Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s)

Last night as I cleaned up after a little family birthday party for my mother-in-law, I was listening to a podcast. The regular hosts were having a chat with a guy from Australia who has been through a few crazy cycles with the institution of the church. I believe once he was “let go” from his job as a pastor… which served as a wake-up call that “the church” (meaning, the system… the programmed institution) as it was had some pretty major flaws. So, he and his family avoided such a setting for something like nine years?

After all that time, a little Baptist church asked him to be their pastor. The church was very traditional, very Baptist, and he of course said, “No thanks!” But God said, take it. So they did. And slowly over the next few years they, along with that whole group of believers, worked themselves out of that system until nothing was left of that group. They are all still in contact, but all felt that God was leading them to something different… perhaps more free that what they had before.

As I listened, I started to think, “Man! Maybe that’s what we should do! Could we do that??? Would I have the patience to go through helping a group of people de-structurize? But it sounds so cool! What a great story! I should try to do something like that….”

Within 5 seconds after I thought all of that, I realized how silly I was. 🙂

What is this unquenchable drive to duplicate? Why is it that when we hear a story of some good thing that God did through another believer, it makes us think, “Ooo! I should do that too!” I realized that I was really just trying to do what the church has done with every current manifestation of itself (at least in this culture)… I was trying to DUPLICATE.

They spoke about this a bit later in the podcast I think. Or maybe that was just me, my thoughts, and God having a little chat in my head? For some reason we can’t help but try to capture again a moment, or a season, or whatever where we saw God do something incredible. It must somehow be able to be duplicated, right??

Not necessarily.

Yes, God seemed to have led them to take that pastorate… and yes, in my eyes, it turned out pretty great. But so far, God is not leading me to do that… so if I were to do that, it would most likely be (in some way) a big flop. I would be trying to copy – in my own effort – something that God had done somewhere else, but was not asking me to do. THERE’S the point. God leads, we follow. It’s not the other way around.

So, I’m not sure I can say that God is behind “Mega churches”, but I am saying that we probably shouldn’t be trying to copy every little thing they do. God wants to lead each of us, and even groups of us as the church wherever we are. He is our Shepherd, and we get to follow him … daily. So, if today he asks me to do something, and it works fantastically, is very “fruitful”, or whatever… tomorrow it’s not my job to go out and do it again. It’s my job to get up, listen to what he is asking me to do, and do that. It might be the same thing for another day, week…. maybe a year or two. OR, it might be something totally different. And that might be even harder! Who wants to leave something that’s going so well? (Just ask Brett Favre!)

I really don’t think formulas, systems, programs, methods, etc are helpful in the kingdom of God. From what I see in the Bible, and in the life of Jesus… he was not about that. He responded to each individual, and each situation, and each leading of God. Perhaps that’s what we could do too. Listen to where he wants ME to go, and just follow.

I don’t need to be making copies anymore.