Processing Brokenness in the Church

Not again.

Not another church leader.

When Mark Driscoll was forced to resign from Mars Hill, I thought the church would learn its lesson about the potential abuse of power from leaders who look nothing like Jesus...

When the sexual misconduct of Bill Hybels was reported, I thought it set the new standard for churches in how NOT to handle situations like this....

When James MacDonald was fired from Harvest for his slew of terrible actions and moral failures, I thought maybe we had learned our lesson on the importance of character in our leaders...

When Ravi Zacharias had his sexual abuse and rape reported after he had passed away from cancer, I was shell-shocked someone who spent so much time advancing Kingdom ideas had such a dark side that would eventually taint his work...

When Carl Lentz of Hillsong was fired for his moral and sexual failures, I thought the church might finally learn celebrity pastors aren't working...

I thought any of these examples would serve as "the canary in the coal mine" for the health of evangelical churches, that we might repent out of pure embarrassment for how frequently this is happening.

There's something deeply wrong with what we're doing.

This week, as many of you know, Bruxy Cavey, a pastor I worked with and greatly respect, was forced to resign from The Meeting House for his sexual misconduct and abuse of power. I, like many, am heartbroken we have yet another example of a failure in the church. I was shocked to find out this had happened. I've been grieved through this process and how this has been handled.

There are lots of valid responses and conversations that should happen regarding these failures of church leaders:

We can focus on the fact it's been all men taking advantage of the power they've been entrusted within the church...

We can focus on these issues coming from the system we've created that has little to no accountability for church leaders...

We can focus on the fact the church has grown ok with accepting that the ends justify the means, and these failures are one of the possible consequences...

We can focus on our response as a church when these failings come to light, where we still don't handle the situation well...

We can focus on our growing comfortableness with our church and church leaders looking and acting nothing like Jesus...

Amy and I have been listening to the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast - a story of Mark Driscoll and the fall of his megachurch. We're a bit behind as each episode leaves us hurt and angered that stories like this exist. The more we listen to the podcast and the Mars Hill story, the more we reflect after Bruxy's situation has come out, the more we are realizing there are errors in the approach. If you haven't listened(we highly recommend it), the podcast is filled with lessons that, at this point, have to be learned by the church. Specifically, we can't ignore the character of our leaders or the failings of our church just because they are producing results; the ends do not justify the means. Just because God shows up and works in people's lives should not lead us to conclude that what is happening is good or right. It is more so that we have a good and right God that still shows up despite our brokenness. God will often still show up even when leaders are broken and fail. God will often still show up even when our theology and practices are nowhere near Jesus. God will often still show up even when the church misses the mark. That doesn't mean we live with, accept, or at-worse embrace these shortcomings: We are not called to be a results-driven movement outside of how much we look like and act like Jesus.

While I would love to throw all the blame on THESE leaders and THEIR church's failures, that ignores any responsibility I should carry as part of the Church. Like it or not I'm part of the system that keeps seeing these shortcomings, so I need to be a partner in the solution. I think this is a symptom and consequence of a more significant issue rampant in most churches:

Anytime we build a church community around a person, a system, or any identity outside the personhood and teaching of Jesus, it's bound to fail eventually.

Any system outside of Jesus' call to love others will eventually lose its effectiveness, and we end up serving what we've built instead of being the Kingdom. People outside of Jesus let us down as they are broken individuals - regardless of how good their teaching and theology might be, they are still human. One particular church expression or distinctive theology, outside of what Jesus calls us to as a follower of Him, is not always a universal answer for everyone. Simply put, we can't love our pastor or our church expression more than Jesus (Mt 10:32-39). Our church has got to be about Jesus. That's the only goal.

Jesus commands us: "Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other." (John 13:34-35). That is our calling card to being the church and His followers. We, the church, need to repent as we have missed the mark - We have become known for how we love ourselves and our own tribe, our "right" beliefs, our "effective" systems, and our "celebrity" leaders. Being known for anything other than being "little Christs" is how we've gotten ourselves in this situation. We won't get ourselves out with the same approach of not putting Jesus at the center. When we are comfortable with anything that doesn't look like Jesus and what He taught, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment.

It's all too easy to fall into the trap where we say, "well, that's their church" or "that's their leader" or "that's their issue." Eventually, you will end up in heartbreak and disappointment, as I found out the hard way this week. I think it necessary to note that any church failure is the Church's failure; any church pain and heartbreak is all our pain and heartbreak - we as Christians are a family united under Christ. If you attend the Meeting House or not, this should grieve you as it affects all of us. Any deflection of it being "others" also deprives us of realizing our blindspots and where we espouse the same approach of putting ______ in place of Jesus. There's usually something there if we're open to seeing it, often just a different way of missing the mark of pursuing Jesus. Welcome to the wisdom of Jesus in saying we need to examine our own issues before we can hope to come alongside others and help them with their issues (Mt 7:1-6). We all need to collectively realize where we don't look like who we claim to follow and repent of all those ways.

While The Meeting House is not perfect and certainly has its issues, I never dreamt I'd see what I saw this week. My hope and prayer for the community I love, one filled with deep lovers of Jesus and with so many great leaders caught in the wake of this mess, is they continue to hang their hat on being a church focused on Jesus. Not Bruxy. Not a Podcast. Not Danielle. Not whoever their next leader will be. Not their new edgy ways. It always needs to first and foremost be a church that focuses on Jesus. Continue to be a community that wants to draw closer to Jesus, look more like Jesus, and continue to do what Jesus would do.

Lastly, I've often said Bruxy is the most Jesus-y leader I've ever met. I've never met someone who exudes Jesus and His ways and mostly lived out what he preached, obviously not including this whole situation. That's why this hurts me so much to see someone fail like this, to not represent Jesus in his actions, to abuse his trust and power and then to try to cover it up, and because of their role to bring shame to the church. It's a wake up call and reminder that Bruxy certainly is NOT Jesus and has his faults. This shortcoming does not negate all of the good things God has done through him, the teachings that have shaped people's faith, and the blessing he and his work have been to many people; I'm thankful God is still good and chooses to work through broken people. Though many would love to villainize Bruxy as an evil perpetrator, erase him from existence ("cancel him"), and not allow any space for forgiveness and reconciliation, none of that is the way of Jesus. I'm not saying this to defend him, downplay any of these actions, side with him over others, or to say that he should not be held accountable for what he did. I'm trying to remind us that just as our calling as individuals is to reflect Christ, our corporate approach to the situation as the church should also be to reflect the personhood and teaching of Jesus. Again, we got in this mess not focusing on Jesus, so the answer shouldn't be to not focus on Jesus in a different way. To Bruxy's credit, in his blog post owning his failure and him sharing about all this - his heart clearly wants to help people continue to focus on the author and perfecter of our faith:

"It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway – my failure is not a failure of the presence, power, or teaching of Jesus, but an example of the pain someone like me can cause when I ignore his presence and fail to follow his teaching. I am grateful for your prayers as I recommit to Jesus and hope to personally experience his restoration and renewal." - Bruxy Cavey

My plan is to flesh out some of these ideas in following posts. I have lots of half written blogs already about "cancel culture" in the church, on forgiveness and reconciliation, and on our calling to love people who oppose us. Stay tuned for more. I hope this is the last wake-up call we'll encounter. I hope we as a church will repent of any non-Jesus standards. I hope even in our continuation of dealing with this situation, one so close to home, we'll better reflect the ways and teaching of Jesus.

Let's spend our time becoming a community that focuses on spending more time with Jesus, being more like Jesus, and doing what Jesus would do.