Church leaders are sort of freaking out these days.
Uncertainty
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There are many reasons for this, and I am sure you can relate to more than a few of them. The uncertainty of participation in a COVID world. The decline of membership. The decline of finances. The reckoning of Christian nationalism. The nationalization of everything. The intersection of justice and mercy. Denominational splits and local church infights. New theologies and new mediums for communication…
The uncertainty of the sea change prompts church leaders dive into the resource reserves in the hopes to find something to help navigate the choppy waters. The way we typically think about how to solve problems is to either look to the past or to the future. Generally, conservatives look to see what has worked in the past to solve present problems. Progressives scoff at conservatives and say something like, “what got us here cannot take us there.” And so, progressives tend to look to the future to solve present problems.
This way of framing things overlooks the flaw that conservatives and progressives share. If we look to the past or the future church leaders are looking for what is sensible.
And that is a problem.
Sensible is attractive because, well it is sensible. Our minds tend to gravitate toward what makes the most sense and go in that direction. The sensible option is often an easier option to “sell” to others and get people on board. That which is sensible is also well supported by loads of books and resources, so it gives the impression that the sensible way is the best way.
Of course what is sensible to a progressive may not be sensible to a conservative. The Bible is full of examples of people doing the sensible thing but it is not what God desires. And for as easy as it might be to “sell” the sensible, it also instantly sets up an us/them divide where the “them” are idiots because “they” don’t do what is sensible able. In fact we often look to the other and say that their actions “don’t make sense.” It is also unhelpful for church leaders to be looking for the “best” way when we should be looking for the “faithful” way. But these are not the deeper problems with the sensible church.
It does not take any courage to be sensible. Faith is not needed to be sensible. In fact, courage and faith can be liabilities to the sensible church.
The call of Jesus to the church is not to be sensible, but to have courage to be faithful. The way of the cross is not sensible. Trusting that God is alive is not sensible. Resurrection is not sensible. Unconditional Grace is not sensible. Forgiveness is not sensible. Rejecting many leadership principles is not sensible. Reconsidering the core mission of the church is not sensible.
Desiring to be the sensible church is the symptom to our lack of faithful courage. We look to the past and the future for what is sensible, but the Good News is that we are liberated from being the sensible church. We are freed from having the answers, the best plan, the business model, the strategic vision, the marketing campaigns or any other action an organization might consider sensible. We are freed to be the foolish followers of the folly of God in Christ Jesus.
Maybe Paul was writing to the Sensible Church in Corinth when he wrote 1 Corinthians 1.18-25:
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.