Man, Movement, Machine, Monument

Preacher and writer Dr Vance Havner once said that most religious movements begin with a man, then the movement becomes a machine, and finally it turns into a monument.

It’s sadly a very true statement. Thinking of my own background in the Methodist denomination, John Wesley in the 18th century was a whirlwind of a man, a great organiser who set in train the mighty movement known as Methodism. Marshalled into Conference, districts, circuits, preaching places, classes, bands, its following soared. There was even talk of the country being on the verge of going Methodist.

Then the pioneer movement somehow became solidified into one of the big denominations of the 19th century. It gave birth to a multitude of organisations and programmes. Everything meshed together and ticked over like a well-oiled mechanism. It had become a machine.

As the 20th century wore on, the sense grew that Methodism could no longer meet the needs and fire the imaginations of the people. Its movers and shakers began to hark back to the past. Places where Wesley did this or that were turned into stops on a heritage trail. A musical – “Ride! Ride!” – was written to celebrate the memory of the great man’s prodigious evangelistic travels. The machine was slowly but surely turning into a monument.

I moved into independency in 1998 and am hopeful that Evangelical independency remains a dynamic movement. Churches co-operating, but each standing free under God – that has ongoing appeal to me as a good way of doing and being church. But the same danger lurks.

It may be hard to identify the point where movement turns into machine and then monument. Yet it should be clear to those with discernment. When a church’s programme simply perpetuates itself year after year without question, or fond memories of the glorious past loom larger than hopes for the future, watch out.

A church may need to take a critical magnifying glass to much of what it has become, which is a painful process. Yet if the ideal of the movement is recovered, if Jesus Christ becomes real for people again, if people are once again helped and blessed, it is worth while.

John the Revelation-writer had to warn even the great church at Ephesus, “Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (Revelation 2:4-5 NIV).