Making the Shift: From Empire to Kingdom

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,

and all these things will be given to you as well.

Matthew 6:33

There is a shift happening – and it is a good one. It is not complete, at least not in me. But it is underway, and I am ever so grateful for it.

I have pastored for over 33 years now. During that time, I’ve seen models of church come and go, and been shaped by many different movements. But the shift I am experiencing now—personally, in our church, and in many denominations—is perhaps the “most Christian” shift I have seen.

I was influenced by a strong leadership movement in my early years. Like others, I flocked to South Barrington, Illinois for years to attend the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. The heart of that place was about doing the best we could to see people come to know a Jesus who would shape their lives. This passion for evangelism was admirable, but there were many subtle distortions of the gospel.

I drank the Kool-Aid.

Inadvertently, perhaps even carelessly, we all rushed into believing in Empire instead of the words of Jesus to seek the Kingdom. We were seduced into living in the wrong story.

Here are some examples.

The Church Rises and Falls on Leadership

It was up to leaders to make their churches grow. We heard the message over and over that it all depended on us. The pressure was enormous. To be a “prevailing” church, one had to become the very best leader, which was defined by the top CEOs of businesses that had flourished and found their place in the Fortune 500.

Bigger Is Better

The message was clear: you were doing a good job if you could increase your sanctuary from a seating capacity of 5,000 to 7,500. The story of the last 100 years told us that bigger is always better. More, more, more! It was about systems of production.

Efficiency Is Crucial

There was a sharp focus on a church’s vision, mission, and values. One had to be able to clearly articulate these things and have the church be able to recite them. Every ounce of energy and every moment of time was fixed on accomplishing the “ends and objectives” of the organization—I mean… church. The end had become more important than the journey and the people with whom you were journeying.

Power and Control Are Important

The picture of the pastor as CEO had become front and center. It was essential to demonstrate that the leader had control and made all the right decisions. Power was demonstrated in an ability to control the outcomes of meetings and the actions of the staff, always pointing the organization in the right direction. But this was power over. It was not a posture of servanthood, nor a practice of discernment.

Do the Right Things, in the Right Way, at the Right Time, and Get the Right Results

If you boiled it all together, this was the clear message. This reinforced the idea that I/we could do things in our own agency. While the words we spoke expressed trust in God, the actions we were encouraged to take emphasized that it was up to us.

The point I am trying to make is not a critique of Willow Creek. That church was only a model of something that was pervasive throughout the evangelical world. The truth is, we were living in the wrong story. We had been conformed to the patterns of the world instead of being transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Many will debate when this particular round of the story of “Empire” began. Some say the Enlightenment, while others point to factors in the early 20th century. Regardless, it is becoming clear that we’ve been stuck in the rut of living in this wrong story for a long time.

The shift that is needed is the one Jesus gave us in Matthew 6:33. We need to shift to living in the story of the Kingdom of God and all that comes with that, instead of the story of Empire.

When Jesus told his disciples to “seek first” the Kingdom, as Jews they would have heard “seek only” the Kingdom. The word first was meant to be so far ahead of second that second was not even in the picture. We need to be rigorous in evaluating the story we live in. We need to understand and live into God’s agency. We need a different definition of leadership, as well as clarity about the things leaders should be doing. And we need, most of all, to become convinced that the results do not depend primarily upon us.

Make the shift.