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The self-serve transition

Henriette Reimer

Happy memories flooded my thoughts as I bumped into Amanda, a missionary friend from my hometown. We reminisced about the good times we had enjoyed as young people going in teams to present the gospel in rural areas. It was so good to see some of these rural people receive the gospel and become part of our congregation. We were also proud to have a missionary family of approximately 80. Our church was young. There was much enthusiasm and zeal for God.


However, when a very gifted pastor and his family came to serve our congregation, the church experienced a paradigm shift. As I recall, we now had no less than five choirs. Young people, especially, were able to use their gifts in a variety of ways. I taught Sunday school, directed a choir and had a very active part in the youth program. We lived only half a block from church. Missionaries from different countries of the world were often billeted in our home.

Our spacious backyard, with a brick barbecue, served as the perfect spot for young peoples’ gatherings. Evenings we would frequently gather around the piano to sing hymns and choruses and share what God had done in our lives. It was great. How fortunate we were to be part of such a vibrant congregation.

Before we realized it, however, more and more church functions vied for our time. Somehow there wasn’t time to reach out to the rural areas as we had earlier on. We now had “more important” things to do. We were having such a great time “serving each other” that the call to share all this wonderful stuff with those in the surrounding communities who didn’t have it got put on hold. I was getting confused. Wasn’t it our responsibility to be the scattered as well as the gathered church? What actually is God’s purpose for the church? There didn’t seem to be any answers. Eventually I became more and more immersed in my profession as a teacher and less and less involved in the life of the church.

Years later, though still in this struggle to understand God’s purpose for the church, I knew there was one thing I had to do. That was to surrender every area of my life to God. In the kitchen of our home, I vividly remember saying, “God, here’s everything.” That was a real turning point in my life. Although I had been a Christian for years, I was afraid God would rob me of something if I surrendered. I was wrong. He brought into my life people who were to have a profound effect on my future. My Christian life began to blossom. I became involved in an outreach organization, which provided an opportunity for me to introduce others to Jesus Christ through speaking engagements and home Bible studies in rural areas. But what about the church?

After moving to a different province, we came to a new church and met new friends. Surely now I would begin to understand God’s plan for the church. But here as well I noticed the paradigm shift I had experienced in my church back home. We were serving each other well, but nothing much was happening beyond the four walls of the church. We prayed for the fruitfulness of missionaries overseas, but we did not seem to understand the implications of God’s Great Commission for ourselves. There were too many functions and programs to attend. Like back home, we had lost our focus as a church.

These observations led me to write an analogy of a farmer with an unusual idea. About to seed his six quarters of land, he said to himself, “I will let nature take care of five quarters of my land and put all my seed in the home quarter. How nice it will be to see it come up thick and lush all around me.”

At first, it seemed like a good plan. The seeds came up more thick and lush than ever. But one day when he went to inspect his field, the farmer noticed many plants had died. Overcrowded, they wilted for lack of oxygen and water. The plants that didn’t die were stunted. Much of the seed went to waste. The home quarter produced next to nothing, and the other five quarters went wild for lack of attention.

This farmer’s dilemma resembles the landscape of some of our North American churches. Centralization has created an over-concentration of leaders in large urban churches. Participation by many has given way to performance by a few. This has stunted the development and distribution of leaders – and soon we don’t smell so good in the neighbourhood. Have you ever wondered why there are so many church splits? When the church begins to stagnate, God has His way of splitting and spreading His people around so the gospel can spill over “brick and mortar” into other areas.

Isn’t there a better way? We all know that when the farmer gets his act together and distributes the seed over all six quarters, he gets a harvest. The problem is, he wants everything to be so convenient.

Imagine, for example, how convenient everything was when the whole earth spoke one language. Like the church, these people had a “brick and mortar” problem. They said to each other, “Come, let us make bricks and . . . build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth,” (Genesis 11:3-4, NIVR). Before they could get any more ridiculous, God restrained them, confounded their tongues and scattered them all over the earth.

Does the church in its self-serve mode look much different? I don’t think so. How did we get here? The drift in the past 30 years has complicated outreach. Is there an alternative? What will be in store for the church in the 21st century?

There are no easy answers, but one thing is sure: God has a plan. One morning in the middle of worship, I embraced an unshackling moment of truth. I was changed. God had spoken. What did He say? “I will pour out My Spirit on all people” (Joel 2:28, NIVR). I understood God’s agenda: The gospel will have flesh and bones in the remotest regions of the earth.

I’m glad I bumped into Amanda. Her vision for the church encouraged my heart.

Henriette Reimer is a freelance writer and speaker from Swift Current, Sask.

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Last modified May 17, 2000.

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