@ Iron Sharpens Iron: Day 2

Plenary Session 3: Barriers to a Caring Church
Bill McRae

In his first Plenary Session on Friday night, Bill McRae pointed to seven barriers to caring in a church. The catch is, we've all got some of them. The question is which ones are negativly impacting our church the most, and which ones we as individuals must deal with.

1. A Spirit of Partiality. Despite early changes in the church to prevent favoritism, James was still dealing with it when he wrote decades later. We are sometimes divided on cultural, racial or class lines, but sometimes we just don't like people. The new, "Christian" way of dealing with this is ignoring the people you don't like. It's wrong, and we need to confess it as sin.
2. A Distorted Vision. While there are a number of factors that need to be considered when we move forward in our churches, it we don't include community, we will most likely forget it, which results in an uncaring church.
3. Misplaced Values. This one occurs a lot in the workplace, so it easily translates into the church if we don't pay attention. Christ valued people above everything else, but we often place programs as more important. We step on toes to get things done. Our responsibility before God is to demonstrate our love to one another, not make sure that the special music is perfect every Sunday. We need to stop being masters, and become loving parents.
4. The Curse of Complacency. We see this in the Church of Laodicea. We often get to a point where we are happy and satisfied. As Jim Collins put it in his excellent book Good to Great "Good is the enemy of Great." If we are happy with the way things are going, we will not put in the effort necessary to really reach people. Why should we? We like the Kingdom the way it is. It's important to separate satisfaction from contentment. Contentment is not worrying about things you cannot control. Satisfaction is not worrying about things you should be doing. This is something that I struggle with on a regular basis.
5. The Blight of Busyness. This is the opposite of complacency, but just as damaging to people. We sometimes worry so much about getting things done that we forget that the most important thing is to love. We put off people to accomplish what we feel has to be done.
6. An Unforgiving Spirit. McRae claims that this is the easiest and most common access rout for sin into the church. I believe him. We so often hold out on our love, poison relationships, and cut apart the body of Christ because we have not forgiven. True forgiveness must occur in order for love to take its proper place, and the bitterness that unforgiveness produces can rot away all the love a church has ever had.
7. A lack of Prayer. This one hit me between the eyes. I've never had a fantastic prayer life, but it's dwindled down to almost nothing in the past three months. It's disgusting. And I can see it reflected in how much I care, because that has dwindled as well. Fortunately, McRae also provided the antidote: Start Praying, and don't stop. He pointed out that if we truly care, we will pray for one another, but if we don't care, but start praying anyway, we will begin to care. I'm testing this theory out by setting aside time to pray more specifically and intensely than I ever have in the past. I'll let you know how it goes.