Dealing with the Over-Churched
By Clint Byars
I
often have people come to our gathering that
have recently left another congregation, usually
because they didn't feel connected, they were
abused, or they were controlled. I see a myriad
of responses: people are angry they've never heard
the message we’re spreading, people are happy that
I'm not manipulating them for money, people fall in
love with Jesus again. There is a particular response
that I found confusing the first two or three years as
a senior pastor. I’ve now come to call it the ‘OverChurched Syndrome’. At first, I thought that people
who with this particular mindset were just ‘religious’,
but there's a subtle difference to be perceived here
that I hope will help you in your church as well.
the Over-churched Syndrome
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In our environment, we don't seek to control people.
In fact, we promote just the opposite. Our leadership
team works from the philosophy that people should
be free to express God naturally, according to their
own passions. Too often, churches develop an overly-defined culture in which people have to mold their
passions to fit into an aspect of the Pastor’s vision. I
believe, instead, that we should find out how people
want to express God and use our organization to
build people rather than using people to build our
organization.
In this kind of environment, there is no ladder of
leadership to climb, there are no unspoken rules that
people must figure out, and there is no culture to
which they must conform. Because we don't have this
ladder of leadership or an inner circle to squeeze into,
those with the Over-Churched Syndrome don’t know