Be like a cockroach be a better church

As you may have heard there have been of late several acts of vandalism carried out on a number of churches in the last few weeks.  While this is far from the kind of persecution that Christians in other parts of the world experience it is something unusual here in America.  The acts of lone individuals in personal fury are different from the acts of the state as a matter of policy.  However, we can be certain that the dark powers of evil are equally behind both.

I am not interested in proposing or discussing conspiracy theories about grand plots against the church in America.  I am interested in a more micro scale of potential persecution of the church, persecution and the local congregation.  In short, could your congregation survive a season of persecution?  Would the function and ministry of your church end if you lost your senior leadership?  What if you were completely barred from using your facilities or if going to the church building was highly risky?  What if your technology was compromised and everyone who logged in to watch a service or communicate with other believes were at risk?  Could your church worship and study if there was no polished music team and magnetic personalities?

In most congregations in our country if you rounded up a small cadre of key leaders the church would cease to function.  We have not done a very good job of passing key ministry in the church from a few key leaders to members at large.  In most churches there is a high degree of specialization associated with leadership.  This may facilitate ever-larger congregations, but it does not allow for a “next man up” approach to ministry in the church. We are all familiar with teachings about the priesthood of all believers; it is just that we haven’t done much about it.  We are tempted to say, “Persecution can never happen here.”  There are a great many things that have happened in the last year we never believed possible.

This may be the time for the church to look for new, actually ancient, structure.  Rather than organized around large congregations and buildings with a few central leaders the church could take on the structure of underground operatives.  It would be hard for an elephant to take over a house, but roaches are another matter.  The impact of a 3,000-pound elephant could be easily countered. But how hard would it be to capture, kill or restrain 3,000-pounds of roaches?  As long as we organize ourselves around buildings and large gatherings we remain an elephant or maybe a dog if we are a smaller church.  What we need to do is to be more like roaches.

Stop for a second and imagine a 5-gallon bucket of live roaches (about 10,000) and that bucket is up ended in the middle of your living room floor.  Now stop and imagine someone turning loose a 40-pound dog in your house. Which will be easier for you to remove?  Let’s become like roaches.