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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Andy Griess and Bruce Peterson.
Andy Griess
We had another question come in and I think it's one that'll be interesting to you. You guys listen to KCMI on the regular, and while you're listening you may run across this Matthew West song called Truth Be Told. And a listener sent us a question about some of the things they were wrestling with that were brought up in this song. And so we're just going to read through some of the thoughts here in this song and interact with them as pastors, and just give you our perspective. So the song begins with line number one: "You're supposed to have it all together. And when they ask how you're doing just smile and tell him never better." And so this song is dealing with some of the things you sometimes see in the church that might be off putting to somebody who has some hurts, has some needs, has some baggage, and they're coming into the church expecting something from God that can bring peace, joy and love into their life. But when they come through the door, they see this vision of something that they're not sure if this is the place for them.
Bruce Peterson
Or they don't even come in the door because it's what they expect.
Andy Griess
Yeah. Our culture definitely gives us the conception that this is what you're going to find. If you come to a church, you're going to find people like this, who they act like they've got it all together, they smile, and you ask them how they're doing and they just say "Oh, never better. Life is good."
Bruce Peterson
And in my experience, I think part of that's true. So let's just deal with this, right? A lot of churches are judgmental. Certainly today, a lot of churches that get quoted or are in the news are there because the news loves to paint us as a group of judgmental people. Right? So they find the bad case scenarios and make us seem more judgmental. But to be fair, I grew up in judgmental churches. I certainly know judgmental people that go to church. I would also like to say a lot of people who don't go to church are judgmental as well.
Andy Griess
Yeah. (chuckles)
Bruce Peterson
Humans are judgmental. So the question is, is it okay if we take that judgement and put it on God and say that God therefore is judgmental because people are? So lie number one: Are you supposed to have it all together? Do you have it all together?
Andy Griess
No. No, but I look nice on Sunday morning. And that's what we do - we put on what we call our Sunday best. And if it's not dressing up, on the way to church you might have fights going on in the car, you might have arguments. Everything might be falling apart, but you step out of that car and you walk into church, you're gonna have it together.
Bruce Peterson
If your kids act out, it's like "You're gonna get it." (laughs)
Andy Griess
Of course we're going to do that. But the problem is, if you carry that over and act like spiritually and relationally I've got to be that way too. I think one of the things that the church doesn't do a good job of, because we put on those airs, is we don't open up to one another and we don't share our hurts and our struggles and our failures, and the efforts that we're making to overcome those failures. Those are things we don't talk about until we're on the other end of them and we got it all figured out.
Bruce Peterson
That's right. And I think this is a real shame. I think it's true that this is the expectation, we act like we have it all together. I think it is terribly detrimental. The message we should be talking about with every fiber of our being is that we are a group of people sojourning together on our way to heaven. We are learning from each other, we're mentoring each other, we are growing... which implies that we have growth to do. I don't have it all together, but I have it way more together than I did 30 years ago, right? I mean, there's progress. And yet I can say without any hesitation that I have farther to go. If this is a marathon, I'm about two miles in.
Andy Griess
And I think part of the struggle for a pastor and for a church member is remembering if you're 30 years into this journey, you didn't learn all those lessons and make that growth overnight - it's been 30 years of that. And more importantly, remembering that the starting point of that was God calling to you in your sin and saying "You are broken. You are my enemy because of your resistance and your rebellion. Are you ready to leave all of that behind and accept the forgiveness that I have for you? Let's start here with faith in Jesus." And if, 30 years out, you look at where you are today and you're only concerned about your own progress, then you're not part of a church because there's people coming in that are brand new every time, and they need that very first lesson.
Bruce Peterson
And I think when we have that attitude, we look at the church and we don't see how we fit in when the fact is, if you have 15 years in you have advice you can give. You have support you can give. You've made progress. How did you make it? Sit next to someone who's clearly entering the church and say, "Listen, I'm not here to judge you. I'm here to tell you if you hang in there for 15 years, here's what it took me. You can do this!" We can all be encouragers instead of judgers. We can all own our sojourning progress and really contribute significantly to other people's lives.
Andy Griess
Yeah, and I think we should have the attitude that "If it took me 15 years to learn this, I want to make sure it doesn't take that guy 15 years because I'm going to take those things that I learned the hard way and give him a hand up."
Bruce Peterson
Yeah. And the other side of that coin is, I'm not going to expect him to make in four months the progress that took me 15 years. Or, I'm not there yet, I'm faking, and he better really turned around and yet I have all this secret stuff going on. So we agree that's a lie - you shouldn't have it all together, but we do also agree that the church is a place where you can make progress.
Andy Griess
Yeah, absolutely. Line number two says that "everybody's life is perfect except for yours". I think that's what comes out of church, people pretending they got it all together. It leaves people coming in with this idea that everybody's got it figured out. And so it says, "You keep your messes and your wounds and your secrets safe behind closed doors."
Bruce Peterson
That's right. So the idea is if I come to church believing that everyone's telling me the truth and I'm going to church to find help because I have problems, but I get there and they're all saying they're fine, then somehow God has forgotten about me. They have power I don't have, they have blessings I don't have, somehow there's a gap between me and God because clearly if you're doing fine, you're healthy, you're wealthy, you are blessed, your children obey you every time, you have perfect self discipline...
Andy Griess
This must be a place for people who have it all together.
Bruce Peterson
...or God has lost me somehow. So that's terribly detrimental. Again, James says to confess your sin to one another because love covers a multitude of sins. Love like church should be a place where we acknowledge that we're sojourners. Paul says, "Listen, I know you want to give up. I know your tears. And I'm telling you, hang in there, suffer with me. Do the long haul." Paul himself says "I haven't arrived yet, but I have to get up every day and forget yesterday and press on to what God has called me for." Like, this is hard. Living by faith is hard. The world does a great job trying to suck us in. And if it's a war, there must be a battle. Like God describes it, our battle is not against flesh and blood. But again, if there's a real battle and none of us are struggling, then it's not even a battle.
Andy Griess
And this is one of the key reasons why the church is so important - because if every one of us has to start off that huge battle with just whatever we've got, it's overwhelming.
Bruce Peterson
It's overwhelming.
Andy Griess
When I do pre-marriage counseling, when I'm getting a couple ready for marriage, I'm gonna tell them marriage is the hardest thing that you've ever done, but you're not the first person that's had to go through all of that. This church is filled with people who've been married 20 years, 35 years, 60 years. And if you're a part of this body and you're getting to know these people and your lives are connected and you're raising kids together, somebody here has gone through that and failed, and they can tell you why they failed or did it successfully. And they can tell you what the keys to success were. But being connected to a group that isn't just pretending, we've got it all together, that's open and sharing, that's the thing.
Bruce Peterson
Honest, open and growing, that's our theme, right? But getting people to actually do it is much trickier than putting it on the wall.
Andy Griess
In the question that was sent to us, they keyed in on the second verse which says "There's a sign on the door that says come as you are, but I doubt it. Because if we live like that was true, every Sunday morning pew would be crowded. But didn't you say the church should look more like a hospital, a safe place for the sick, the center and the scared and the prodigals like me."
Bruce Peterson
And that's going to come out of passages like this. Jesus in Matthew 9:10-12 says this: "While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with Him and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, 'Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?' On hearing this, Jesus said 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. But go and learn what this means - I desire mercy and not sacrifice. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners'." So out of that idea comes this idea that churches should be hospitals. How do you react to that?
Andy Griess
It comes from this idea that Jesus said, "I came for those who are sick." And I take that to mean - we're all sick.
Bruce Peterson
Yeah, that's right.
Andy Griess
He came for those who are willing to recognize that they are sick.
Bruce Peterson
When he says "I'm not here for the righteous". He means the self-righteous.
Andy Griess
If you consider yourself to be righteous, you don't need any help, you're going to stay where you are for the rest of your life - Jesus has no help for them. His help is for those who recognize that they're sick, that's why you go to a hospital. And the church was founded with people who recognize that they're sick. They found that Jesus had the answer. He's forgiven their sins, His spirit now lives in them, they've been given new life. They have now a mission to be the light of the world to take the message of Jesus to the world. They're to go to the rest of the sick and say, listen, if you recognize you have needs Jesus is the answer. We found him. We're learning to be what he called us to be. And we want you to join us wherever you're at. Jump right in and let's go. So it should be in some sense, a functional hospital.
Bruce Peterson
A functional hospital, that's the key. So the full range of a hospital is not just an emergency room, right? Our message isn't just, "Hey, Jesus forgives sin, so just sit in the pews, be as sinful as you want with no expectation of health, you're here simply for forgiveness." I think that's wrong, the church isn't just an emergency room. A hospital's not just an emergency room. You have the emergency room, and people who need real help should feel totally welcome, that's where they can go for help. Then you go from the emergency room to a care room, you get your own room maybe on floor two and three. And then four, you go to rehab. The goal is to leave the hospital healthy or at least relatively healthy, right? It's the whole gamut. So yeah, you should have people who aren't judged. You should be able to come in because you don't know the message of grace and what God's love can do for a person. At the same time we're all patients, but we're all also doctors, we need to help and we should have an expectation of growth, and we are the light of the world. So we can't stay people who need an emergency room. We have to move all the way to people who are just coming for a little rehab and we're leaving healthier to go reach our world.
Andy Griess
And just to kind of wrap things up: if the church is going to be that kind of a hospital, the goal of everybody should be, "I'm gonna take what Jesus has done for me, and I need people in this town to know that if they're broken and sick they don't have to stay there. There's a place where they can come." And so the people that have been healed are the ones who reach the rest.
Bruce Peterson
That's right. In this whole song. I think Matthew West is pushing the church to be real. Be sojourners, don't be fake. If we all own our issues, then we can demonstrate a real process and real progress, and then we can actually be real help to those who need it. So people who need help - all of us, but some desperately - should be able to come sit in our pews, get our healing, get our help, because we have all gotten help. We should offer help instead of judgment, and we should have a "in" door and "out" door. You come in sick and you leave a little healthier. And if we do that for the course of our life, we'll make a huge difference.
Andy Griess
And I think the reason this song kind of conveys a sense of sadness is because the world knows this is what the church should be. It should be our vision as the church that we want to be the light that Jesus intends us to be.