Major on the Minors

This is the fifth part of the series "How to be a Completely Ineffective Church Member" by Rev.McCullough which have previously appeared in the Messenger.

Communication from the dark side states that we do not need much counsel on this line of pursuit of ineffectiveness, it seems to come so naturally to us. There are several strands of thought that you simply must never pursue lest your slip sliding away into the vague mists of ineffectiveness come to an abrupt end: namely the glory of God in all you do, growing in Christian maturity, reaching the lost with the gospel and developing church life so that the world is aware what grace can do in people’s lives.

It is much more beneficial to give your time, thought and energies to dwelling on the minors of life. On a personal level when you read your Bible major on the minors: who the author of Hebrews is, was behemoth a dinosaur, did Adam and Eve have a belly button! On no account start any in depth Bible study with a good reading note or devotional commentary. Do not make any effort to get to grips with the central doctrines of who God is, who man is, what propitiation, justification and sanctification are, or grapple with the work of the Holy Spirit, or what the Bible says about heaven and hell. Stick to the focussing on the minors: should we use shortbread or pan loaf for communion; did the disciples drink alcoholic wine at the Lord’s supper or just grape juice; how far west did Paul actually journey. With regard to your minister major on his minors: he doesn’t wear a collar, he has a rather strange way of pronouncing certain words and of course that strange eye catching twitch. Don’t think about his faithfulness and compassion as he preaches the Word or his attentiveness to your great aunt Sally when she was dying in the nursing home.

In CY you want to ensure that your whole programme is based round minors and not majors. Each year have a good smattering of topics like: should we call it Sabbath or Sunday; should minister’s wear clerical collars or not; should Christians tithe their gross or net salary; should jeans be allowed in church; should God only be addressed by Thee and Thou. After a few years of such debates your young people will be ready for majoring on the minors in the wider congregational level. At a congregational level it is vital that whenever you get the opportunity drop in the Bible version debate. This discussion is excellent for clogging up the wheels of progress and even usually adds in a few grains of gravely disharmony. You want also to give a good deal of your time to considering the wording of the New Psalter. Spend hours pouring over each of the carefully translated psalms comparing them with the words you know from your past. Try and engage as many others as you can on these matters.

Whenever opportunity arises for discussion on the way forward for your congregation, again the minors are best for ineffectiveness. Stick to things like: should the psalm tunes be up on the board for visitors; what colour of paint will send out the best message to passers by. Avoid like the plague any discussion regarding how to enhance the spiritual life of the members, what could be done to foster family worship or how to help the elders in their Christ given task of oversight.
Try and help those in leadership to see that they should be focussing much of their thinking and energy on whether we should or shouldn’t use communion tokens, what dress style is appropriate for worship. If you hear of any straying unto topics like addressing the life threatening seeping away of our young people, helping ministers be better preacher and pastors; in service training for elders, plans for revitalising weak congregations and stimulating growth or even days of prayer, beware for all your efforts at ineffectiveness will come to naught.

Bible Bit to avoid: II Peter 1:3-11

Rev.David McCullough

Dromore RPC

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Speaker Rev.David McCullough.
Venue Dromore RP Church.
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Freemasonary Uncovered

How to be a Completely Ineffective Church Member (Part 4)

Avoid Unity At All Costs

To make sure that your descent into ineffective church membership is not a lonely affair you will need to establish an inner sanctum to your ICYS (Ineffective Covenanting Youth Society). These select groupings in the church have through the years come under several guises: The Hole Pickers or The M&Gs (Mumblers & Grumblers). One of these clubs will aid greatly in the demise of your whole congregation. The main point of these select groupings is to stir up disunity in the church.

To really hamstring the effectiveness of the witness of the church it is important to bear in mind that avoiding unity at all costs has several levels that you must become proficient in.
Let me deal firstly with the local church. This will be your training ground for a wider scale assault on unity. When someone apologises for something that they said or did tell them that it doesn’t matter. Then file it away in the deepest recesses of your hard drive, but make sure you have a desk top icon on the surface of your mind so that every time you see them or hear their name those words that they said in haste and asked forgiveness for come flashing across the screen of your mind. Grudge bearing will soon have the pulses of ineffectiveness spreading through the church faster than the Covenanter Grapevine can report Rev. Jolly has been called to First Ballygobackwards. Oh and by the way use that Grapevine to good effect. Stash your juicy comments about others in the guise of prayer points, “isn’t it too bad about…..”

You must try and devise ways of remembering people that zoom in on their bad points the way the camera does in a zit cream advertisement. Learn to see the speck in your brother’s eye even when there is a whopping great plank in your own. Alongside of this, categorising people is a useful tool. Tar all members of the one family with the same brush and make sure that someone’s faux pas doesn’t disappear with the passing of time. “He’s not reliable….do you remember the time…” are excellent thoughts to keep afloat in your mind.

Disunity will be greatly advanced when you dig your heels in on every decision of church life that clashes with your personal preference. Say loudly and widely, “Nobody ever gets a say round here,” when what you really mean is, “I don’t get my way round here.” You must grumble about every decision that the elders make and quietly leave little incendiary devices in the minds of others to detonate in the next church gathering. Never ever, ever say, “Well I am happy to follow the lead of the elders in this matter.”

Remember the simplest things can be agar plates for stimulating the bacteria of disunity: what colour to paint the church hall, the change in the time of church activities, changing the name of the church to something less off putting, who sits where.

When you have got local scale disunity well sussed and the “fellow ship” is listing, then you are ready for your first mission on a grander scale. Only go to other RP churches where you are happy with every jot and tittle of church life. Do a survey and cross out congregations from your holiday visits as you see fit. Bible versions, Psalter used and dress codes are ideal categories for your list of “to visit or not to visit.” When you have got your “hit list” completed be sure to share your ideas with others. As this mentality spreads little pockets of “Real R.P.s,” “Out on our Own R.P.s” and “Anything Goes R.P.s” will develop. By this stage the downfall is imminent and ineffectiveness has won the day.

With the local church and denomination in the bag your ineffectiveness campaign is ready for one final frontier, the Wider Christian Church. You have got to realise here that only Psalm singers are bound for the “Pearly Gates.” Anyone that might have a different opinion from you about worship, church government or baptism is to be viewed as second class and to be pitied. The last thing you want is for some non-Christian to think that you Christians love each other. Follow that approach and the next thing you will have on your hands is some new convert, and they are the hardest of all to get on the ineffectiveness bandwagon.

One final hint about unity, but you’ll have to be really clever for this. There’s a unity that you must make every effort to see developed in your church and life, namely that unity that abandons the Bible and accepts every opinion and idea as of equal validity. Embrace everyone as a Christian who says they are Christian, no matter what they think about justification by faith alone. Lambaste far and wide every Christian minister who refuses to share a platform with all religious leaders. “Narrow-minded bigot” is a good inflammatory name to use for such ministers. And if some of the ordinary members of your congregation have had a hard time for not going to some interfaith service make sure you add your tuppence worth of, “in this day and age we need to be much more broad minded.”

Remember avoid Biblical unity at all cost.

Bible Bit to Avoid Ephesians 4:1-6

Rev.David McCullough

How To Be A Completely Ineffective Church Member (Part 3)

Only Take

"Take Away Church” is all the rage these days, in fact there is one on every street corner. It is the new way of doing church in this “get what you can and can what you get” age. Adopting this selfish, self-centred mindset will provide you with the ideal slippery snake for scooting down to ineffective church membership.

You must think of church life as a local takeaway laid on entirely to satisfy your every need. Don’t for one moment imagine that your local church is for the glory of God and the sphere where you are to utilise your Christ given gifts in the service of others. Try and see your local church with its busy programmes as a hot food outlet, which you can visit when you feel a little spiritually peckish and scan the menu for that essential ingredient that you enjoy and avoid everything else.
In “Take Away Church” you will notice that there are some people busy behind the counter. Don’t for one minute feel pangs of guilt when you see their sweat beaded brows, and at all costs don’t offer to lend a hand. After all they have nothing else to do and you are so busy. You simply couldn’t fit in any more to your busy schedule: Monday evening it’s badminton club, Tuesdays you have your weekly dose of soaps, Wednesday (MW night) you have those extra swimming lessons, Thursday you help with the Youth Work in 1st Whatever, Friday is your evening for walking the dog, Saturday you play golf in the morning and do the shopping in the afternoon, Sunday is your only morning for a lie in, a good snooze in the afternoon and visit the relatives in the evening. You couldn’t possibly fit in any time to help out at the Take Away.
Don’t take in too much by way of showing up when the church family meets for worship. You might stumble on to a series of body life sermons where the minister will be laying it on thick about the need for everyone to do their bit. Once a fortnight should be enough to keep spiritual starvation at bay. Not in your wildest dreams should you consider becoming a twicer (am & pm worshipper). This would be ineffectiveness suicide.
In this era of “Take Away Church” you need to develop skills in sermon tasting. Make sure that you do the rounds of all the Harvest Services, BB Enrolment Services, Children’s Day Services, Christmas Carol Services, My Gran’s Got a New Coat Services just to see what’s on the menu in the other Takeaways.
Don’t for one moment imagine that anyone in your Takeaway will miss you, after all you are not even a regular customer now that your family has four months out each year at your new holiday home.
Of course there will be times when you will need just a little more than the odd sound bite of Biblical matter. For those dark days remember that you are entitled to the undivided attention of the minister, elders and the church members, after all you are a paying member. Anyway, that is what the minister gets paid for and Mrs Jones has nothing better to do than call to see your family with a casserole each week. DO NOT feel guilty and avoid any desires to pledge yourself to helping others.
When you make your twice-monthly trip to church, remember, in and out as quick as you can. Arrive late and don’t linger at the close of the service or you will begin to see that there are others with needs and that you might have the where withal to help them. It is best to join in the stampede for the door and see if can you make it first off the grid from the car park three weeks in a row.
Remember church exists for YOU!Bible Bits to keep clear of: Hebrews 10:19-25, I Corinthians 12:7

David McCullough

How To Be A Completely Ineffective Church Member (Part 2)

Only Pray Occasionally

Paramount in your quest for ineffectiveness in church life is that you have infrequent communication with God. Infrequent prayer will develop an icy breeze that will blast through your character and cool down any heart warming for a closer walk with God and a love for others that might be heating up within. Don’t be misled into thinking that the simplest route is to abandon prayer completely. Such a drastic step has the possibility of sparking feelings of guilt, which will hinder your slip sliding away approach to church commitment. Remember that a slow death of spiritual vigour is the easiest to handle, so you do need the odd gasp of the vital breath of prayer to make the whole process a lot less painful. On a personal level there are some basic components that assist in developing an irregular prayer life. A meaningless repetitive grace at mealtimes can help make the whole sphere of prayer a mere recitation. It is also advisable for those infrequent excursions to your knees to gather up as many little clichés as you can. These will ensure that your infrequent prayers don’t get too personal, for that again tends to stir up the spiritual juices. Try hard to limit your praying to cover the big decisions of life – what your opinion should be on global warming, the expansion of the European Union and the pros and cons of world trade embargoes. Such an approach will help you work into your life a sense of the utter futility of prayer.

Do not at any cost start talking to God about who He is, your sin, what you have to thank Him for or communicate with Him about the details of your everyday life. Keep prayers really vague, “God bless all missionaries everywhere all the time.” These generalities will mean that you will never be aware of God answering prayers and the desire will decrease. Remember also to only pray when you feel like praying. Never force yourself to your knees. No matter how many times the minister asks for prayer for himself and the church missionaries you must resist any tendency to do this on a regular basis. Once a year would be a reasonable approach for such prayers as a good conscience salving measure. When the church has a bookstall, divert your eyes from books on prayer and any study guides for exploring Bible prayers. If the minister announces a forth coming series on prayer you must initiate Getaway Plan A, that long planned visit to your mother’s second cousin twice removed in Outer Mongolia. Sitting under preaching on prayer will scupper any progress you are making.

With regards to prayer at a corporate level there are ten golden rules for utter ineffectiveness in church membership: Only appear at the Sabbath morning prayer meeting when you have a doctor’s certificate to say that such an early start will not seriously damage your health. You need your lie in. Make several guest appearances where you talk about the importance of the prayer meeting to as many as possible. Such holy chit chat will give the impression that you are there all the time. A few well-timed appearances at the prayer meeting just before the annual session oversight visit to your home, will keep at bay any pleas for commitment to corporal prayer.. When the elder who leads the prayer meeting asks for prayer points keep your head down and your lip firmly buttoned, unless of course you have some juicy gossip to share. During your infrequent appearances try to tune out the passionate prayers of others in case such godliness rubs off. Think rather about your busy schedule for the incoming week. Thinking about going more often than you do is quite sufficient. After all it is the thought that counts. If your congregation issues a prayer diary each year leave it in your pew or at least stuck at the back of your Bible. When mission activities are coming up in congregational life avoid those extra prayer times that will be announced. Your life is too busy. Tune out the pleas of the minister for a deeper commitment to prayer in the congregation and don’t believe him when he says that without prayer there will be no blessing. Don’t allow guilty thought patterns to develop. You do go to the prayer meeting. It is just that the times that they arrange don’t fit in with your hectic lifestyle. Remember a regular prayer slot in the Christian life is like breathing in invigorating fresh mountain air. Start praying regularly and you will soon find that your “Royale family style couch potato” lethargy will begin to disappear and the next thing you know you’ll be one of those active members that encourages everyone in the congregation. You’ve been warned – Keep off the knees.

Bible Bits to keep clear of: Philippians 4:6&7; Nehemiah 9, Luke 11:1-13


David McCullough

How To Be A Completely Ineffective Church Member (Part 1)

Introduction
As you may well have realised DMFWS feels no shame in publishing articles that have already been published elsewhere. This time we are going a stage further, we are republishing a whole series! This series first appeared in the Messenger several years ago (before the orange and blue days!) and we felt it was worth you either reading again or reading for the first time if you missed it. They are written by Rev. David McCullough (James' Dad!) the minister of Dromore RPC. Enjoy!
The Writers


Writer’s Spiritual Health Warning
The articles that appear in this series are a manifesto for utter ineffectiveness in your local congregation. For maximum impact of this ineffectiveness policy, these articles are best read with a lukewarm cup of coffee and some seriously heavy eyelids.
Of course should you yearn to serve King Jesus and be an effective church member to the glory of God, then you will need to have your brain well and truly in gear and by God’s grace seek to do the complete opposite of what you read.
Should you feel your toes jumped on by size ten hobnails, the best way for continued ineffectiveness is to complain to the writer and editors. Don’t at any cost ask yourself could this be me, or get down on your knees.

Listen Only

It is vital in your quest to be an ineffective church member that you specialise in gathering a host of Bible trivia, numbers of verses in the Bible (31,202) and the like. All these little juicy ditties that you glean you must store away in the deepest recesses of your mind so that you can keep the minister and elder busy with quick fire questions during the annual pastoral visit. This approach will make sure that they don’t get round to that awkward question, “How is God’s Word shaping your life these days?”
A collection of Bibles with unthumbed pages will be of great assistance in your journey towards utter ineffectiveness. The Bible you keep in your pew must have extremely small print so as to distract you during the reading.
Personal Bible reading is where you master the art of listening only. Only read your Bible at times of the day when your eyelids need propped open with matchsticks. This dosy interaction with the Scripture will help establish an impenetrable force shield for every encounter with the Word. By all means read the Bible every day. Big chunks are best and scan reading an essential. It is fundamental that you avoid asking any life-changing questions like, “What does this mean for me?”
Be on your guard at family worship for the Word can get a little prickly here and insist on taking root, especially when dad has pointed out how it applies to your family. At this stage it is paramount that you channel all thought power into how many Rice Crispies are left in the box.
Sabbath day will be your biggest test to see if you are going to graduate in the “listen only” course. If during the Scripture reading or sermon you feel any pangs in your heart, it is imperative that you quickly calm things down in your mind with a review of the spiritual things that you do, church Sabbath School, CY etc. and how you are definitely better than all the other young people. When the minister gets to the application bit and you begin to feel a certain sense of “he’s speaking to me” now is the time to start counting the cracks in the plaster or doing imaginary dot to dot with the bits of fluff on Mrs Brown’s big black bushy hat.
Pivotal in your downward spiral into the abyss of ineffectiveness is to give the minister marks out of ten for his sermon each week. Over lunch ask everyone how they thought the minister got on. Floating this question week by week will soon have a whole family on the path to increasing ineffectiveness. Avoid at all costs allowing anyone at the table to be super saintly and ask, “How did the Word challenge you today?”
Rather than taking notes on the sermon the way others seem to be doing, it is best that you engage in creative mind capturing doodling. This will give the impression that you are concentrating while at the same time stemming the flow of truth to the heart. Never go back over your notes no matter what your housebound gran asks you when she does her usual Sabbath evening inquisition about the sermon.
Remember only listen. You simply mustn’t let it in. You must wriggle and squiggle like mad to keep that life changing Word at bay. As soon as you start on the slippery slope of putting the Word into practice the ICMC (Ineffective Church Member Society) will have you thrown out if they can muster up the enthusiasm.
Bible Bit to keep clear of: James 1:22-25

David McCullough