John Dekker's Day

1:06PM - Digesting Driscoll #2: Types of People in Church

On page 79 of his Confessions, Mark Driscoll describes a number of people one finds in churches:

Horses are vibrant leaders who pull a lot of weight and run fast.
Colts are emerging leaders who need training, testing and opportunities to lead. If properly broken in, a colt can be developed into a horse.
Mules are faithful workers who dependably and continually do whatever is asked of them in the church.
Squirrels are people who are generally liked because they are nice, but they rarely do anything meaningful. Squirrels need to be put to work in the church.
Cows are selfish people who wander from church to church, chewing up resources without ever giving back to the church until they kill it.
Stray cats are socially peculiar loners who linger around the church.
Ducks are disgruntled people who continually quack about whatever they're unhappy about.

Driscoll also describes fish, eagles, rats, sheep, wolves and snakes.

This is a very helpful list, since it highlights the need for a pastor to be discerning. For example, I have had the experience of thinking a particular person was a stray cat, before realising that the person in question was probably a cow.

But this is also a very dangerous list, for it can lead us to judge a person too hastily. Whenever we categorise people we run the risk of attributing to them characteristics they do not possess. We tend to impute motives, and make decisions based on surface appearances.

This is, by the way, a temptation that accompanies any training in counselling. Once you learn general principles about how people function and relate, you are tempted to think you can figure out any person you meet.

G. K. Chesterton has written a great story about this. The Miracle of Moon Crescent features a certain Warren Wynd, and the "miraculous rapidity with which he could form a sound judgement, especially of human character":

Another story was told of how three tramps, indistinguishable from each other in their community of filth and rags, had presented themselves before him asking for charity. Without a moment’s hesitation he had sent one of them to a particular hospital devoted to a certain nervous disorder, had recommended the second to an inebriates’ home, and had engaged the third at a handsome salary as his own private servant, a position which he filled successfully for years afterwards.

But as Father Brown said, "What is any man that he should be a judge of men?" Indeed, the three tramps were "dismissed rapidly right and left to one place or another; as if for them there were no cloak of courtesy, no stages of intimacy, no free-will in friendship. And twenty years has not exhausted the indignation born of that unfathomable insult in that moment when he dared to know them at a glance."

So, it may be helpful to categorise the people one meets in church, but this must always be accompanied by courtesy and grace.