The Church Renewal Podcast
The Church Renewal Podcast
When Jesus Disciplines His Church: Learning from History to Move Forward (Conversation 2 of 3 with Dr. Ken Quick)
The Church Renewal Podcast explores how congregations can address their corporate history and discipline in the second part of our discussion with Dr. Ken Quick of Blessing Point Ministries. Churches often resist examining painful history, but Christ's love demands honest confrontation with the past to experience true renewal. Listen to Part 1 here.
The 8th Lette by Dr. Ken Quick.
• Churches exist as corporate bodies, not just collections of individuals, subject to Christ's discipline
• Jesus disciplines congregations he loves, sometimes removing their "lampstands" when they fail to address sin
• Biblical examples like David and the Gibeonites show God holds communities accountable for historical wrongs
• Sacred or solemn assemblies provide a biblical model for churches to corporately address sin and hear from God
• Structural changes (new constitutions, leadership models) fail to solve spiritual problems without addressing root causes
• Effective church renewal requires humbly listening to "the Lord of the church" rather than applying quick fixes
• Churches must take responsibility for their history, including reconciling with wounded former members and pastors
• The renewal process should involve the entire congregation in listening to the Spirit's guidance
Find infö on all of Dr. Quicks books.
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Welcome to Season 3.5 of the Church Renewal Podcast from Flores Coaching. Why is this 3.5? Because we weren't quite done with Season 3.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I'm Jeremy. I'm Matt.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us. When we wrapped on Season 3, there were some conversations that we left on the table, which we're giving you now in this mini-season. Pull up a chair as we sit down with some of our colleagues. We're privileged to be partners in ministry with these leaders and together we serve your congregation, hear the Good Shepherd and navigate through seasons of change. We'll also hear from some local church leaders Flourish has been grateful to work with directly. We'll speak with them about their personal and corporate experience. Thanks again for joining us. Let's get to it. This is part two of the conversation with Dr Ken Quick of Blessing Point Ministry. If you haven't listened to the first part, you'll find a link to that episode in the show notes. Let's jump back in.
Speaker 4:I picked up Ken from his house today on the way here to podcast record and we were joking that that old quip, the beatings, will continue until the lesson is learned. I think that certainly my own experience as a pastor, and as even just my own lifestyle and the ways of the Lord, has had to correct me over time and incur damage to my body because I wasn't learning the lesson. You know, and I think Jesus loves his congregations too much for them not to get the message Right, because they won't bear the sort of fruit that he's created them for unless they do. And he loves it, you know, a good father dispenses his children right.
Speaker 3:And again, I think we're so used to it. This is the impact of Western culture on us. It's individualistic. So we think in terms of our individual walk with Christ and we know how Jesus deals with us. I mean, you know he says those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. So discipline is part of discipleship. It's just what we experience and we know what happens if we get off track, if we start to neglect spiritual things. What happens to our moral life, to our thought life? We start to pay a penalty. Why would it be any different at a corporate level?
Speaker 2:What's scary to me about that is that the picture of the church in the New Testament as the body of Christ is not a group of individuals. It's a corporate body that Jesus has said he's going to wash, he's going to cleanse, he's going to present to himself pure and without blemish. If there's a blemish in it, it's me. If he's going to present the body to himself pure and spotless, without blemish and I'm still a blemish that fundamentally means without blemish, and I'm still a blemish that fundamentally means as an individual, he's willing to see me removed from the church in order for the church to be purified.
Speaker 2:And that's a scary thought for me as a Westerner who says well, my salvation is about myself and I'm joined to the body of Christ, and Christ is going to redeem this, he's going to do the work in it and he's going to do it for all of us. I don't see that, though, when I look at the New Testament. Paul says hey, if the brother's sinning, if he's not going to repent, put him out. Jesus says if the branch isn't bearing fruit, cut it off throw it in the fire.
Speaker 3:Well, and you get that at the church level too, where Jesus told the church at Ephesus that you know you have left your first love. You know repent and do the first works. If you do not repent, I am coming and I will remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. So I mean serious. And we know churches that have been turned into restaurants that you know are a library are. You know they're used for something else. Now Something happened in those churches that they ceased to function as a church. And I don't think it happens overnight, I think it happens slowly, but it obviously happens obviously happens.
Speaker 2:So the point of overlap here that I was really excited about was the looking backwards in order to correct your moving forward, but also the idea that both of you guys talk about in your separate ministries and in your separate ministry styles of what you just called the solemn assembly, what you called the sacred assembly. Ken, would you, just because I know the story here, would you tell us where the idea of the Sacred Assembly and, touching back on something that had happened historically, where you saw that in Scripture and how that built into something more in the ministry under when the temple was built in Jerusalem under Solomon.
Speaker 3:I think he started with a solemn assembly when they dedicated the temple. His great prayer in Chronicles that we always quote, 714, that that was probably the first solemn assembly. But then you see repeats of it under Josiah, you see a repeat under Ezra and Nehemiah Very powerful solemn assembly. And God calls for solemn assemblies around the feast days. So that was something that when people came to Jerusalem to celebrate both Feast of Unleavened Bread as well as Feast of Tabernacles, that they were to hold a solemn assembly, usually on the last day. So it has Old Testament roots and I think that we just have recognized that that is an event that translates really well to a corporate body like a congregation, when they are dealing with kind of the big issues that God has been speaking to us about, that we need to take responsibility for, because the words and the role of leadership is very similar to that Old Testament model that you say.
Speaker 2:Yes and amen to all of that, but that was Solomon. Wasn't there something, though, with David that maybe Solomon saw take place?
Speaker 3:There were events with David. I'm not sure I can think of a solemn assembly with David. He had to deal with the Gibeonites, but it was not. I don't think David called for a corporate solemn assembly. Are you thinking of something that I'm not?
Speaker 2:It's either the Gibeonites or the Amalekites, and Joshua's work with them. The Amalekites I think it was the Amalekites or the Gibeonites. It was one or the other.
Speaker 4:Dear listener, we need your help. The Gibeonites.
Speaker 2:You know text 10777 right now Was it the?
Speaker 3:Gibeonites In 2 Samuel 21,. You have David recognizing that the Gibeonites, that God has put the nation of Israel under discipline. They've had a famine for three years, year after year, it says. And David, in the third year of the famine, thinks maybe I better ask God about this.
Speaker 3:Like many a pastor experiencing wave after wave of pain. Maybe I ought to ask God about this. And God says yes, it's because of Saul and his bloody house. And I'm sure David at that point thought Saul, saul hasn't been around for three decades now. What are we talking about Saul here? He's Saul's bloody house because he sought to eradicate the Gibeonites with whom the Israelites had a covenant. And so David gulped and thought well, you know he could have easily thought on our like. We think you know that was a different administration.
Speaker 3:You know I'm not Saul. Why am I being, why is the nation being held responsible for something that happened three decades ago? That you still have an issue with this? I mean, why am I having to deal with this now as a leader? And we're experiencing present pain for this.
Speaker 3:And so David goes to the Gibeonites and says what do I have to do to make this right? Do I have to do to make this right? And with a lot of Middle Eastern kind of bargaining going on, they finally come to the point that Gibeonites say give us seven sons of Saul and we will hang them before the Lord. And the sons of Saul are pretty much all gone except yeah, I think they're all gone and it's only grandsons that are still in existence. But the seven grandsons of Saul are hung and you think, wow, so that far a distance. But God is still holding them responsible, still holding the present leaders responsible to make this ancient sin right. And for you know, for us who want to just say, well, it's not in the New Testament, grace has changed that? I'm not sure it has.
Speaker 4:Well, you think of it. I think of two illustrations of the New Testament, about Ananias and Sapphira and the word that's spoken afterwards, that you know, depending on your translation, like a great fear came over the church. You think of the Corinthians. Can you imagine that morning you know where the elders in Corinth stands up and reads that letter? Some of you are sick and some have died.
Speaker 4:Because you've this meal that we're going to take a little later. You know you haven't come to it the right way and so it's not just an Old Testament thing. Right, the Lord is those letters what I say. I just actually preached on Pergamon this past Sunday. It's ironic, but I say when I preach on Pergamon this is no dead letter. This church doesn't exist anymore and it's because the Lord called them to repent, and he was serious, I say about Ephesus. You know, what he threatens is hey, if you don't repent, I'm going to take the light and leave with it. Right, and that's tons of churches where it's. One of my board members puts it that they exist by the arm of the flesh. Right, they don't exist by the spirit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've told churches that. You know the Ephesian church probably still had their sign out in the front of whatever yard they were in and there was probably singing going on every Sunday for who knows centuries after that. But the Spirit of God had gone.
Speaker 2:They were faithfully having their trunk retreat. Jesus was there.
Speaker 3:So I think this is a lot more serious and has a lot more to do with history.
Speaker 3:What's going on in your church in the present has a lot more to do with history than you may be aware of, and there's a reason, a sovereign reason, why God put you there as a pastor and as an elder, because he has led you on a journey that has brought you to this place at this time to face these issues, and they may be generating things from your own background that God's been trying to deal with.
Speaker 3:So we are convinced that this is an example of God's sovereignty in splendor at work, of God's sovereignty in splendor at work, where God is dealing with both the individuals and their journeys, as well as the corporate body and its journey, and he is doing it. And who could do it but God? Who could deal with all those things but God? But I am convinced that that was true of me in my ministry in Toronto. He was dealing with me and my background and working to heal that, while at the same time working to heal my church, and it was only going to be if we listened to him that that healing would take place.
Speaker 4:It's interesting. I wonder if this will get um like this will be an easier argument to make with churches, you know, in coming years because there's so many more people that are familiar with the present challenges that I have as a Christian certainly are about my discipleship, but they go all the way back to my family of origin right, and if you do any work in genogram right, it may go further back than that I've been. I was, I was saying to these guys at dinner that that, um, both of my dad's parents were um alcoholics and I don't, I don't know all the impact. I know the impact that it had on my dad and the way that it changed the way that we grew up, but I don't think I know all of that. I don't think I've wrestled with all of the impact of the way that that has influenced me, right, but I know that it has. And if we're getting more comfortable with you know the things that I currently struggle with they flow out of my own family's history. It shouldn't be as big a leap.
Speaker 4:I don't think, if more people are familiar with that, to think, oh, our church has an origin story that has led us to where we are now and that might be influencing things right now. So I wonder if this will get easier. I don't know. What do you think? You've been doing this a while. Do you think it's?
Speaker 3:getting easier for churches to grapple this.
Speaker 3:No, I have, At least that's not our experience I think people are fundamentally resistant to. I think there are a number of dynamics that affect it. Pastors may be more open, but to convince a lay leadership that a church our experience is the way I would put it and I often put this to churches when we first kind of are in contact with them is that we see our ministry as the equivalent of where a husband and wife have just gotten to the point where they are on their way. They're driving to the lawyer, the divorce lawyer, to begin proceedings because they cannot take it anymore. And as they're driving down the road they see a sign that says you know marriage counseling. And he looks at her and she looks at him and she says you want to take one last stab at this? And we are that ministry. It's like the wheels are coming off.
Speaker 3:Churches don't like to publicize their pain. They try to cover it. They try to cover it on a Sunday morning. They try to cover it in their, especially when they have an anniversary and they tell the history of their church. They sanitize that history. They make it sound so much better. They don't talk about the pastors who left under cloud. Our church in Toronto had pictures of the pastors, except the ones that left painfully Under duress, under duress. So churches are used to sanitizing history and then we get Philippians 3.14 quoted to us all the time. Yes, we had. Yes, our pastor left under a cloud, yes, there was a mess there, but we are forgetting what lies behind. We are reaching, but we don't want to think about all that stuff. Why are we going to be thinking about that stuff? That doesn't help and that's, I think, a lot of the feeling of churches. It doesn't help to think about that stuff. That doesn't help, and that's, I think, a lot of the feeling of churches. It doesn't help.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you specifically about that. I know you've worked with a number of churches over the years. Is there more resistance from the pastor or from whatever the leadership board is generally when you get to that?
Speaker 3:point. It just depends on the extent and depth of the pain. Churches try everything to figure out how to get out of the pain. They'll hire staff, they'll fire staff, they'll remove elders, they'll change constitutions that's one of the favorite ones They'll go from congregational form of government to elder form of government. That's going to fix everything. Darrell Bock, naturally, pete Slauson and these things do not. If you are under the discipline of the Lord of the church, you will not escape by doing that. So the question is are we under discipline from the Lord of the church? You've got to look at your history and listen to what the Spirit is saying to be able to figure that out, pete.
Speaker 2:So can in your, in your work. It's distinct from what Matt's doing in that you're going to church, where they're not necessarily saying we have a pastor who is leaving or has left or is about to leave. You're coming in and the pastor may have just arrived and you're starting this work. And yet the same sort of investigation, the same sort of humble approach of questioning, asking what is our history, what's our story and what is Jesus saying to us, is very similar to what, Matt, we've talked about this entire season, Yep.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. So our first phase in working with the church in transition which is what this season is all about is our first phase of church health assessment. We're trying to answer two questions when has the church been and where are we now? Where have we been and where are we now? So the question of history and present health, that's what we're trying to figure out. And there's an indirect question that's also in there, which is kind of an italics, you know, kind of jagged to the side, which is and how do we get here?
Speaker 4:Because a lot of times, if we discover a church with, you know, significant distress, one of our recommendations will be hey, you can try and plow forward into the next phase, but you really got to deal with your stuff and you have to deal with your stuff in the interim period, in the transitional period, because it's just not fair to have the next guy come in with this. And so when we uncover stuff that church needs to deal with, this is a more overt way of doing it, but we'll kind of be like, yeah, you ended up here for a reason and if you don't deal with these things, you know it may well recur. So if you don't deal with these things, it may well recur. So if you don't deal with it, it may be at your own peril. So that's the intersection point is that you're helping churches with and this is, I think, something for us to think through is they're on their way to the lawyer's office and they're like do you want to give it one last shot? And they reach out to Blessing Point. Many times like I'm thinking of a client. I met with one of our staff today where he's going to go and do interviews on site next week with this client and it's a fairly young church, maybe 20 years old, and you know they would sort of self-acknowledge.
Speaker 4:The church planter stayed too long and he's a good starter, but he was not a good. I call him a consolidator. Right Helps you with your processes and your systems, and he just stayed too long and people got frustrated and he got frustrated and he left right. He said not awesome, but they were very. They were not careful in the selection of their next pastor.
Speaker 4:Probably in reaction, they picked somebody very different, very common mistake to make, swung the pendulum and they got a guy that made it not even 18 months and they're brought up short and they're like, okay, we're going to stop and we're going to do this right this time, and I don't know exactly what we'll find. It may be that that's what we find and we say, okay, let's do this carefully this time. And I don't know exactly what we'll find. It may be that that's what we find and we say, okay, let's do this carefully this time. Let's make sure you know who you are and what you're looking for, and there may not be a huge big deal there, as opposed to a different client that Ken and I were talking about earlier, where the church planner had an affair with an elder's wife and we're trying to recover from that trauma, and that's an entirely other thing. Right, they're in the same circumstance, they're without a pastor, but they're entirely other Question for you.
Speaker 4:Many times when Flourish is brought in to work with a church, they're not in that obvious of distress and they don't want to go with them alone. They know they need some help. But trying to help them really grapple with the issues that they have when we uncover them can sometimes be really challenging Because we're advisory. We write a report, we walk through it with you, we give you some recommendations, but what you do with it it's really yours what to do? How do you help churches kind of own what you uncover, help them actually really grapple with it and help them be like it's really important you deal with this before you go forward. How do you help them like own it and maybe it's a I don't know if that's a clear enough question.
Speaker 3:Well, I think part of that is the way we teach our seminar and kind of, you know we do some teaching to again like to shift the paradigm so that they understand exactly what our role is. We're coming in as facilitators. We're not going to tell you what Jesus is saying to you. You're going to tell us what Jesus is saying to you and you know we're not going to tell you how to handle what Jesus is saying to you. We can give you some input if you have questions, but generally we see this as between you and your husband, your divine husband, and so we step out of the picture.
Speaker 3:We do not want to be seen as someone who's leading your solemn assembly. That is your responsibility. You will have to identify those things that you need to take responsibility for and that you need to make right. And there may be people, and there may be people who left wounded lay people, but there may also be pastors that you wounded and their wives, and you need to make that right and you need to do what Jesus says you have to do. You've got to understand this is really about the Lord of the church giving instruction through the Spirit to you as a body, and you all kind of have to own it. You can't say that's their responsibility or theirit's our responsibility. It becomes ours.
Speaker 4:So you're pushing it back on them for them to take responsibility.
Speaker 3:From the very beginning. We make that clear that we are here as facilitators. We are here to help you hear. But you have to understand this is really about you and the Lord of your church. He is not going to hold back to telling you what you do and he is going to use you to make that information clear. So you don't need us and you don't want us telling you those things. You want to hear those things and so that's what we see and again, it's extraordinary to watch this happen.
Speaker 3:I'll just tell you one quick story is we often tell churches to invite keen teenagers to the historical retreat Because, I said, we tell them that they will see the church operate in a way that they have probably never seen, and it will make such sense. It will look just like you thought the New Testament church probably looked, because it does. You see the Spirit of God working in people and we say you know that's what you're listening for, is you're listening to the Spirit of God whisper to you and to give input on whatever historical event we're talking about.
Speaker 1:We're stopping our conversation here and we'll pick up in next week's episode. Thanks for listening to the Church Renewal Podcast from Flourish Coaching. Flourish exists to set ministry leaders free to be effective wherever God has called them. We believe that there's only one fully sufficient reason that this day dawned Jesus is still gathering his people and he's using his church to do it. When pastors or churches feel stuck, our team of coaches refresh their hope in the gospel and help them clarify their strategy.
Speaker 1:If you have questions or a need, we'd love to hear from you. For more information, go to our website, flourishcoachingorg, or send an email to info at flourishcoachingorg. You can also connect with us on Facebook X and YouTube. We appreciate when you like subscribe, rate or review our show whenever you're listening. It can be hard for churches to ask for help, so when our clients tell us who referred them, we'll send a small gift to say thanks. A huge thank you to all our guests for making the time to share their stories with us. We are really blessed to have all these friends and partners, and a special thanks to Crosspoint Church in Arnold, maryland, for generously letting us use their space to make today's episode. Thank you.