The Backward Way We Work

Ask any business guru how to build toward success, and they will give you a similar process of choosing a purpose, establishing a plan, and then pursuing that plan with passion as you live out your purpose. It’s an old chiasm that shows up on repeat in the business leadership section of the bookstore. We could stop this article right here, and that nugget would be enough to make this article worth reading.

Purpose to Plan to Pursuit with Passion

or

Passionate Pursuit of a Plan that Fulfills the Purpose

There you go. Now, be successful.

But that’s not enough because while the above formula is true, it does not account for how dishonest we will be with ourselves. We love success. We love to accomplish. We brag about our busyness, especially if that busyness accomplishes our goals. So we will fudge the to-do list by adding things we’ve already done just for the feeling of marking things off and a sense of accomplishment that so much was achieved. The trust is we add new things to the list, then mark them off merely to justify that we were distracted from our goal, got sidetracked (with often productive things), and did what wasn’t our plan.

What we often do is we lie to ourselves. We went a different way than we planned, and then we argued that we were taking the scenic route or wanted to take the longer-than-planned route because it allowed us to see something new. We pull a “Bob Ross,” painter extraordinaire famous for his happy little trees. He was great at convincing us that when we make mistakes, we work them into the picture as if they were our plan all along. “We don’t make mistakes. We just have happy accidents.” That might work well on a canvas, but it doesn’t work in the real world.

Churches also have a way of doing this. We tend to go along with an idea (few churches have plans other than to “do things God’s way” with no clear picture of how they will do that other than to “do what we’ve always done”), year after year, and then that practice becomes who we are. We alter our beliefs to match our practice. We quit wondering how we can do things better and focus on how right we are that we do things the only right way, which is how we’ve been doing things for years. This might call for an example.

We have an “altar call,” more commonly called an “invitation” or chance to “come forward.” We do this at the end of every Sunday and Wednesday service; if we decided to end without an invitation, some would become livid. Some would argue that it is unconscionable not to give someone a chance to get their life right. We invite people who are in some secret sin or in need of committing themselves to Christ to walk down an aisle with hundreds of eyes on them (what I call the “walk of shame”) and sit in front of a large group of people and have someone announce their sins to a group. It’s rarely, if ever, used. Those who want to be baptized will likely have a private conversation with someone they trust and plan their baptism. Those who need to confess their sins are more likely to do so with someone they trust and not bear their shame before hundreds of people (and even more if it’s live-streamed). It’s an old practice that has little effect and is even counterproductive. If we aim to help people respond to the truth, why are we making it embarrassing and difficult? Shouldn’t we remove barriers to people’s responses? What if we sent people to the foyer to speak to the elders in privacy? What if we had a room they could go to and receive the counseling they needed? What if our “invitation” were about the purpose of response and changed hearts, not the tradition of “what’s always been done.”

Yet, if it were to be taken away, or the invitation was changed, so many of us would balk at the change, demanding that the “walk of shame” is proper because it forces people to fight with their pride and humble themselves before God (arguments I’ve heard). Walking in front of a large group of people you might or might not know is not about someone’s relationship with God. The person who “comes forward” has already had that fight. They are just asking for help. Let’s help them and create better opportunities for that help.

We need to get back to our purpose—a clearly stated and understood purpose, like Paul’s words to Timothy: “Now the goal of our instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith” (1 Tim 1.5). If we filter our plan through this purpose statement, we’ll find whether our practices pursue this goal. Whether we are talking about the “altar call,” how we distribute the Lord’s Supper, the style of worship, the organization of our Bible classes, the groups and activities the congregation performs together, and more, all will become clearer when we fulfill our purpose.

We need to quit changing our “purpose” to match our practice. That is justifying and excuse-making. Instead, we need to change our practices to fit our purpose. Then, we can know we are doing what is right.