Deja vu "from the French, literally means 'already seen.' Deja vu is the phenomenon of having the strong sensation that an event or experience currently being experienced has been experienced in the past, regardless of whether it has actually happened."
As Bible believing Christians we do not really believe in things such as karma, luck, or deja vu. Having said that, I want to highlight an important issue this morning using the phraseology "ministry deja vu."
I have learned over the past ten years of pastoral ministry that apart from a significant work of grace in someone's life history has a uncanny way of repeating itself. This principle has been brought home to me especially in the realm of church membership.
When a visitor begins to attend your worship services with some regularity the prospect of a more formal relationship is often on a church leader's radar. For smaller congregations the potential of adding new members to their existing fellowship is a very exciting prospect indeed (new friends, more ministry helpers, more voices offering up praise to Christ in the sanctuary, etc).
Before anyone formally joins our local church they first go through a gracious 'getting to know you' vetting process. In other words, our leadership team does their best to make sure potential new members understand what they are getting into before they "sign on the dotted membership line." Do they understand our chief doctrinal convictions, our church covenant, our philosophy of ministry, our ministry goals and priorities, our membership expectations, etc.?
I believe most of you would agree that it is every shepherd's obligation to do everything they can to only admit sheep into the Lord's sheep pen. Or you might say that church leaders should work hard to maintain a regenerate membership. This is important because the true Church, by definition, is a community of redeemed sinners. God's people have been called out of darkness into the kingdom of light. I Corinthians 5 soberly reminds us that a little leaven of unrepentant sin can leaven an entire congregation; while 1 Corinthians 6 reminds us that Jesus Christ is in the business of saving even the chief of sinners (and such were some of you).
During this process of getting to know one another it is not uncommon to discover that most new members come into the fellowship with their own unique history. Sometimes their ecclesiastical history includes baggage. I use to naively assume that whatever baggage someone had when they joined our fellowship that our church would be able to help correct those things. For example, one former member came to us with a history of spousal abuse. Another couple came to us having been apart of three or four local churches over the past 15 or so years. Still another came to us having been part of a mini split at another local church. In all of these cases, after a number of years, history eventually repeated itself. Looking back, it was proud and presumptuous of me to assume that things would (necessarily) be different this time around.
Here is what I mean. After much effort had been expended in one on one counseling the abusive spouse abruptly dropped his membership after we finally stepped in and said, "Enough is enough." "God did not give you a wife so you could use her as your personal punching bag." After a number of good years together the couple that seems to change churches every four to five years eventually decided to drop their membership after about the same amount time with us. The member who told his previous Senior Pastor that he needed to "sit down" eventually wrote our lay leaders a secret midnight letter wherein he told them they needed to let me go and hire so and so as the new Senior Pastor. When our lay leaders did not meet his 'secret' demands this individual submitted a membership resignation letter and joined a new church. Which brings us full circle to what I originally said. I have learned over the past ten years of pastoral ministry that apart from a work of grace in someone's life history has a uncanny way of repeating itself.
Where should we go from here? This does not mean that ministers of the gospel should cease doing everything they can to present every person mature in Christ (Col. 1:28-29; Eph 4:11-16). We must never grow weary in doing good (see 1 Cor. 15:58)! With Christ and the Word of God we should always have hope. What I have come to more fully appreciate lately is that apart from the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit in our lives history often does (sadly) repeat itself. This is as much true of my own life as it is yours.
In light of this, I need to modify my expectations with people, especially with persons who join the church with a history or with those who bring unresolved baggage with them. Sometimes simple principles like this can have a profound impact on our live and ministries.
