that you don’t need somebody to be a spiritual leader for their prayers to make a difference in your life. 

You write about the importance of forgiveness to any process of healing from faith disappointment. How do we respond well when a fellow believer has hurt us or broken our trust?

In my own life, I was having trouble trusting someone who had sinned against me and claimed to have repented. My therapist said, “I’m not asking you to trust them. I’m asking you to trust God.” And that has helped me a lot.

I enter into relationships that have been broken, knowing that the person, being human, could break that trust again. But I’m aware that I’ve probably caused hurts myself and I could do it again. And because I want grace, I know I need to give it as well.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. I spoke earlier about the man who cheated on me during our relationship. It took me years to get to this point, but by now I’ve seen him many times since he got married. By the time he apologized, I was able to accept his apology. I was able to trust that it was sincere because I had done a work in my heart to forgive him.

Sometimes, you have to give yourself time. Years ago, I read a book on forgiveness. It said there are occasions when we tell people we’ve forgiven them too abruptly because we don’t know the full impact of their actions. If we announce forgiveness too soon, we’re only forgiving the initial impact when we don’t yet know all the layers. How will these actions affect me a year from now? I might have to forgive again, but at least I’m choosing forgiveness. I’m choosing not to treat you like you owe me because you hurt me.

When Christians face disappointment, you argue, a sort of syncretism can creep in. They might seek out New Age practices, for instance, if they feel that God has failed them. How should we approach apologetics in a culture marked by intense interest in alternative modes of spirituality?

Before criticizing the what in these alternative approaches, try to find out the why. Perhaps you know someone who uses crystals or consults horoscopes. Well, what’s behind that? Figuring out the why will help you get to the root of the issue.

Maybe this person was going through a difficult time and heard from a friend about something that could help manage the stress. And so, okay, so that’s how you got into that. Maybe this person had tried prayer and Christian faith but, for whatever reason, didn’t find them adequate. You can help someone walk through these deeper issues. For me, this is a far better approach than simply saying, “Don’t use crystals—they’re demonic.”

Love is a better draw than fear. As a pastor’s kid, I used to go to youth conferences around the country, and there was always an element of fear in the way we were encouraged to give our lives to Christ. And so everybody gave their life to Christ at every event—the same people every year. I “became” a Christian probably a million times as a teenager because I was scared.

But when life disappointed me, that fear wasn’t what was holding me. It was God’s love. I believe" in a real hell, and I believe that Jesus is the only way to eternal life, but we can communicate that with love, rather than fear, as the motivator. Because the fear will always wear off. Fear will never be your keeper.

Source: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/10/lisa-fields-when-faith-disappoints-church-hurt/

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” ~ Matthew 7:1-3

 

If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. ~ Galatians 5:15

 

These words of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul from 2,000 years ago hit so hard right now. The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is a post-mortem on the fall and destruction of one of the most prolific churches in the 21^st century. This was a tough one to listen to but I’m grateful I finally listened to it. It took me three years to consider listening and I’m glad I waited, because the lessons here sank deep. Chaulk full of 25 episodes with interviews and helpful and prescriptive contemplations, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill explored the death of one of the most influential and successful churches in America. It is also a convicting examination into my own heart and mind: the intentions, compromises, misunderstandings, and impulses. These are lessons for doing better in every space I operate in, with very real and well-intentioned people who operate in ways that are great examples of the very good, very bad, and very ugly. After listening to this helpful investigation, I had to find out who else was talking about it and how others were feeling about it. Carey Nieuwhof had one of the best takeaways I found, writing from a leadership perspective. I value good leaders, and being a good leader, so Niewhof’s lessons are prescriptive to me:

 

Originally published by Carey Nieuwhof

 

“Like so many leaders in the church space, I listened to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast…To say it was hard to listen to is an understatement.

It took me a month or two to even decide whether I would listen to it or not.

For those who may not know, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is a podcast produced by Christianity Today that chronicles the humble beginnings, explosive growth, and very public dissolution of Mars Hill, a megachurch that once had multiple campuses in Seattle, Washington (one of the most unchurched cities in the U.S.). 

Filled with interviews with former staff and church members, the focal point of the series is the leadership style of lead pastor Mark Driscoll.

Like many people I know, when I started listening, there were times when I shut an episode off, thinking I couldn’t go any further, only to resume it a day or a week later. The story is so painful for the multiple layers of hurt involved and yet crucial for what we can learn moving forward.

Eventually, I finished the series, but the ambivalence never really disappeared.

So, why this post?

Mainly because this is a leadership blog, and the patterns described around Mars Hill are not unique to Mars Hill. They’re not even unique to churches. 

The patterns can happen—and do happen—in varying degrees in many different churches and businesses.

While The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast isn’t a definitive account of what happened in Seattle (for example, despite attempts, former Mars Hill Lead Pastor Mark Driscoll didn’t agree to be interviewed for the show), it provided enough of a picture of the unhealthy happenings in churches and the dysfunctional happenings within leaders to convict me of my own sin (again).

For me, the most disturbing part of listening to the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill is that I saw some of myself in the story.

I recognized some of the same impulses in me.

There’s a shadow side of leadership, pride, and power lurking in most of us. Perhaps in all of us. At least, it definitely lurks in me.

And if you identify the unhealthy patterns in your own life, maybe you can catch it early enough to prevent it from harming others.

So, let me go first to say that everything I’m describing below is things I’ve had to wrestle down in my own heart and my own leadership. I hope and pray for progress and victory for all of us who lead, including the leaders and people who were part of Mars Hill.

Exposing the darkness in ourselves is one of the greatest ways to find more light.

Here are five reflections I’m processing after finishing the podcast.

There's a shadow side of leadership, pride, and power that lurks in most of us. Perhaps in all of us.

1. The Ends Actually Don’t Justify the Means

I’ve worked in a few places over the years: a law firm, at radio and tv stations, at a church, and for the last few years as an author, speaker, and a podcaster myself, running a small communications company.

You’d think it was easier to lead like the ends justified the means in a law firm or private company.

Nope.

It was easiest as a pastor.

For exactly the reasons described in the podcast, you end up saying things like:

• Well, more people are coming to faith than are leaving.
• I can’t be responsible for the consequences…that’s up to God.
• If it means more people come to faith, then let’s do it.

The church I led was not even close to the size of Mars Hill, nor did it have the influence of Mars Hill. But in the first decade of ministry, we became one of the fastest growing and one of the largest congregations in our denomination.

In the midst of all of that, some people got hurt. Often I moved fast and broke things. Sometimes I broke people.

Eventually, I realized that the ends don’t justify the means—that often different means produce much better ends.

I also realized that health and growth don’t have to compete with each other. You can have both. And if you can’t have both, choose health.

Listening to the podcast, I realized that what made those first few years of leadership so confusing was that great things were happening, and we were doing all of this ‘for God.’

In my heart of hearts, I believed that whatever we did that resulted in more people coming to Christ was a good thing.

Over time though, I realized that how you do what you do is just as (if not more) important as what you do.

In the church, more people is a good thing. But more love is even better.

As you have probably figured out, more love often leads to more people. But if it doesn’t, you’re still left with more love.

2. The Body Count Matters

I won’t go into the details outlined in the podcast, but one of the recurring themes was the body count at Mars Hill—the people who ‘fell off the bus’ or got pushed off the bus as it moved to new places and new heights.

For a season in my earlier years of ministry, we were growing quickly. But the underbelly of that season of growth was that we were simply growing faster than we were losing people.

It got so bad in some rapid growth years that I have a distinct memory of telling my team not to use pictures older than six months since there were too many people in the photo who had left.

I wince when I think about that now.

I don’t know why everyone who left ended up leaving (high growth and high churn seasons can be like that), and not everyone who left was mad or hurt—many tried it for a while and realized what we were doing wasn’t for them—but I do know that in all the churn, I started to form callouses around my heart.

When people leave or criticize you, it hurts.

The natural thing to do is to grow cynical, to stop listening to the disappointments and the complaints. And for a season, I did just that.

Had I let that go further, it’s likely I was only a few steps away from allowing the churn to be a badge of honor. Ugh.

Fortunately, I burned out after a few years of very rapid growth. I say ‘fortunately’ because, even though my burnout was the deepest pain I’ve ever gone through personally, I realize now that God was re-forming me in the midst of it.

I now think of my burnout as a divine intervention of sorts.

On the other side of burnout, I became much more sensitive to the pain and hurt I was causing, especially unintentionally. Often as leaders, we don’t mean to hurt people or even realize we’re doing it. Or we harden our hearts because we can’t stand the pain of people rejecting us.

I realized (and am still learning) how much of a mistake it is to close your heart to people or act like their leaving doesn’t matter. It does.

And while caring is hard, the ultimate damage of not caring is far greater.

Caring carries risk. So, leaders, please hear me. Your heart will get mangled, and you’ll be tempted to stop caring and trusting people altogether. Don’t.

So, you might ask, does opening your heart and caring about people stop people from leaving?

Nope. People still leave. Maybe not as many, but still, people leave. And it still hurts. (Toxic people are a different category, but most people aren’t toxic people. They just see things differently than you do).

People who disagree with you should be treated well and loved regardless of whether they are ‘with you’ or not. It’s not about you or me. It’s just not.

After I burned out and started to recover, we launched Connexus Church.

I look back on some of those launch photos a decade and a half later and smile. To my surprise and delight, most of the people who helped us launch are still with us.

And for those who left…well, if people were valuable to you when they came to your church, treat them as though they are just as valuable when they leave.

3. Charisma is a Double-Edged Sword

Culturally, we use the term ‘charismatic’ to describe leaders who have a magnetic pull to their personalities.

Leadership tends to attract and reward charismatic people. In the case of preachers, I imagine the concentration of charismatic leaders is even higher than in the marketplace as a whole.

Why? Many preachers are excellent communicators, and the ability to communicate is a significant factor in charisma.

So, what’s the challenge?

The good thing about being a charismatic leader is that people follow you. The bad side of being a charismatic leader is that people follow you.

As a charismatic leader, you have the potential to lead thousands of people to a much better future and the potential to lead thousands of people right off a cliff.

From the time I was young, people told me I had charisma. Honestly, I didn’t know what that meant at that point, but having led for decades now, I realize charisma is a double-edged sword.

The temptation to use your charisma to consolidate power and use it to your benefit is real. Another temptation is to form an inner circle of fans, sycophants, and enablers who won’t challenge you or pose a threat to your viewpoint.

I got to a point early in my leadership where I was so sensitive to criticism that I felt the impulse to create an inner circle like that.

Fortunately, prayer, counseling, and people who knew me and loved me enough to help me see the truth helped me realize that ultimately that’s a path that leads to death, not life.

This brings us back to the original meaning of ‘charisma’ for all of us who at some point have been called charismatic leaders.

Charisma is a Greek transliteration into English; it means both ‘gift’ or ‘favor’ and carries a sense of having a grace given to you by God.

In other words, to the extent you possess any, your charisma is a gift and a favor from God to be used and stewarded not for your glory but God’s.

Of all the character traits we can cultivate, humility might be the greatest when it comes to stewarding charisma. As I’ve learned, again and again, only humility can get you out of what pride got you into.

If you find yourself surfing off your own giftedness, humble yourself.

This takes quite a bit of intentionality. But I’ve learned you can get to humility through two paths:

1. Voluntarily
2. Involuntary

How does involuntary humility happen? Simple: When you’re humiliated by others or a situation.

Humiliation is simply involuntary humility. When you won’t humble yourself, others are happy to do it for you.

I’m trying to take the voluntary path moving forward. I don’t always get it right, but I’m trying.

4. Your Character Needs to Grow Faster Than Your Platform

As I listened to story after story during the podcast, I realized that the real issue is character. It was at Mars Hill and it is in all of our lives.

The challenge is that in an age of instant celebrity, your platform can grow faster than your character.

I think that’s one of the reasons so many megachurch pastors fail (here’s a post with some thoughts on why it keeps happening).

As we’ve seen too often in the church (so painfully), all the competency in the world can’t compensate for a lack of character.

Character is the great leveler. You may be smart, but if people don’t trust you, they won’t want to work with you. You may be the best preacher in your city, but if you treat others as less than, people will stop listening.

Lack of character kills careers, shatters families, ruins friendships, and destroys influence. And even if you never get fired or divorced over the compromises you make, your lack of character will limit the intimacy, joy, and depth you experience with God and with people.

Competency gets you in the room. Character keeps you in the room. As a result, it’s character—not competency—that determines your capacity.

Although I hear the argument all the time, I personally don’t believe there is anything inherently bad about a large church or organization.

But there is something inherently difficult in it. And to some extent, the larger something is, the harder it is.

Please know, this doesn’t mean leading a small church or venture is easy. I have led small churches. I get it. Few things in leadership are easy.

But I’ve also led some larger ministries and organizations, and the larger it is, the greater the pressure and the more there’s at stake.

I remember when our church grew past 300; my mind was blown. Now, it’s five times the size.

Or look at this blog or my podcast. Honestly, 100,000 readers or listeners was inconceivable a decade ago. Then millions showed up.

Nothing gets you ready for that.

It’s way too easy for your platform to outgrow your character. And that’s where all the danger lies.

Add to it one more fact: You and I are not naturally made to lead thousands or millions.

It doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It just means you’ll have to grow your character faster. Much faster.

5. Many Leaders Want to Be Celebrities—And The Internet is the Bullet Train

The podcast focused a lot on pride, narcissism, and the desire for celebrity.

It’s super easy to point the finger at a leader like Mark Driscoll, but that still leaves us with four fingers pointing back at ourselves.

And even if you don’t have a platform of your own, it’s easy to get a platform (a big one) by criticizing and destroying other people.

Before you deny that this applies to you, do a little gut check. Ask yourself, How good would you be with complete obscurity, with an irrelevance so deep nobody notices you or cares? 

Yep…very few of us are good with that. After all, God designed us to be social creatures and to live lives of meaning and purpose.

Interaction and making some kind of a difference are core to a meaningful life.

The challenge becomes, of course, that the internet is the bullet train to celebrity. Just ask any 12-year-old YouTuber.

There’s more than a little irony that The Rise and Fall of Mars Hills podcast criticized Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill for using the internet and social media to rapidly grow their ministry, while The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast itself was using exactly the same platforms as it became the most listened-to podcast in the Christian space.

And before you or I claim innocence or protest too loudly, well, you’re reading this blog post and perhaps you listen to my podcast or follow me on social and you’ll leave your comments online and…

You see?

Yeah.

It’s easy to criticize people with bigger platforms than yours, and in doing so let yourself off the hook.

A better approach is to dig deep and probe your own motives.

After listening to the podcast, I found myself asking questions like Why do I like the fact that my podcast gets downloaded so much, or how many people read my blog/buy my book/come to my talks?

There’s something ugly under that.

Alternatively, you can be so allergic (and self-righteous) about remaining obscure that your option becomes what…do nothing? Say nothing? Attempt nothing? That’s not faithfulness either.

Once again, humility and character are the keys here.

So what do you do?

Work twice as hard on your character as you do on your platform.

If we all did that, our posts would be more kind, our comments more grateful, our content more purely motivated.”

Source: https://careynieuwhof.com/some-reflections-on-the-rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/