Perhaps no other factor plays a more central
role in shaping a church’s ethos than how it measures spiritual maturity.
As an inherently spiritual community, the
church’s gauge for spiritual maturity essentially defines success for its
congregation. In other words, the church’s measuring stick identifies the goal
that everyone ought to be shooting for. Is the ultimate aim to accumulate a wealth of theological knowledge? To be passionate about humanitarian issues? To be an outspoken republican? To become a central leader
in the church? To live a life of simplicity? To not do anything "bad"?
The easiest way to get a feel for how a church gauges spiritual maturity is by looking at its
leadership. These men and women represent the kind of lifestyle, discipline
and/or giftedness that is deemed worthy to lead (and thus most valuable) in
that community. In a way, they represent the quintessential believer because
they set the bar for what it means to be spiritually mature, or at least spiritually mature enough to lead everyone else.
If a church says
that true spiritual growth is revealed by acts of compassion, but the majority of its staff has theology degrees and spends most of its week in the church office, then
it is the latter that comes to be understood by the community as the standard
for spiritual maturity. Although that church might really believe that
spiritual maturity ought to be fleshed out through acts of love in theory, it is communicating
through its own action that in actuality theological education is the ultimate gauge for maturity.
This is extremely important for leaders to
understand because whenever certain qualities are considered more valuable than
others by a community, that community will find itself attracting, developing and retaining
people with those qualities. Over time, the community inevitably becomes a
reflection of its leadership.
Don’t believe me?
Take a moment to think of an established church near you that places a very high
value on biblical knowledge. They probably teach through the scriptures verse
by verse, use lots of big words with extensive theological meaning, regularly
examine the original Greek and Hebrew texts, argue that one biblical
translation is superior to all others, generally assume that people will bring a bible to church, encourages extensive note taking on
Sunday morning and
most of their staff have a seminary degree or its equivalent. Okay, are you
picturing it? Now survey the general characteristics of that congregation. I’d
venture to guess that the church you are picturing has a very high theological
IQ compared to most churches. Chances are that its members (like its leaders) would blast most of yours in bible jeopardy. These are the sort of people they attract, retain and develop because that is how they have come to define spiritual maturity.
Although the
details change, the story is always the same. Churches that use the Knowledge Gauge are really good at bible trivia and enjoy lengthy theological debates. Churches that use the Financial Generosity Gauge have white teeth, pleated pants and large budgets. Churches that use the Tolerance Gauge have a smorgasbord of sin issues and very few hard conversations. Churches that use the Faithful-To-Show-Up-Each-Week Gauge have
apathetic congregations and less and less young people. Churches that use the Involvement-In-Church-Functions Gauge have very full calendars and lots of single women. Churches that use the Frugality Gauge have small budgets, organic produce and no parking
issues. It all comes down to how you measure spiritual maturity and how that value is reflected in your leadership.
So how does your church measure spiritual maturity? What is your gauge? What cherished "spiritual" characteristic is most clearly modeled by your leaders as the most important? Is there consistency between this and what your church says it values most? Or how about between this and what you are asking of your people? If not, what needs to change? And most importantly, what does your gauge say about what you believe as a church? Is it biblically sound? Or did it generate from somewhere else?
(In part 2, I'll be looking at the way Mosaic gauges spiritual maturity and how that fleshes itself out in the church. It's probably not what you think...)
