Does Our Church Have Square Wheels?

What do you see in the picture? Should we commend these two men for their hard work or condemn them for their ignorance? Hopefully, we all can see the ridiculousness in this picture. Hopefully, we want to shout at the two men, "just open your eyes and look in the cart!"

Apparently, these men fail to realize that they have all the proper tools for getting the job done at their disposal. Everything they need to make the cart get from point A to point B is already there. In fact, if they would use the round wheels in the cart, they could actually do much less work to get a much better result.

Christian Schwarz, founder of Natural Church Development, uses this illustration to reveal to churches at how "backwards" we can be sometimes. Many of our churches imitate the two men in this picture by trying to force our concepts about church into the church. We often fail to realize that God has put everything at our disposal to accomplish exactly what He wants for that time and that hour. But we seem to busy with our heads down, trying to push and pull the church into everything we know it can be. What if we got a hold of the wheels that God has already put in the cart and let Him do all the work?

The area this is most evident is in the area of "ministry". Because the preacher, elders, or some leading group deems certain activities or programs worth doing, we go out and find our volunteers to plug into those slots. We fail to ask the most important question, "who has God gifted us to be?" Rather than starting with the wheels that God has given us, we try to create our own square wheels. Instead, what if we helped the church to realize what gifts God has given them and then allowed ministry to rise out of their gifting? What would happen to the church?

I'm afraid the reason that we don't function like this is for fear. Fear of losing control. Leaders are often scared of giving up control, because they are unsure of what will happen. But that's just the point. Leaders of God's people ought to know by now that we are not in control. Only He is and He gifts His body accordingly. Maybe we could learn something from Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

"But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, 'When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, And He gave gifts to men.' (Now this expression, 'He ascended,' what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.)

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:7-13)