Paul warned the church in Philippi not to put selfish ambition first in your life. He said to think as highly of others as we think of ourselves. He did not discourage ambition; he simply focused it to proper use. Paul talks of he who desires the position of an overseer desires a good thing. He is not promoting a mentality where everyone walks over you like a doormat. But he is saying don’t let your ambition harden your heart towards others. It is not all about you succeeding at the expense of others.

This attitude of succeeding at the expense of others is prevalent in western societies to say the least. People don’t generally care about others and their welfare. Its what’s in it for me! Profit on investment and its maximization have been the core belief of many entrepreneurs and businesses. What is the bottom line? They will move factories from one country to another to maximize their profits without thought of the employees or the country left behind.

Paul says to have the same attitude as Jesus did. He laid down His life for us. He was looking far beyond the present for the sake of the whole. This attitude should be and has been at times the attitude in the church. We aren’t in this for only what we can gain. We are on this planet to fulfil our destiny, which manifests itself in the realm of the common good.

The church today seems to be labouring under the same spirit that permeates the world. Success measured in terms of bigness and prominence is the driving motivation. We cannot measure success in the kingdom of God on the bottom line of dollar signs. We can only measure success by our love for one another. That love cannot be expressed simply by measuring the numbers of people in attendance or the totals of the offerings.

Paul in I Corinthians 13 says, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love is the greatest. How is this love shown? Verses 4 to 7 say, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” We often don’t see these qualities expressed within the church. Some of the conflicts are far more expressive of the opposite of each of these. Paul talks about the ability to move in faith and to prophesy without love as nothing. We can do that, in fact, we can have all knowledge and wisdom, even give everything to the poor, but without love in the heart of it, we are nothing. It is considered as nothing of value or impact. It is all show with no real effect or substance. Yet we can do it and wow others with it. But without love it is nothing.

Many in the church have the attitude expressed in that Tina Turner song: “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”

When my dad was asked to join the church by the minister, he told him that he didn’t want to as the church was filled with so many hypocrites. The minister looked him in the eye and said, “There’s always room for one more, Neil.” With that my father joined the church. The church is full of people who aren’t always true to reflecting the love of God to the world. It is a problem.

I worked with a friend who had given up on church attendance. He had been a missionary in a desperately poor country. When he returned he went into reverse culture shock. He said it was like stepping off of the planet for three years and then jumping back on. He didn’t know how to adjust and his church didn’t help. They had sent them, greeted them when they returned and went on with life as if these people had never been away. No one asked him how he was doing and no one asked he and his family around and no one prayed with them at all. He was offended and no longer going to trust himself to an organization like that again. I did confront him on the fact that he kept saying He loved Jesus but didn’t want anything to do with His church. I told him that he couldn’t truly love Jesus if he didn’t want to have anything to do with the church for the church, unfortunately, is His body. If you don’t love His body how can you love Him?

The Body of Christ is far more than the organization that meets on Sundays in buildings with spires, sound systems and songs on the wall. It is those who name the name of Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and fellowship together. Two hands coming together; one, confession of His lordship, and two, meeting with other believers. It’s a problem when you forsake the other believers. Despite their hypocrisy they are part of Him and He’s coming back for us all.

The root of hypocrisy is planted in the soil of Adam’s sin and his inheritance to us of his nature. When he sinned, he and Eve knew they were naked, exposed, so they covered up and hid. The immediate consequence of sin was self-preservation. That is further confirmed by Adam’s accusation that it was Eve’s fault and ultimately God’s for giving him such a wife. Ever since the time of Adam’s sin mankind has been protecting self from harm. They try to appease evil spirits from bringing bad fortune or poor crops. They have even developed a bill of human rights to protect themselves from each other.

We are afraid, afraid of death, afraid of pain, afraid of each other. The knowledge of good and evil made us the victim of its consequences. We can only overcome this through receiving what Jesus did for us. When we believe in faith, we are manifesting trust in God to cover us, protect us and provide for us. But we wobble along the way. We have faith at the time of salvation but we grow in faith through revelation of whom the Father is and how much He loves us.

The problem with the church is the presence of renewed fallen people in the gatherings. We are saved, we are being saved and we will be saved. Our sins are forgiven, they will be forgiven if we sin too but we are still capable of relying on our sin nature and acting out of it.

I think the greatest failing of the western church is our inability to forgive. We have all these high expectations for the church, and then people hurt us. They are just like us, but we leave mad. We are supposed to be able to forgive and move on without living in distrust and holding long accounts against others. I know that people have offended me, but I know that they have grown in the Lord too. If I have grown, they have. Sometimes it is like the reaction we have when we haven’t seen people in years and then we meet them again. We have held them in an image of what they looked like then. My, look how you’ve grown! Or, my god, look how old he is? These are all comments that come to mind. People change in the physical and if they love Jesus, they will change in the spirit too.

So for the church to be the light of Christ to the world we need to start acting like Him. When He hung on the cross, He said Father forgive them for they know not what they do. Today, people still don’t know what they are doing. Yes, it may feel like they are crucifying you but we need to forgive. We need to put down our shield of self-protection and accept the possibility that we might be wrong or part of the conflict. My reaction to a wrong can compound the effects even if I wasn’t the initiator.

The world is waiting for us to love one another. All the worship evangelism, prophetic evangelism and mass evangelism isn’t going to have much effect if we don’t love each other. Dang, that’s going to hurt.

The question I have posed in the other two articles on the condition of the church is why is there so much heartache, pain and disappointment in the church? I have written about the expectations we bring into the church with us that are all unstated but are the filters through which we judge the church. There are more reasons than this, which create heartache and pain in the greatest institution in the world.

The next cause of disillusionment is the God-given gift of leadership that is inherent in everyone. When God created man He gave him dominion to rule and organise the earth. This gift was given to all mankind for all are created in His image. As in the corporate effect of Adam’s sin so the corporate impartation of leadership. Man forfeited incredible capabilities when he chose self over God. His confidence was replaced with fear and a preoccupation with self-protection. Rather than move in the original commission man became obsessed with covering himself. The role of leader over the creation had been abdicated but not revoked.

When the God given gift of leadership was used it was used abusively as Jesus pointed out in the book of Matthew. He said the gentile leaders lord it over the people, but not so with us, we are to be a servant of all. The attitude in kingdom leadership should be one of caring for the welfare of others, be it people, animals or the earth. It shouldn’t be for plunder and self-gratification that has no regard for who it hurts in the process.

This gift is activated within people, as they become believers in the risen Christ. Suddenly men and women who have shown absolutely no ambition for promotion or responsibility in any capacity want to have a say in leading the church. Paul addresses this phenomenon in Philippians when he says there shouldn’t be any selfish ambition found amongst us. Its selfish in that it often is about self-promotion and place rather than service. Christians want a say in how everything is being done in the church. What they aren’t saying is they want things done their way.

It is bittersweet in that it is the gift of God being restored but unfortunately expressed the same way, as it would be in the world system. Worse yet are those who have some leadership in the world system who then bemoan the fact that clients listen to them but the church doesn’t. The bible says we shall no each other by our fruit, not our wisdom or power. Out of frustration these people exhibit behaviour in church meetings that they would be absolutely embarrassed by if they did it at the office. Some denominations seem to have tried to accommodate this by having assembly governed churches where every decision has to be passed by the corporate body. They tie the hands of the church in administration and endless meetings.

The essential problem is the model of leadership we use in the church. We have a few in charge of everything and constantly create bottlenecks in our effectiveness. The model says to lead you must lead in the church and the ones who do this are the pastors/clergy. The need to protect your place can limit your ability to hear an idea or opinion that is contrary to your own. It can create a “them and us” division within the fellowship. When “Us” wins, the “Them” are deeply hurt and rejected. The followers are often hurt too, as they are victims of the power struggle, being pawns to be drawn away or to the various leaders who are exhibiting selfish ambition.

As long as we embrace a very small narrow view of church and its structure we will have pain and disappointment. As believers we need to expand our understanding of the church and the kingdom of God. The scope of our leadership was never meant to be restricted to that ecclesiastical form that meets on Sundays. The kingdom of God is supposed to be a daily reality in our lives. We are the light of the world Jesus said in Matthew 5 so let our good deeds shine forth. Let’s open the arena of our influence (leadership) to more than what we presently call the church.

Its time for a revolution of goodness spurred on by the people of God. The foundation and cornerstone for this revolution is prayer. Only prayer can change a heart and goodness knows we all need our heart changed. Don’t condemn those who work within the system. Pray for revelation to set leadership free. When people hear from God, change is easy.