How Efficiency Sabotaged the Modern Church

When the ancient Jews were building the Temple of God, they had a unique restriction on how they handled the stones for it. "The stones used in the construction of the Temple were finished at the quarry, so there was no sound of hammer, ax, or any other iron tool at the building site" (1 Kings 6:7).

In Hebrew thought, an iron tool was believed to violate a holy structure. We see this same idea in the book of Exodus: "If you use stones to build my altar, use only natural, uncut stones. Do not shape the stones with a tool, for that would make the altar unfit for holy use" (20:25).

I imagine one or two people over the years had to observe this process and note its inefficiency. Why couldn't they use tools at the temple site? They could have shaped and refined everything much more easily. Surely there were quicker and better ways to do this.

But the means by which they built the temple dramatically shaped the ends of the experience with God there.

Today, we might see all this as a trivial detail that doesn't apply to us as Christians. Except that a few of the writers in the New Testament referenced this idea when describing how the people of God were being formed into the church. Paul says it like this: 

So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him you Gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

When Paul references us being "carefully joined together" as a "holy temple," the original audience would have immediately made this connection. Ah, it's about people now rather than buildings. And we're like the stones of the temple. And then Peter says it like this: 

You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God. (1 Peter 2:4-5)

The church is a perpetual temple under construction made out of living stones. But I come from a tradition that excelled at creating tools to build the church efficiently. Not just iron tools... but power tools. As a result, our creations kept getting quicker, and better, and most of all bigger. And it seemed to work for a long time.

Years ago, I was part of a church staff team that went through the book Axiom by (now disgraced) pastor Bill Hybels. Bill was a key voice for the efficiency that many of us couldn't absorb fast enough. Here is one of his arguments from the book:

Only the most mature leaders can overcome the great temptation to enlist the first warm, willing, low-numbered body they see. After all, people who rank lower on the scale are typically more malleable, less stressful to manage, and more easily impressed by a leader's prowess. They make for a spectacular ego stroke. It's a stroke that comes at a high price, though, because when it's time for that person to invite someone onto the team, they'll follow suit and look for people with scary-low leadership levels.

Did you catch what he's saying? A good leader wouldn't just embrace a person who wants to lead in their ministry. They must assess whether the person's leadership level is sufficient to warrant a seat at the table. Rather than a priesthood of all believers, we might refer to this as a "priesthood of the elite leader believers."

These last few years have shown me that the efficiency we've adopted has become a means that changes the ends themselves. Peter reminds us that it is God who is building this new temple. But most of us have preferred our own tools instead.

In referencing this idea in evangelicalism today, author Michelle Van Loom writes:

Evangelicals have learned to build better bricks. But God has never chosen to use mass-produced bricks to build his church. Downsizing means we will leave our brick-making skills behind us and recognize that he's always and only built his church from living stones, on the cornerstone of his beloved Son."

We basically turned into a spiritual Home Depot. But perhaps it's time to put down our tools. And even more challenging, people like me (and maybe you too) will need to walk away from some of the brick-making skills we've developed.

All of us will need to release our expectations of structures that can only be shaped by tools.

I believe Jesus is inviting us into something more mysterious, and messy, and slow, and beautiful. It will likely appear very inefficient compared to what we've grown accustomed to. And it will probably involve fewer boardrooms, spreadsheets, and quarterly reports. We may find we don't need many of the things we've come to view as essential. I suspect Jesus wants to do something new with these living stones gathered together, built on Him as a cornerstone.

No tools needed.

Photo by Paul Zoetemeijer on Unsplash