Status Quo

By Terry O’Casey

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem is one of the world”s holiest sites, at the place where many believe Jesus rose from the dead. On that sacred spot, a stalemate has occurred between warring Christians.

A ladder rests on the Greek Orthodox Church portion of the building, beneath the right window that is controlled by the Armenian Church. A drawing from 1834 shows the ladder fossilizing even back then.

The ladder is a statement of power and control. A law called “the status quo” enacted in Palestine, first by the Turkish Ottomans in 1757 and reaffirmed in 1852, prevents the ladder from being removed without both sides agreeing. They haven”t agreed, and so the ladder hasn”t moved. The two parties don”t intend to work together.

LADDERS EVERYWHERE

Certainly churches in America would never have such problems. What was decreed a half-century ago in your congregation, ratified decades later to keep the peace, doesn”t really work anymore. But you know what will break loose if anyone touches that ladder.

In turnaround churches (dying congregations wishing to be biblically, relationally, and missionally rebooted), we find ladders scattered everywhere. They rest on one party”s controlling portion of the church, yet lean onto another group”s sacred turf. The message for the unchurched entering our congregations is simple: Don”t touch those ladders!

Our ladders of status quo are like icicles frozen in time, clinging to churches, chilling the air for those who come to worship. Our ladders are dusty remnants cluttering our witness. Try to remove them, try to call them in question, and watch how your church erupts into a cage fight.

Ladders come in all different forms. What and where are your sacred ladders?

“¢Â Budget committees telling faith-filled elders what they can do. They”ve set the budget in stone, and even God will not be allowed to intervene until the year is over! Power and control! What fine deists we become. Budgets are great guidelines but not gods.

“¢Â Dress police who find and verbally fine a young man wearing a hat in the sanctuary. Never mind that Jesus probably wore a head covering when he prayed. Does your preacher refuse to dress up like a suit coat-and-tie stiff in a coffin? Instead””the nerve””he wears his shirttail out and . . . oh my . . . oh no . . . jeans.

I know, I know, we are coming before God, so we should wear our best””right? Wrong! God is our Abba, our Dad. Do a Google search for the image of John-John Kennedy crawling under his dad”s presidential desk. Check out what the child is wearing. Also check out every New Testament reference to sanctuary. How is the temple of your heart?

“¢Â The deacon elected as board chair, informing the elders he or she is in charge. The elders can take care of the spiritual matters. The deacon/chair is in charge of the other 90 percent. Power and control.

How corrupt our biblical language has become, losing biblical relational simplicity. Broken families coming to your church don”t need to know you have a chairman of the board. Such phrases are obscenities to the unchurched! They need to know you have spiritual fathers, elders, who coach and parent! Repent of your ladder!

“¢Â Bylaws, sacred status quo agreements, are like hard-fought custody orders between feuding parents at the expense of the kids. Why is it we often lead more by law than by grace? Do you have church members who search the bylaws more than the Bible for how to select leaders? At your next leadership meeting, look around. Count how many Bibles are out and used. I bet your chair and secretary have the bylaws though! Power, control, ladders.

“¢Â Interior decorations of your congregation. Does your congregation echo the 1970s? Are your church walls sterile, cheap, apartment white? Are drapes hanging like ghosts from a past century? Was your paneling also installed in the “70s? Do you have needlepoint ducks and fake pink flowers in the men”s restroom? Ladders.

“¢Â Hunker in the bunker meeting places. Are the vast majority of your Bible studies occurring in a living room in the world, as salt and light, or in classrooms at the church? Aren”t we to be influencing the world God loved enough to send his Son? Maybe we just don”t love the world like God does. Perhaps the last supper of the upper room was just that, the last supper, the last time some churches left their bunkers to be in a home. Power and control and ladders.

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT LADDERS

Note some facts about these ladders

“¢Â The ladders are never out back behind the garage or church building. They are usually at the front door. Everybody sees them . . . and they become a part of the décor. Ladders shout, “We”ve got friction here.” “We”ve got POWER and CONTROL issues””usually revolving around money””at this clubhouse.”

“¢Â Ladders are our sacred relics. Catholics might have remains of Jesus” cross, and the Greek Orthodox church might have the bones of Mary Magdalene, but we have remains of ladders!

Relic ladders remind us of how church was done 50 years ago. They are reminders of the beloved minister, two pastors ago. Ladders hearken back to a charter member”s contribution last century, for which the church put up a brass plaque in the foyer commemorating the Wurlitzer Dracula music organ.

“¢ Ladders usually aren”t . . . ladders. Their functions have morphed from getting somewhere to going nowhere. Insanity is expecting new results while doing the same old thing. Ask yourself a Dr. Phil-style question, “How are those working for you?”

“¢ Ladders lead to amnesia. “Now exactly who put the ladder up, and what is the purpose?”

“Well, um, we don”t know. It was here before us, and we are going to honor it.”

“¢Â Ladders are about power and control in the church of the one who gave up all his rights to connect with a hurting world. Listen to Paul as he removed the ladders of power and control from a fighting Philippian church:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death””even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:3-8).

Are you bold enough to move some ladders . . . for good?

In February 2009, someone moved the ladder in Jerusalem to another window! Alas, in each church there is the Clandestine Ladder Restoration Team (the CLRT). The ladder in Jerusalem was returned to its status quo spot a few weeks later.

How long does “restoration” take at your church? Where are we in this ladder war? Don”t move a ladder merely for the sake of change. Don”t move ladders that still serve a biblical function. Still, be courageous enough to ask, “Got any ladders needing to be removed?”

We may not need as many ladders if we get off our high horses and become foot-washing servants with Jesus. Grab an apron and wash each other”s feet.

Remember: Simply Jesus, simply the Bible, and a simpler way of doing/being the church.

Are you in?

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Image link: http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=1&ArticleID=4

Since 2007, Terry O”Casey has served in a joint partnership with Oregon Christian Evangelistic Fellowship and High Lakes Christian Church to reenergize the small, 25-year-old church plant in one of the fastest-growing areas in Oregon””the Bend-La Pine region.