Getting over itself

This post is from the defunct blog “Dying Church”

Mike Yaconelli, who was tragically killed this week, challenged the church to get over itself. Mark Oestricher, president of Youth Specialties, said of Yaconelli:

He thought that the church needed to get over itself, stop taking itself so seriously, and focus more on being in love with Jesus. He had very low tolerance for bureaucracy and red tape and process and committees. Institutionalism was very frustrating to him. He would regularly talk about his desire that a church staff meeting would be about talking about Jesus rather than about programs and calendars and carpeting.

This is the same guy who wrote words that began to shape my thinking in an article called Getting Fired for the Glory of God. What he said of youth ministry is probably true of ministry in general:

I'm beginning to believe that if those who are called into youth ministry follow the lead of the One who called them, getting fired is inevitable. Why? Because, in general, the institutional church doesn't get it. The institutional church has become hopelessly corporate, hopelessly tangled in a web of secularism. Instead of the church being the Church, it has opted instead to be a corporation.