Gordon Ramsay as Church Consultant

Hope for us donkeys

Years ago, world-class chef Gordon Ramsay reached new heights of popularity with his hit show, Kitchen Nightmares.

The premise was that in each episode Ramsay would visit a failing restaurant and attempt to turn it around through staff training, kitchen and dining room renovations, menu revisions, and so on.

The show’s real appeal was in Ramsay’s confident, confrontational style as he wasn’t afraid to walk in and start dropping the hammer on anyone or anything he believed needed it. No correction was off limits.

In my house, we watched Restaurant Impossible, a profanity-free, somewhat less abrasive Food Network ripoff alternative to Ramsay, starring Chef Robert Irvine.

After half a season or so, we began to notice an odd pattern forming in the episode epilogues.

Right before the credits, text would appear on screen to tell how the restaurant was faring since shooting. More often than not, they failed. Irvine’s restaurant survival rate supposedly stands around 40%, while Ramsay’s appears to be under 20%.

Despite free consultation from famous, successful chef/restaurateurs, free building makeovers, and whatever else they needed to be set up for success, most of the restaurants still failed.

Any fan of these shows knows exactly why, though:

It doesn’t matter how many things are changed… if the people remain the same, so will the results.

Ramsay and Irvine’s main task wasn’t to jazz up a flimsy buffalo chicken sandwich or replace sticky, deteriorating booths. They were there to re-train the kind of business owner who would allow the flimsy buffalo chicken sandwich to be served and would seat valuable customers at said sticky, deteriorating booths.

But the poor managerial habits that create a failing restaurant are awfully hard to fix in a weekend visit. For example, Ramsay or Irvine might provide a killer new menu or slick new decor, but they couldn’t force a boss to stop tolerating lazy employees or to start caring about improper cleaning techniques.

You can probably see where this is going as it relates to the church.

A barn burner of a Gospel meeting usually doesn’t fix a problem with sporadic attendance or flailing evangelistic efforts. Trying a new program with members who aren’t committed and are “too busy” usually just causes more burnout and frustration for those trying to move the needle. Even hiring a diligent, talented preacher usually isn’t enough to drag a declining congregation out of decades of malaise.

The people have to change.

That, obviously, can mean two different things. Either new members will come in and replace or invigorate the stagnant, meaning the people changed by giving way to different people. Or, the stagnant will rededicate themselves, meaning the people changed by letting the Word and the Spirit renew them.

The same is true of leaders. Either they will give way to new leaders, or will be revived in their desire and engagement for the Lord. Regardless of which of these two things happen, change and growth won’t come without at least one of them.

But, the same problem that plagued the restaurant owners plagues most human endeavors, including the church: change is uncomfortable.

Stagnation is the most comfortable thing in the world, until it’s not. It’s way easier to collect teachers who will tell us we’re doing just fine (2 Timothy 4:3) and will tell us there is no church decline to worry about.

It’s also easy to build museums to the prophets of old who “said hard things” and confronted the church and the culture (Matthew 23:29-32) while firing the guy who does the same thing for us.

So, to build on my previous article on the slow death of the churches of Christ, we the people are the make-or-break issue.

This gives us two practical takeaways:

1. Restoration requires confrontation

The only way Ramsay and Irvine could give their subjects a chance was to speak the truths nobody wanted to hear—“The menu stinks. The chef isn’t good enough. The room is too dark.”

While we are under obligation to speak the truth to one another in love (Ephesians 4:15) and have no need to call anyone an idiot sandwich, we still need to be willing to speak AND hear tough truths. Iron sharpening iron doesn’t happen via flattery or by keeping each other at arm’s length so no toes are ever stepped on.

“Reprove, rebuke, and exhort” need to be part of the church’s life together, and lovingly exemplified by leadership.

2. Restoration requires repentance

The problem with confrontation is that a lot of people have no interest in being corrected. The young preacher who enters a declining church with aims to get things back on track like Ramsay without the vulgarities usually doesn’t last long.

But repentance is supposed to be a lifestyle, not a step we do one time shortly before baptism. If we really are aimed at being right with God, every correction is an opportunity to repent and grow even closer with Him and one another.

The only way to answer the threat of a removed lampstand (Revelation 2:5) as Jesus visits judgment on our churches (2:16, 22; 3:3) is to repent and get back to doing what we should.

If, as I argued recently, the churches of Christ really are in decline, it’s going to take some tough conversations and some changed hearts to get things back on track. The good news is, we’re working in the service of the God who turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and can even make the dead walk again.

Turning around a struggling church doesn’t require a 3 star consultant or tens of thousands of dollars—just lots of prayer and soft hearts.

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Notes

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