Lost in Church
Published: September 02, 2009
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This is a phrase I have been thinking a lot about lately. The more I talk to people in church ministry the more I see this common thread throughout those “ministering.”
I don’t know that these words have been used to explain it, but I think that so many church employees are lost in church.
Now, before you get on your spiritual high horses and ream me for implying that you are not saved let me unpack what I mean. I don’t mean that you are “lost” in the term the church uses….I mean have you lost who you are in the machine of the church?
Let me give you a bit of my story. I have been employed by a very successful church for about 5 years. It has been enjoyable….but the longer I was there the more discontent I have felt. The more I began to hate what I did….and more than that who I had become. I was too busy to minister alongside my husband, too busy to connect with my friends out side of the four church walls. Through much thought I realized that I had lost myself in the machine. And to no fault of the church, I had surrendered myself into the machine and lost me. I became lost in church.
I personally think that I got so behind the business of what we were doing and forgot who God had called me to be. Those He had called me to reach. The calling and dreams he had placed inside of my heart.
I was lost.
No dreams, no vision, and lost in what I was doing as Lynse and not as “Lynse the church employee.”
Because what I had forgotten is that God created me for a reason and to reach people. Yes, he called me to serve my local church and reach people there, but He also made me with a specific calling and purpose….and I had lost that.
And for some reason I don’t think that I am the only one who over time has become lost in the church. Business, tasks and accomplishments is what I was lost to…I had lost the day to day relationships and human contact with those outside of the church.
How can we as “church leaders” keep from getting lost in church and lost in the machine?
Anne Jackson serves on staff at Cross Point Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Her articles have been published in a variety of print and online magazines, and her blog, Flowerdust.net, is ranked as one of the top blogs in Christian Leadership with hundreds of thousands of pageviews a month. She is an advocate for Compassion International, a down-to-earth communicator, and an all around dreamer. Anne has an unwavering passion to see the Church grow, thrive, and fulfill its purpose. Her book Mad Church Disease (Zondervan), February 2009.
Today’s post comes from Lynse Leanne. I met Lynse when I was visiting Nashville for a conference a few years ago. Somehow I ended up in her wedding and she’s ended up sleeping on my air mattress and we’ve been friends ever since. Lynse has some serious cajones for being such a young girl. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Copyright © 2012 you129 & Lynse Leanne via Anne Jackson. All rights reserved.
