Pastor Abandons His Church
From the Associated Press –
- Hiam Shatir may look like your average pastor, but he’s not acting like one. In a nation filled with expensive mega-church buildings popping up, Hiam instead chose to sell his mega-church, Crestview Community Church, and attempt to live into what he says is the call to “be the church.” And although many doubt him, Hiam just knew it was the right move to make.
“We just felt it was the right thing to do,” said Hiam, a businessman turned pastor, from his converted basement where he now administrates the church. “We couldn’t put our foot on the problem. People were sitting in the pews and not doing anything. They would come and sit and leave. And we began to ask if this is the Gospel.”
Crestview was known for its amazing stage productions, heartfelt contemporary worship, and relevant sermon topics often based on current events and pop culture. It quickly grew in numbers—adding two satellite “video campuses” and a recently launched online church campus—and was cited as one of the fastest growing churches in the nation. “Having someone validate what we were doing like that was really cool at first. We were really good at creating the ‘Wow’ factor that would have them wanting more,” Hiam says in reflection. “But I would go home exhausted and consistently wonder what difference we were making. I didn’t like that. And I just reached a point where I couldn’t do it anymore.”
In what many would consider a stunning move for a 8,000-member mega-church, Hiam and the board of elders chose to sell their recently developed $12 million dollar campus to a local technology company, which is now planning to convert the sanctuary into a manufacturing facility. “Selling the building was easier than we thought,” one elder stated.
So what made this ultra-successful pastor of one of the city’s largest suburban communities take such a radical step? Hiam shared that it was faith. “One day I walked into the main sanctuary, and it was empty. It was this huge building that we were paying a mortgage on and it was dark. I just had this sense of wonder if this is really what Jesus would do. Would he have created this building? And then when the economy took a downturn, paying the mortgage became our primary concern. But everyone was hurting. We had to let people go from their jobs. All of a sudden paying the bills became our primary motivation.”
Hiam shared that his messages became motivated by how much those people could give to the church rather than the Gospel. And then a moment of clarity hit me. “I was standing there on a Sunday and, right in the middle of my sermon, I just stopped. I looked around and just realized that, if we let go of this burden, everything would change. It was at that time I started to really question our intentions. At the same time, some really good people asked if we were living ‘missionally.’ Were we really releasing people to minister to their neighbor? I didn’t have a good answer to that question.”
Hiam began to doubt his own faith and purpose. “It was a dark time. More than once I told my wife I wanted to quit and go back to business,” Hiam said. “I felt like I was losing my soul. But the board of elders stuck with me, and they began to ask how we could begin to use money to solve real needs when we saw them. We suddenly realized we had the power to release people to be ‘missional.’”
Hiam wrestled with the decision over a six-month period. He knew that letting go of the building meant doing things in a completely different way. “The show would be gone, and, in some ways, that was hard for my ego to let go. It essentially meant trusting God to work in the people and not being everything to everybody. It was like we had new glasses on. We quickly realized that, before, a small majority of people were doing almost everything. They were burned out and completely exhausted. Now everyone has responsibility and purpose. So many people came to me, thanking me,” Hiam said.
When the building was sold, many felt lost in the transition. “We immediately lost about 30% of the people who attended our church,” Hiam shared. That number roughly translates to almost a thousand people. “Everyone called me and told me they just wanted a place to go on Sunday. They didn’t want to go out into the world. People’s primary concern was the loss of our children’s program.”
In talking with several families that had left, one woman expressed what has become a common refrain of ex-Crestview members, “Who will teach our children about Jesus? We just felt we needed a good children’s program and didn’t want to lose that.”
Life for Hiam and the church is now more complex but, he says, more rewarding. To accommodate the lack of facilities, Hiam took the radical step and converted his basement into an administration center. “We slimmed down everything and focused on following Jesus into mission. We asked what it would mean to love God and our neighbor as ourselves. We now meet once a month for a large gathering and meal, and put all of our focus on meeting in homes. It meant really getting serious about discipleship and putting our trust into the hands of our gifted leaders.”
Once a regular speaker at evangelical conferences on topics such as leadership and church growth, Hiam says the invitations to speak have all but dried up. The shift has allowed Hiam to focus almost exclusively on meeting with leaders. He now meets almost daily with those who run discipleship groups in their homes. One leader, Bill Jarvis, liked the transition, “For the first time, I feel like I am understanding what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Go and make disciples.’ And I like it.”
The lack of mortgage has allowed the church community to give almost 80% of their tithe away. “We’re now seeing people take initiative where they wouldn’t before. We’ve empowered them to be Jesus right where they’re at. And they like it. One part of the community is using their money to help single mothers get through college. Another group has renovated an old warehouse and turned it into a community art complex. A third group builds fresh water wells for third world countries almost every month.”
Hiam is now more aware of his impact on the community and can’t imagine going back. “Someone just yesterday came up to me and said, ‘I don’t have to drive to the church to feel like a Christian anymore. I just have to go out my front door.’ That right there told me we made the right decision.”
This is a work of satire. We hope it causes some reflection and sparks some good discussion about how we steward the church in the midst of this economic crisis.
Jonathan Brink is Managing Director of Thrive Ministries, a missional discipleship agency. He lives in California with his wife and three kids.
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If there had not been a disclaimer noting that this is a satirical piece, I would not have known it :)
Oh, how I wish it weren’t satire. But, if enough people would live this way, it wouldn’t be, would it?
Colin & Cynthia,
My hope is that it causes people to dream of an alternative.
WOW, what an amazing testiment of some ones willingess to put it all on the line and follow Christ’s purpose and plan for the church! Thanks for sharing this!!! It is very inspiring!!!
Amazing story and sad for me. My church has just entered a capital campaign for their new building. I would truly love if this piece of satire would grip the hearts of our leadership.
Amazing story and sad for me. My church has just entered a capital campaign for their new building a few months ago. I would truly love if this piece of satire would grip the hearts of our leadership.
Oh, you cheeky guy, you had me fooled. Even more than fooled you had my heart beating faster with excitement. Guess that tells us something doesn’t it?
Too bad this isn’t real! Instead of this scenario, one million of us are leaving the institutional church each year. At least 1,500 pastors are leaving each month. Has God left, or is He calling us out of these organizations so that we might discover the true church?
I think you would have been better off to have done a piece on Xenos Christian fellowship (http://www.xenos.org/). Your satire leaves a lot of unanswered questions, like how DO you teach the children in a de-localized setting? Xenos has some answers.
i don’t totally know Francis Chan and his story but i think he did something like this? And now they meet weekly in some out door pavilion. My wife just wrote an article about him for Outreach Magazine. I haven’t read it yet, shhhh.
Rick,
Many of us have asked that very question and what essentially it comes back to is parents taking responsibility for their children. It’s not easy but it is possible. And what if this post helped people find Xenos?
We need MORE thinking like this to tick us off. Apparently this is how Jesus got under the transparent skin of the religious-ly comfortable of his day. Now the question is, what the heck am I going to do about it?
You had me going. I was thinking, “Wow, what would it be like if every church did that?” Maybe we could turn the world upside down too.
The suggestion to sell our church was seriously made at the leadership council last Sunday. Very similar story except for being a mega-church.
Jonathan, you ratbag! Had me fooled (ever thought about writing for AP – you certainly have the style down!) I do think that this is a little bit rose-coloured in it’s depiction of what would happen (I know – 1000 people, but still…), but it certainly makes a great story.
This article gives food for thouht. But I don’t believe every large church is not doing anything to bring souls into the kingdom or meet the needs of the poor and oppresed. I will conced that in large churches like these you have a lot of pew potatos who don’t want to get involved and want to be catered to. But you know what? I attended churches as small as 100 people and I would say a majority of the people were the same way. I don’t think it is the size of the church that makes or breaks it. I think it is the heart and passion (or lack thereof)of the
leadership. I think there is a mixed message in the article. I think there is a lot of bad mouthing of large churches as do nothings but fancy programs and raking in the bucks. That simply isn’t true. I have attended three so called megachurches. and each one was reaping a great harvest, sending out missionaries and church planters, and helping the poor and oppresed. There is room for both large and small churches to do the work of the kingdom and if everyone would quit looking at and critiquing each other and get down to brass tacks, we’d have a better world to live in.
Amen Lori.
I am tired of hearing these pot shots at the church. Move on Jonathan.
Perhaps it is you who needs to move on Wayne, it isn’t a pot shot it is a challenging think piece to encourage people to dream. If that threatens you perhaps there is some truth in it?
I am beginning to have a problem with emergent make believe! Not making it known that this was satire was misleading. Not the first time I’ve discovered this about the Emergent blogging.
Any time I see a mega-church, or a church that pushes “Jesus wants you rich” doctrine, I think of the end of the movie “Schindler’s List”. Schindler lamented over the fact that he could have saved more people if he had just given up his ring or his car. What could we have done, who could we have saved if we spent less time/money trying to build prettier/bigger buildings and more participating in “God’s chosen fast” – feeding the hungry, freeing the oppressed, etc?
I planted a church based on this very philosophy. Which I know came from God. I had never heard of this idea (except in the NT) but yet felt an irresistible call to start “being the church”.
I wish this story was real. I was so excited to see someone else heading in the same direction!
Lori, Wayne & TD,
My intention was to cause us to think because of the economic downturn. I have read and talked to many pastors who are really going through some rough stuff regarding giving, mortgage and leadership. This is not a demandment for all churches. It was a story to inpsire some to dream.
I agree and have participated in large churches that do great things. And thus this was not a call for every church to do what Hiam did.
Oh man, that was so cruel. I thought it was a true story. I got sooooo excited to hear that the©hurch was becoming a©hurch. May this inspire HUNDREDS of churches to take up the challenge to become real.
Jack Smith, we are interested in hearing more about your community. Jonathan, this is so on-spot with what God is doing in us. We just aren’t sure how he will work it out yet. The waiting is very hard for me, but my husband is patient and calm as ever. lol Funny how that works. But I am eager to see this dream come to fruition in our lives. Here in our region, the Antelope Valley, CA, we are really alone in this line of thought for the most part. Not really a support network locally. I take great support and encouragement from EV and my friends who are also pursuing Christ in this strange time we live in. Peace be with you all, especially with Lori, Wayne & TD. We love you.
Man… you really had me going. I was on the edge of my seat and ready to google “Crestview Community Church”! I wanted to meet this guy to give him a big hug and to say “thank you” for sticking it to the the institutional church. But then I would have a new model to follow… and “Hiam Shatir” would be my new idol.
What would the landscape of American Christianity look like if hundrends of “Crestviews” would do something like this?
Bill, if hundreds of churches did this it would be the beginnings of a revolution. Imagine what the world would think?
Due to job demands, we have moved many times, so have been part of many churches and in leadership at all of them. This story, if taken as a critique of the church, is actually unrealistic. Every church we’ve been part of is much more self-centered. Most of every dollar spent is on themselves for properties, staffing to care for the “faithful” and programs for the “faithful”. I have never seen a church that has more than pennies left for anyone or anything else. Perhaps there are some, but not anywhere that I’ve ever lived.
Perhaps the current economic crisis will actually force some churches to sell their properties, just as it has families and individuals. That could prove to be a very good thing. Perhaps those groups will discover that church is not about properties. Religion is about properties. The true church is the bride of Christ, and as such focuses on Jesus and the poor, needy and hurting of this world.
I know of a real church that does this in Kansas City…the leaders of the church are very fundamentalist and legalistic in their philosophy and view of sin/life/freedom/heart/etc….but the practice of their church gathering is not…although, their resemblance to the church described above is only in that they gather and meet in homes for meals and lessons…I have seen no evidence of groups focusing on mission-type work…or any “going into the world” activity/focus…only the meeting/worship format.
Just a point of clarification. This is a work of fiction, not satire. Satire is the use of sarcasm, irony, or wit that exposes erroneous thinking.
We have a building. It’s rarely dark, and used day and night mostly for essential community events that involve children, youth, families, elderly.
Its Sunday use is a small fraction of its total usage.
Our building is a community asset. Just about every key community function in our area has a building too: the doctor, the health clinic, the dentist, the council, sporting clubs, etc.
We could jump on the bandwagon and sell our property, but our local community [non-church] would be left stranded without a community centre. They would also be staggered.
It’s not whether or not you have a building that can determine your effectiveness as a faith community.
The above is not a work of fiction…
It sounded real. It felt real. Something like the call of “rich young ruler”? I wonder if Jesus would actually call a pastor to this kind of action.
I was amazed to see this was satire as it left me wanting this sort of thing to happen soooo much. God is calling His church to something very new and it will take courage to go there…but how exciting to be alive and following God at this point in history!
my spirit is broken. i was so excited. so rejuvenated. and then, i found out it was satire. oh well.
I didn’t see that bit about satire until I got to the comments. I was hoping this really happened. DANG.
For more info on actually doing this, look into Missional church, organic church, or Free-Range Christians.
I wonder if Hiam changed focus or merely his method. After all, his primary preoccupation is still that of an insider: how we gather. And his primary motivation seems to be escaping the mortgage.
Jesus announces his ministry with Isaiah’s words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.” He is born among the poor, lives among the poor, denounces the rich and religious, makes disciples off the lessons they learn while watching him among the poor, uses the poor and despised as the lead characters in his stories. Common cause with the poor shouts from every page of the gospels.
I’ll confess, I don’t know how to do that. But it certainly would rock America’s boat if we could somehow abandon ourselves to what is arguably Jesus’ main focus.
Just as the high price of oil had me hoping for a final turn to purer energy, this story’s mention of change due to economy had me hoping as well for a similar spiritual turn. Not sure I’d call it satire…satire usually makes me laugh. Thanks tho!
Apparently this is not as far fetched as you would think. Today’s Washington Post (by reporter Michelle Boorstein) features an article that describes a church that may disband once the pastor retires, and be absorbed into the faith communities it helped midwife with a mission towards social justice. In case the link no longer works when you read this, google Washington Post and Gordon Cosby and Church of the Savior (Activist D.C. Church Embraces Transition in Name of Its Mission: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503341.html )
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I have had this conversation with our congregation’s leaders. In some deep place, I believe this would be truest obedience for us, and many other congregations. Our opulence is what I’m running from.
The Runaway Pastor