Church isn't boring because we're not showing enough film clips, or because we play an organ instead of guitar. It's boring because we neuter it of its importance. Too often we treat our spiritual lives like the round of golf used to open George Barna's Revolution. At the end of my life, I want my friends and family to remember me as someone who battled for the Gospel, who tried to mortify sin in my life, who found hard for life, and who contended earnestly for the faith. Not just a nice guy who occasionally noticed the splendor of the mountains God created, while otherwise just trying to enjoy myself, manage my schedule, and work on my short game.
from "Why We Love the Church" by DeYoung and Kluck
Showing posts with label church growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church growth. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Multi-site campuses redux
From today's 9 Marks Blog comes this post from Jonathan Leeman. As I've noted before, I'm not a big fan of multi-site campuses and Leeman gives yet another reason why we should pause before jumping in. Good stuff.
-Doug
You won't believe it, but I found a page torn out of a church history book written one hundred years from now--in the year 2109. It comments on the present multi-campus "church" phenomenon. Here's what the page reads:
...the principle difference being caused by developments in technology. In the first millennium of the church’s existence, a heterodox bishop could corrupt the churches within his ambit in decades, maybe years. Even then his influence over other congregations was indirect, occurring through its leaders. In the twenty-first century, however, the bishops of so-called multi-campus churches could exert greater influence over entire congregations instantaneously via video-feed. No longer did the multi-campus pastor have to persuade the leaders of other congregations over years. He could project his own face before numerous assemblies week after week, and do untold damage in seconds.
Few anticipated how quickly these pragmatic, seemingly inconsequential shifts of polity would corrupt the churches throughout an entire nation. Ninety-six percent of evangelical Christians in America belonged to approximately one hundred multi-campus “churches” by 2030—the franchises swallowing up the mom-and-pop shops. Some of these franchises were originally orthodox. Yet many of them were not, which meant that the wolves now had a mechanism for multiplying their influence exponentially. Furthermore, the orthodox bishops were often replaced within a generation or two by less orthodox successors, in a way that unorthodox bishops are seldom, if ever, replaced by faithful men, simply by virtue of the kinds of trees the unorthodox pastor plants. The cumulative trajectory was downward, then, away from orthodoxy.
Gone were the days of the “ordinary pastor,” the man whose skills were not extraordinary, but sufficient to guide a ship with a hundred eternal souls safely through stormy waters to the distant shores. His sermons weren’t made for television. His music wasn’t good enough for the recording studio. Therefore, churches, feeling themselves entitled to professional excellence in all things, politely dismissed him, tore down the old buildings, built high-tech stadiums, and gave the league all-stars seven-year, multi-million dollar contracts.
Unawares, the leaders of the orthodoxy were all too happy to heed the siren call of pragmatism, believing the new mediums simply enlarged the reach of their orthodox pulpits. They failed to see how the medium would affect their message. Their congregations—plural—could no longer know them, and they could no longer know their congregations. Life and doctrine became separated, thus distorting the doctrine. Not only that, bigness was no longer the exception, but the norm, meaning that everyone became oblivious to the dangers peculiar to size.
A century which began with several bright stars—a proliferation of good literature, biblical preachers of the first order, even what some called a Reformed Revolution—ended darkly. Indeed, some of the century's best preachers, driven by the very desire to propagate the good message in their day, helped to undermine that message for the next generation by following the strategies of the marketplace. No one expected the devil to once more usher in the corruptions of the ancient Roman church through such a peripheral matter like church polity, even though he had done it before. (He always does his best work in the places where people forget to look.) Only now he did in decades what earlier he had taken centuries to accomplish. By the middle of the twenty-first century, the devastation was…
-Doug
You won't believe it, but I found a page torn out of a church history book written one hundred years from now--in the year 2109. It comments on the present multi-campus "church" phenomenon. Here's what the page reads:
...the principle difference being caused by developments in technology. In the first millennium of the church’s existence, a heterodox bishop could corrupt the churches within his ambit in decades, maybe years. Even then his influence over other congregations was indirect, occurring through its leaders. In the twenty-first century, however, the bishops of so-called multi-campus churches could exert greater influence over entire congregations instantaneously via video-feed. No longer did the multi-campus pastor have to persuade the leaders of other congregations over years. He could project his own face before numerous assemblies week after week, and do untold damage in seconds.
Few anticipated how quickly these pragmatic, seemingly inconsequential shifts of polity would corrupt the churches throughout an entire nation. Ninety-six percent of evangelical Christians in America belonged to approximately one hundred multi-campus “churches” by 2030—the franchises swallowing up the mom-and-pop shops. Some of these franchises were originally orthodox. Yet many of them were not, which meant that the wolves now had a mechanism for multiplying their influence exponentially. Furthermore, the orthodox bishops were often replaced within a generation or two by less orthodox successors, in a way that unorthodox bishops are seldom, if ever, replaced by faithful men, simply by virtue of the kinds of trees the unorthodox pastor plants. The cumulative trajectory was downward, then, away from orthodoxy.
Gone were the days of the “ordinary pastor,” the man whose skills were not extraordinary, but sufficient to guide a ship with a hundred eternal souls safely through stormy waters to the distant shores. His sermons weren’t made for television. His music wasn’t good enough for the recording studio. Therefore, churches, feeling themselves entitled to professional excellence in all things, politely dismissed him, tore down the old buildings, built high-tech stadiums, and gave the league all-stars seven-year, multi-million dollar contracts.
Unawares, the leaders of the orthodoxy were all too happy to heed the siren call of pragmatism, believing the new mediums simply enlarged the reach of their orthodox pulpits. They failed to see how the medium would affect their message. Their congregations—plural—could no longer know them, and they could no longer know their congregations. Life and doctrine became separated, thus distorting the doctrine. Not only that, bigness was no longer the exception, but the norm, meaning that everyone became oblivious to the dangers peculiar to size.
A century which began with several bright stars—a proliferation of good literature, biblical preachers of the first order, even what some called a Reformed Revolution—ended darkly. Indeed, some of the century's best preachers, driven by the very desire to propagate the good message in their day, helped to undermine that message for the next generation by following the strategies of the marketplace. No one expected the devil to once more usher in the corruptions of the ancient Roman church through such a peripheral matter like church polity, even though he had done it before. (He always does his best work in the places where people forget to look.) Only now he did in decades what earlier he had taken centuries to accomplish. By the middle of the twenty-first century, the devastation was…
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Evangelicalism's Biggest Problem
From an interview with Dan Phillips (pyromaniacs blog):
Question: What is the biggest problem facing evangelicalism today and how should we respond?
DP: Here's exactly what I think it is: failure truly to understand, believe, embrace, and live out a robust conviction of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. I see that as the common theme behind the various church-growth fads, the Emerg*** movement, crippling forms of mysticism and charismaticism, and pulpit ills in general. We don't really believe Scripture is enough. It must be supplemented with techniques, programs, experiences, exercises, entertainment. The Reformation put the pulpit (for the preaching of the Word) at the center, and we're working hard to move it aside and replace it with a thousand and one distractions. "Preach the word!" Paul cried to Timothy as he finished his own course. God grant us ears to hear, greater hearts to grasp, bolder lips to proclaim, and stiffer spines to stand on the Word alone.
Question: What is the biggest problem facing evangelicalism today and how should we respond?
DP: Here's exactly what I think it is: failure truly to understand, believe, embrace, and live out a robust conviction of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. I see that as the common theme behind the various church-growth fads, the Emerg*** movement, crippling forms of mysticism and charismaticism, and pulpit ills in general. We don't really believe Scripture is enough. It must be supplemented with techniques, programs, experiences, exercises, entertainment. The Reformation put the pulpit (for the preaching of the Word) at the center, and we're working hard to move it aside and replace it with a thousand and one distractions. "Preach the word!" Paul cried to Timothy as he finished his own course. God grant us ears to hear, greater hearts to grasp, bolder lips to proclaim, and stiffer spines to stand on the Word alone.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Worldliness
I had posted a link to this extract a number of weeks back. After having posted the last Spurgeon quote (below) I found myself returning to this and re-reading it and, again, saying "wow."
So, in case you did not have the energy to click on the link I provided last time, I have copied it in its entirety below. This is from the Banner of Truth website.
Read it for your edification.
-Doug
By Iain MurrayAn edited extract from Mr Murray's new book Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth)
In his book on Evangelicalism, James Davison Hunter wrote: 'A dynamic would appear to be operating [in Evangelicalism] that strikes at the very heart of Evangelical self-identity'.
What is this 'dynamic'?
I believe that all the evidence points in one direction. It is that Evangelicals, while commonly retaining the same set of beliefs, have been tempted to seek success in ways which the New Testament identifies as 'worldliness'.
What is worldliness?
Worldliness is departing from God. It is a man-centred way of thinking; it proposes objectives which demand no radical breach with man's fallen nature; it judges the importance of things by the present and material results; it weighs success by numbers; it covets human esteem and wants no unpopularity; it knows no truth for which it is worth suffering; it declines to be a 'fool for Christ's sake'.
Worldliness is the mind-set of the unregenerate. It adopts idols and is at war with God. Because 'the flesh' still dwells in the Christian he is far from immune from being influenced by this dynamic.
It is of believers that it is said, 'the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary one to another' (Galatians 5:17). It is professing Christians who are asked, 'Do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?' (James 4:4) and are commanded, 'Do not love the world', and 'keep yourselves from idols' (1 John 2:15, 5:21).
Apostasy generally arises in the church just because this danger ceases to be observed. The consequence is that spiritual warfare gives way to spiritual pacifism, and, in the same spirit, the church devises ways to present the gospel which will neutralise any offence.
The antithesis between regenerate and unregenerate is passed over and it is supposed that the interests and ambitions of the unconverted can somehow be harnessed to win their approval for Christ. Then when this approach achieves 'results' - as it will - no more justification is thought to be needed. The rule of Scripture has given place to pragmatism.Converted to the worldThe apostolic statement, 'For if I still pleased men, I would not be the servant of Christ' (Galatians 1:10), has lost its meaning. No Christian deliberately gives way to the spirit of the world but we all may do so unwittingly and unconsciously.
That this has happened on a large scale in the later-twentieth century is to be seen in the way in which the interests and priorities of contemporary culture have come to be mirrored in the churches.
The antipathy to authority and to discipline; the cry for entertainment by the visual image rather than by the words of Scripture; the appeal of the spectacular; the rise of feminism; the readiness to identify power with numbers; the unwillingness to make 'beliefs' a matter of controversy - all these features, so evident in the world's agenda, are now also to be found in the Christian scene.
Instead of the churches revolutionising the culture, the reverse has happened. Churches have been converted to the world. David Wells has written: 'The stream of historic orthodoxy that once watered the evangelical soul is now dammed by a worldliness that many fail to recognise as worldliness because of the cultural innocence with which it presents itself. ... It may be that Christian faith, which has made many easy alliances with modern culture in the past few decades, is also living in a fool's paradise, comforting itself about all the things God is doing ... while it is losing its character, if not its soul' (No place for truth, pp. 11, 68).
Inducements
This same worldliness has come to affect the way in which the gospel is often presented to the unconverted. Leonard Sweet has pointed out that Evangelicals and liberals are often similar in the inducements which they propose to their hearers why they should become Christians.Both offer such things as more success in life, a happier marriage, an integrated personality, more meaning to existence, and so on. In other words, the reasons for becoming a Christian are pragmatic and they are presented with stories of how it has worked for others.
The subject of worldliness, however, has a deeper bearing. Human conduct is not capable of being understood so long as it is imagined that man is self-contained and insulated from any power other than his own.
Worldliness, it is true, is the outcome of man's fallen nature, but the same fall which introduced that nature also brought man under the control of Satan and demonic powers. Worldliness is no accident; it is the devil's use of such idols as pride, selfishness, and pleasure, to maintain his dominion over men.
The malice of Satan
What Satan proposes for man's happiness is, in truth, the result of implacable malice towards the whole human race. He means to exclude God and to destroy men, and the system he has devised to do this is so subtle that man is a willing and unconscious captive: 'You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him' (John 8:44).
Scripture says a great deal on the reality of the demonic, and yet the subject is today largely passed over in silence. Human wisdom has no place for the very idea and diverges completely from the revelation in Scripture.
The devil is a mere fable and superstition, so men believe; according to Scripture he is the unseen enemy who constitutes the greatest problem for men in general and for the churches in particular. Man is in the midst of a supernatural conflict; and the adversary - 'the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience' (Ephesians 2:2) - is vastly superior to all the intelligence and energies of men.
Supernatural power
While we may expect unregenerate men to have no discernment on this issue, it has to be a matter of concern when - given the prominent warnings of the New Testament - the demonic ceases to be a vital part of the belief of professing Evangelicals.
For the apostles, understanding the existence and wiles of Satan was essential to Christian living: 'Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might ... For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age' (Ephesians 6:10, 12). This teaching determines the biblical view of human need.Non-Christians are in a condition of blindness and bondage. They are under a power greater than the will of man and from which only Christ can set them free. Here was the recognition which led the apostles to repudiate all the world's methods for winning disciples.Supernatural power had to be met with supernatural power: 'For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds' (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).
Darkness and confusion
The biblical revelation on evil spirits is no less relevant to the way in which the church is to defend herself against the demonic. We are constantly warned that Satan works principally through doctrinal deception and falsehood. He was the inspiration for all the false prophets of the Old Testament: 'He is a liar and the father of it' (John 8:44).
His great intent is to bring darkness and confusion into the church as he did among the Jews. It was a lie of Satan which brought judgement into the infant church at Jerusalem (Acts 5:3). It was Satan who at Paphos opposed Paul on his first missionary journey by using a sorcerer 'to turn away the proconsul from the faith' (Acts 13:8).
The church at Corinth was in danger of allowing 'a different gospel' to be unopposed because 'the serpent who deceived Eve by his craftiness' was working to mislead her (2 Corinthians 11:3).
False prophets arise within the church yet they do not appear as such: 'And no wonder!', writes the apostle, 'For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light' (2 Corinthians 11:14).
The idea that Christianity stands chiefly in danger from the forces of materialism, or from secular philosophy, or from pagan religions, is not the teaching of the New Testament. The greatest danger comes rather from temptations within and from those who, using the name of Christ, are instruments of Satan to lead men to believe a lie. 'False christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect' (Matthew 24:24).
Resolute resistance
No one can rightly believe this without seeing the seriousness of error. Wrong belief is as dangerous as unbelief. To deny the deity and the work of Christ will shut men out of heaven as certainly as will the sin of murder (John 8:24; 1 John 2:22-23).
To preach 'another gospel' is to be 'accursed' (Galatians 1:6-9).Those who support heresies 'will not inherit the kingdom of God' (Galatians 5:20-21).This means that a large part of the preservation and defence of the church lies in resolute resistance to falsehood and in forthright teaching of the truth.Such warnings as 'beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees' (Matthew 16:12), for they 'shut up the kingdom of God against men' (Matthew 23:13), run right through the New Testament.
The apostles, filled with the Spirit of Christ, suffered no toleration of error. They opposed it wherever it arose and required the same spirit of all Christians. Eusebius, the early church historian, wrote of their outlook: 'Such caution did the apostles and their disciples use, so as not even to have any communion, even in word, with any of those that thus mutilated the truth, according to the declaration of Paul: "An heretical man after the first and second admonition avoid, knowing that such a one is perverse, and that he sins, bringing condemnation on himself".'
Consistent with love
Yet today this kind of witness against heresy and error, if not altogether silenced, has become muted to an extraordinary degree. 'Even the mildest assertion of Christian truth today sounds like a thunderclap because the well-polished civility of our religious talk has kept us from hearing much of this kind of thing' (Wells, No place for truth, p.10).
The explanation often given by Evangelicals for the lack of confrontation with error is that a harsh militancy has done more harm than good. As Christians, it is said, we do not want to be party to the kind of strident controversy which has too often marred the faith. Dr Billy Graham has often blamed 'fundamentalists' for this fault.
But the fact that what the New Testament says on love has been ignored, is no reason why its injunctions against error should not be obeyed. That some have followed these injunctions in a contentious spirit is no excuse for others not to follow them at all.A biblical contending against error is fully consistent with love; indeed it is love for the souls of men which requires it. The command to contend for the faith is not abrogated because some have failed to speak the truth in love.
Be watchful
However, there would appear to be a far more probable reason for the contemporary absence of opposition to error. It is the way in which the instrumentality of the devil in corrupting the truth has been so widely overlooked.
In this, as I have already said, we differ widely from Scripture. Instead of believers in the apostolic age being directed to listen to all views 'with an open mind', they were told how to 'test the spirits, whether they are of God' (l John 4:1). For there are 'deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons' (1 Timothy 4:1); false teachers 'who will secretly bring in destructive heresies' (2 Peter 2:1). There are words which 'spread as a cancer' (2 Timothy 2:17).
When churches have been in a healthy state they have always been watchful in this regard. In the great persecutions of the first three centuries, for example, Cyprian (c. 200- 258), bishop of Carthage, is to be found writing as follows:'It is not persecution alone that we ought to fear, nor those forces that in open warfare range abroad to overthrow and defeat the servants of God. It is easy enough to be on one's guard when the danger is obvious; one can stir up one's courage for the fight when the Enemy shows himself in his true colours.'There is more need to fear and beware of the Enemy when he creeps up secretly, when he beguiles us by a show of peace and steals forward by those hidden approaches which have earned him the name of the "Serpent" ...
'Light had come to the gentiles and the lamp of salvation was shining for the deliverance of mankind ...Thereupon the Enemy, seeing his idols abandoned and his temples and haunts deserted by the ever growing numbers of the faithful, devised a fresh deceit, using the Christian name itself to mislead the unwary.'He invented heresies and schisms so as to undermine the faith, to corrupt the truth, to sunder our unity. Those whom he failed to keep in the blindness of their old ways he beguiles, and leads them up a new road of illusion'.
Evangelicalism Divided; a record of crucial change in the years 1950-2000, is published by Banner of Truth, 352 pp., at £13.50 (ISBN 0-85151-783-8).
So, in case you did not have the energy to click on the link I provided last time, I have copied it in its entirety below. This is from the Banner of Truth website.
Read it for your edification.
-Doug
By Iain MurrayAn edited extract from Mr Murray's new book Evangelicalism Divided (Banner of Truth)
In his book on Evangelicalism, James Davison Hunter wrote: 'A dynamic would appear to be operating [in Evangelicalism] that strikes at the very heart of Evangelical self-identity'.
What is this 'dynamic'?
I believe that all the evidence points in one direction. It is that Evangelicals, while commonly retaining the same set of beliefs, have been tempted to seek success in ways which the New Testament identifies as 'worldliness'.
What is worldliness?
Worldliness is departing from God. It is a man-centred way of thinking; it proposes objectives which demand no radical breach with man's fallen nature; it judges the importance of things by the present and material results; it weighs success by numbers; it covets human esteem and wants no unpopularity; it knows no truth for which it is worth suffering; it declines to be a 'fool for Christ's sake'.
Worldliness is the mind-set of the unregenerate. It adopts idols and is at war with God. Because 'the flesh' still dwells in the Christian he is far from immune from being influenced by this dynamic.
It is of believers that it is said, 'the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary one to another' (Galatians 5:17). It is professing Christians who are asked, 'Do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?' (James 4:4) and are commanded, 'Do not love the world', and 'keep yourselves from idols' (1 John 2:15, 5:21).
Apostasy generally arises in the church just because this danger ceases to be observed. The consequence is that spiritual warfare gives way to spiritual pacifism, and, in the same spirit, the church devises ways to present the gospel which will neutralise any offence.
The antithesis between regenerate and unregenerate is passed over and it is supposed that the interests and ambitions of the unconverted can somehow be harnessed to win their approval for Christ. Then when this approach achieves 'results' - as it will - no more justification is thought to be needed. The rule of Scripture has given place to pragmatism.Converted to the worldThe apostolic statement, 'For if I still pleased men, I would not be the servant of Christ' (Galatians 1:10), has lost its meaning. No Christian deliberately gives way to the spirit of the world but we all may do so unwittingly and unconsciously.
That this has happened on a large scale in the later-twentieth century is to be seen in the way in which the interests and priorities of contemporary culture have come to be mirrored in the churches.
The antipathy to authority and to discipline; the cry for entertainment by the visual image rather than by the words of Scripture; the appeal of the spectacular; the rise of feminism; the readiness to identify power with numbers; the unwillingness to make 'beliefs' a matter of controversy - all these features, so evident in the world's agenda, are now also to be found in the Christian scene.
Instead of the churches revolutionising the culture, the reverse has happened. Churches have been converted to the world. David Wells has written: 'The stream of historic orthodoxy that once watered the evangelical soul is now dammed by a worldliness that many fail to recognise as worldliness because of the cultural innocence with which it presents itself. ... It may be that Christian faith, which has made many easy alliances with modern culture in the past few decades, is also living in a fool's paradise, comforting itself about all the things God is doing ... while it is losing its character, if not its soul' (No place for truth, pp. 11, 68).
Inducements
This same worldliness has come to affect the way in which the gospel is often presented to the unconverted. Leonard Sweet has pointed out that Evangelicals and liberals are often similar in the inducements which they propose to their hearers why they should become Christians.Both offer such things as more success in life, a happier marriage, an integrated personality, more meaning to existence, and so on. In other words, the reasons for becoming a Christian are pragmatic and they are presented with stories of how it has worked for others.
The subject of worldliness, however, has a deeper bearing. Human conduct is not capable of being understood so long as it is imagined that man is self-contained and insulated from any power other than his own.
Worldliness, it is true, is the outcome of man's fallen nature, but the same fall which introduced that nature also brought man under the control of Satan and demonic powers. Worldliness is no accident; it is the devil's use of such idols as pride, selfishness, and pleasure, to maintain his dominion over men.
The malice of Satan
What Satan proposes for man's happiness is, in truth, the result of implacable malice towards the whole human race. He means to exclude God and to destroy men, and the system he has devised to do this is so subtle that man is a willing and unconscious captive: 'You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him' (John 8:44).
Scripture says a great deal on the reality of the demonic, and yet the subject is today largely passed over in silence. Human wisdom has no place for the very idea and diverges completely from the revelation in Scripture.
The devil is a mere fable and superstition, so men believe; according to Scripture he is the unseen enemy who constitutes the greatest problem for men in general and for the churches in particular. Man is in the midst of a supernatural conflict; and the adversary - 'the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience' (Ephesians 2:2) - is vastly superior to all the intelligence and energies of men.
Supernatural power
While we may expect unregenerate men to have no discernment on this issue, it has to be a matter of concern when - given the prominent warnings of the New Testament - the demonic ceases to be a vital part of the belief of professing Evangelicals.
For the apostles, understanding the existence and wiles of Satan was essential to Christian living: 'Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might ... For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age' (Ephesians 6:10, 12). This teaching determines the biblical view of human need.Non-Christians are in a condition of blindness and bondage. They are under a power greater than the will of man and from which only Christ can set them free. Here was the recognition which led the apostles to repudiate all the world's methods for winning disciples.Supernatural power had to be met with supernatural power: 'For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds' (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).
Darkness and confusion
The biblical revelation on evil spirits is no less relevant to the way in which the church is to defend herself against the demonic. We are constantly warned that Satan works principally through doctrinal deception and falsehood. He was the inspiration for all the false prophets of the Old Testament: 'He is a liar and the father of it' (John 8:44).
His great intent is to bring darkness and confusion into the church as he did among the Jews. It was a lie of Satan which brought judgement into the infant church at Jerusalem (Acts 5:3). It was Satan who at Paphos opposed Paul on his first missionary journey by using a sorcerer 'to turn away the proconsul from the faith' (Acts 13:8).
The church at Corinth was in danger of allowing 'a different gospel' to be unopposed because 'the serpent who deceived Eve by his craftiness' was working to mislead her (2 Corinthians 11:3).
False prophets arise within the church yet they do not appear as such: 'And no wonder!', writes the apostle, 'For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light' (2 Corinthians 11:14).
The idea that Christianity stands chiefly in danger from the forces of materialism, or from secular philosophy, or from pagan religions, is not the teaching of the New Testament. The greatest danger comes rather from temptations within and from those who, using the name of Christ, are instruments of Satan to lead men to believe a lie. 'False christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect' (Matthew 24:24).
Resolute resistance
No one can rightly believe this without seeing the seriousness of error. Wrong belief is as dangerous as unbelief. To deny the deity and the work of Christ will shut men out of heaven as certainly as will the sin of murder (John 8:24; 1 John 2:22-23).
To preach 'another gospel' is to be 'accursed' (Galatians 1:6-9).Those who support heresies 'will not inherit the kingdom of God' (Galatians 5:20-21).This means that a large part of the preservation and defence of the church lies in resolute resistance to falsehood and in forthright teaching of the truth.Such warnings as 'beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees' (Matthew 16:12), for they 'shut up the kingdom of God against men' (Matthew 23:13), run right through the New Testament.
The apostles, filled with the Spirit of Christ, suffered no toleration of error. They opposed it wherever it arose and required the same spirit of all Christians. Eusebius, the early church historian, wrote of their outlook: 'Such caution did the apostles and their disciples use, so as not even to have any communion, even in word, with any of those that thus mutilated the truth, according to the declaration of Paul: "An heretical man after the first and second admonition avoid, knowing that such a one is perverse, and that he sins, bringing condemnation on himself".'
Consistent with love
Yet today this kind of witness against heresy and error, if not altogether silenced, has become muted to an extraordinary degree. 'Even the mildest assertion of Christian truth today sounds like a thunderclap because the well-polished civility of our religious talk has kept us from hearing much of this kind of thing' (Wells, No place for truth, p.10).
The explanation often given by Evangelicals for the lack of confrontation with error is that a harsh militancy has done more harm than good. As Christians, it is said, we do not want to be party to the kind of strident controversy which has too often marred the faith. Dr Billy Graham has often blamed 'fundamentalists' for this fault.
But the fact that what the New Testament says on love has been ignored, is no reason why its injunctions against error should not be obeyed. That some have followed these injunctions in a contentious spirit is no excuse for others not to follow them at all.A biblical contending against error is fully consistent with love; indeed it is love for the souls of men which requires it. The command to contend for the faith is not abrogated because some have failed to speak the truth in love.
Be watchful
However, there would appear to be a far more probable reason for the contemporary absence of opposition to error. It is the way in which the instrumentality of the devil in corrupting the truth has been so widely overlooked.
In this, as I have already said, we differ widely from Scripture. Instead of believers in the apostolic age being directed to listen to all views 'with an open mind', they were told how to 'test the spirits, whether they are of God' (l John 4:1). For there are 'deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons' (1 Timothy 4:1); false teachers 'who will secretly bring in destructive heresies' (2 Peter 2:1). There are words which 'spread as a cancer' (2 Timothy 2:17).
When churches have been in a healthy state they have always been watchful in this regard. In the great persecutions of the first three centuries, for example, Cyprian (c. 200- 258), bishop of Carthage, is to be found writing as follows:'It is not persecution alone that we ought to fear, nor those forces that in open warfare range abroad to overthrow and defeat the servants of God. It is easy enough to be on one's guard when the danger is obvious; one can stir up one's courage for the fight when the Enemy shows himself in his true colours.'There is more need to fear and beware of the Enemy when he creeps up secretly, when he beguiles us by a show of peace and steals forward by those hidden approaches which have earned him the name of the "Serpent" ...
'Light had come to the gentiles and the lamp of salvation was shining for the deliverance of mankind ...Thereupon the Enemy, seeing his idols abandoned and his temples and haunts deserted by the ever growing numbers of the faithful, devised a fresh deceit, using the Christian name itself to mislead the unwary.'He invented heresies and schisms so as to undermine the faith, to corrupt the truth, to sunder our unity. Those whom he failed to keep in the blindness of their old ways he beguiles, and leads them up a new road of illusion'.
Evangelicalism Divided; a record of crucial change in the years 1950-2000, is published by Banner of Truth, 352 pp., at £13.50 (ISBN 0-85151-783-8).
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
New tract cover
Should we order a case for our plants?
from http://betweenthetimes.com/2009/04/23/front-cover-of-a-new-gospel-tract-published-by-sebts/
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Be Watchful
Gentlemen,
In prepping for this coming Sunday's message, I came across an excerpt from Iaian Murray's book "Evangelicalism" which is well, well worth the five minutes it will take you to read it. It starts:
In his book on Evangelicalism, James Davison Hunter wrote: 'A dynamic would appear to be operating [in Evangelicalism] that strikes at the very heart of Evangelical self-identity'.
What is this 'dynamic'?
I believe that all the evidence points in one direction. It is that Evangelicals, while commonly retaining the same set of beliefs, have been tempted to seek success in ways which the New Testament identifies as 'worldliness'.
Read the whole thing here.
-Doug
In prepping for this coming Sunday's message, I came across an excerpt from Iaian Murray's book "Evangelicalism" which is well, well worth the five minutes it will take you to read it. It starts:
In his book on Evangelicalism, James Davison Hunter wrote: 'A dynamic would appear to be operating [in Evangelicalism] that strikes at the very heart of Evangelical self-identity'.
What is this 'dynamic'?
I believe that all the evidence points in one direction. It is that Evangelicals, while commonly retaining the same set of beliefs, have been tempted to seek success in ways which the New Testament identifies as 'worldliness'.
Read the whole thing here.
-Doug
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Questions to Be Asked
Over at Reformation 21, Carl Trueman writes of his concern that modern culture sets the agenda for today's churches.
He shares about how he was discussing his concerns over Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ," (particularly the depiction of Christ on the big screen) with a student and how he had no intentions of taking the church youth group to see it. The student responds that he felt sorry for Trueman because his qualms about the movie was making him irrelevant to modern ministry.
Trueman writes:
"What shocked me in this encounter, however, was not that we had different views on the matter, but that the student could not even see that there was any question to be asked. For him, the question of the meaning, relevance, and application of the second commandment was not even a question. He just thought it was obvious that anything which generated interest in Jesus was a good thing; thus, my concerns about the visual depiction of Christ revealed me as an irrelevant old hack, a superannuated puritan who simply didn't get it. To me, this was a most dramatic symbol of how culture had come to set the theological agenda even within a conservative, confessional, reformed tradition, and to define the plausibility structures not simply of the answers but even of the questions. My question arose out of my concern to see what the Bible said to our cultural situation, and that refracted through centuries of discussion of this point; but this student did not even have the categories to see that there was any question to be asked."
That last line stood out to me: "this student did not even have the categories to see that there was any question to be asked."
To me this is one of the biggest problems facing the church planting movement today- we charge ahead with our ministry plans without asking the important questions because we do not even recognize that there are questions to be asked.
I'd like to do a poll on how many church planters have given much thought to the regulative principle. Do most even know what it is? Once they have heard what it is, do they give it a second's thought to its validity?
How do we define this principle?
Simply put the principle is that everything we do in worship must be divinely worship must be divinely warranted. And since Scripture is the sufficient Word of God, everything we do in worship must be prescribed in Holy Scripture.
In the fabulous book Give Praise to God, Ligon Duncan writes that "The key benefit of the regulative principle is that it helps to assure that God- not man- is the supreme authority for how corporate worship is to be conducted, by assuring that the Bible, God's own special revelation (and not our own opinions, tastes, likes, and theories), is the prime factor in our conduct of and approach to corporate worship" (pg. 24).
Is that not worth contemplating? Does this not present questions that we should be asking?
Dismiss it if you will, but I believe you owe it to yourself, and to God, to at least grapple with the question before you do.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Christian Consumerism
Friday, December 19, 2008
Ready to Hire a Mystery Worshiper?
Thursday, Christianity Today's online mag posted an article titled: "Get Thee Behind Us, The Devil's Latest Marketing Guise."
It concerned a new service called "Church Check." Church Check is the brain child of a mystery shopper company which has expanded to now provide "mystery worshipers" who you can hire to visit your church and give you feedback on how you are doing and how you can better reach your community.
Included in their pitch is this promise:
Our team of savvy professionals can secretly worship at your church, analyze it in detail, and present you with a report detailing items that are lacking. With this report, you can make changes that boost your retention rate and make your church grow. Make the adjustments our team suggests and you'll not only retain more of your first-time visitors, you'll get them talking to their friends about you.
The article's author, Mark Galli, asks this probing question about their statement:
Should churches really make it a goal to "boost your retention rate and make your church grow"? Is that not a product of other things, like faithful worship, meaningful biblical teaching, and sacrificial love for one another and the neighbor? What has happened to a church that makes "boosting your retention rate" a focus, instead of these other things?
I'm curious what your thoughts as church planters are on this.
When we enter into a church plant, what should be our goal?
How do our goals differ from that of an "established" church? Or do/should they?
Should it be to "grow"?
Should our goal to be to have a high retention rate?
How do you plant a church if these are not foci of yours?
How do you avoid compromise if they are?
It seems to me that in order to answer these questions we need to answer some more fundamental questions.
What is a church planter?
An missionary/evangelist?
A pastor?
Both?
If he is an missionary/evangelist, then should we be casting the seed and then bringing in someone after us to actually shepherd the flock that God grows?
If he is a pastor, then should we be as driven by growth as we are?
Another question that we need to wrestle with is: "what is the purpose of the church?"
I think we can all agree with Rick Warren at least in one regard- we do need to be "purpose driven."
But what, really, is the purpose of the church?
And as I ask this, I'm thinking of the institution of church- not the individuals composing a local body of believers which I believe Dr. Warren actually does. We are all called to worship, do ministry, fellowship, disciple and be discipled, and to evangelize. But is this the call of the institution of church? Clearly that call is closely related to the call of the pastor. As a believer, he is called to these five things as well, but in his role as pastor, what is his specific call?
These are some questions it seems to me that we need to do a better job wrestling with and, unless we wrestle with them, I don't see how we can possibly have any basis by which to judge whether or not to hire "Church Check."
I'd like to share some of my thoughts and I will, and I hope that you will too.
What do you think?
-Doug
Monday, December 1, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
