Becoming a Blessed Church
N. Graham Standish
Alban Institute
Looking at the title I start with a certain bias in reviewing this book; my understanding is that the church is already blessed. Maybe I could suggest a different name: You are a Blessed Church, Now Get with the Program. Perhaps that wouldn't do either, since what Standish clearly wants is less program, more prayer. Less plea that God would get behind our schemes but more a seeking of the will of God in this matter. This always raises for me the question of how we know the voice is that of God and not a devil or delusion. Maybe a subtitle could read: Listening for the Voice of God in Community.
Standish begins with his own story of an early discovery that there was much hypocrisy in the church. Leaving the church while a teenager, he eventually became a counsellor but found his way back to the church and to ministry. It may be helpful to know that Standish has a doctorate in spiritual direction and this has surely shaped his understanding and approach. Spirituality is at the heart of the congregation and the attendant gift of healing ministry is also evident. "To love is to heal," Standish observes.
In worship as in other matters, the congregation includes the traditional along with the contemporary. His critique of the contemporary mainline church is primarily threefold:
- It is shaped by ministers who are too academic — in large part though not exclusively so, thanks to the seminaries. There may be better ways of saying this as it could sound like God is present more in feeling than in thinking. Such a conclusion would be hotly contested by generations who were taught and believed that God speaks through our hearts and minds but our emotions are less to be trusted. Standish is nuanced however and would have me posit the contrast as putting trust in "our ability" on one hand and being open to the Holy Spirit on the other.
- Many congregations are dysfunctional as they seek stability and resist change. First they lapse into functionalism (the wrong things in the rite order) and this eventually and inevitably leads to that form of breakdown called dysfunctional.
- Many pastors are unhealthy, indeed broken. There are congregations that have the habit of breaking a minister every few years and many ministers who do not have the spiritual resources to challenge and change that pattern.
On the other hand the Blessed Church is one that sees itself as the Body of Christ, has a vibrant sense of faith, hope and love, is a church filled with God's purpose, presence and power, embraces the sacred and is not afraid to serve God in its own way. Later chapters describe how to bring about these changes.
Standish insists on a Trinitarian understanding of God through this book but his emphasis is clearly on the Holy Spirit.
I commend to you the appendices which cover 14 subjects with good suggestions and helpful ideas, including: discerning budgets and the budgeting process, stewardship, becoming an elder, creating a prayer group and a guide to healing prayer. There is much that is worth pondering here and each chapter has reflections designed to help that process.
This is a book that is worthy of (prayerful) consideration. I have found it to be challenging and shall continue the dialogue with it along with other books that are designed to help us be the denomination and congregations that God would have us be.
