Welcome to the third of seven articles in response to the Lausanne Theology Working Group's paper on "The Whole Church Taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World." If you've not had a chance to read the paper, you can do so by following these links:
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2. Regarding the Whole Church (continued)
Also in the section devoted to defining the Church, I found an interesting warning.
"Of course every church ought to understand and live out its essentially missional identity as God's holy people in the world. But we want to stress that the church exists for God, and should not be used as a convenient local franchise for the delivery of external strategies, objectives and targets." (p. 17, full version)
Question #3 – What does it look like when churches, denominations, or other Christian entities use the local church as a “franchise for the delivery of external strategies, objectives and targets”? What specific dangers along these lines are most commonly manifest around the world? What does this tend to look line in the context of large and also small local churches?
Some of the ways that I have experienced and seen are as follows:
ReplyDelete1. The importance of the Holy Spirit is lost. We no longer have to trust God to be the DNA nucleus of the church. We are not depending on Him for everything. We have programs and tactics to get people in. This leads to us trying to be self-sufficient instead of Godly dependent. Then swells the ego, look at what I did. As a pastor, "I need a raise". Pride steals the glory of God. Our hearts that should be in awe of what God did that day, now become bent towards ourself. All because we stopped putting the Spirit first.
2. Have a nice day - When I walk into a fast food chain, I hear this often. So I why do I hear it so much when I leave church. GREETERS? We've totally added a new church role that isn't found in scripture. Although, I don't think they are bad, they lead me to realize that the church has adopted a new "the customer is always right" approach to ministry. When the person we want them to feel welcome. We shake their hand. We give them candy. Some churches give out free ice cream. Some will send you Subway cards. I like food. I don't like feeling like I'm being conned into heaven. IF WHAT YOUR CHURCH HAS IS REAL, YOU DON'T NEED FLUFF TO WIN ME OVER. JUST SHOW ME THE FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT and THAT THE SPIRIT IS UP TO SOMETHING.
3. Do not offend the customer. I actually led worship at a place that asked me to stop speaking about the "blood of Jesus". The next week I sang three songs about how I am saved by the blood and turned in my resignation as the worship leader. The cross is offensive, foul, and depressing for those the are consumed with themselves. The cross of Jesus causes us to crucify ourselves daily. Offensive, and denies the customer their rights. Churches will water down truth to not offend, and they will be harshly chastened.
4. Evangelism - the great sales pitch. I am starting to see that we treat evangelism like a pitch more than an investigation. People use 3 second tracts to try to show people scripture. In Acts you have Phillip that goes through ISAIAH so that the Ethiopian man can have hope and understanding of scripture. The goal of the disciples was to make disciples, that is that they would build a person into the faith. They would not stop teaching a person until they could stand in the faith all by themselves.
Some of the ways that I have experienced and seen are as follows:
ReplyDelete1. The importance of the Holy Spirit is lost. We no longer have to trust God to be the DNA nucleus of the church. We are not depending on Him for everything. We have programs and tactics to get people in. This leads to us trying to be self-sufficient instead of Godly dependent. Then swells the ego, look at what I did. As a pastor, "I need a raise". Pride steals the glory of God. Our hearts that should be in awe of what God did that day, now become bent towards ourself. All because we stopped putting the Spirit first.
2. Have a nice day - When I walk into a fast food chain, I hear this often. So I why do I hear it so much when I leave church. GREETERS? We've totally added a new church role that isn't found in scripture. Although, I don't think they are bad, they lead me to realize that the church has adopted a new "the customer is always right" approach to ministry. When the person we want them to feel welcome. We shake their hand. We give them candy. Some churches give out free ice cream. Some will send you Subway cards. I like food. I don't like feeling like I'm being conned into heaven. IF WHAT YOUR CHURCH HAS IS REAL, YOU DON'T NEED FLUFF TO WIN ME OVER. JUST SHOW ME THE FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT and THAT THE SPIRIT IS UP TO SOMETHING.
ReplyDelete3. Do not offend the customer. I actually led worship at a place that asked me to stop speaking about the "blood of Jesus". The next week I sang three songs about how I am saved by the blood and turned in my resignation as the worship leader. The cross is offensive, foul, and depressing for those the are consumed with themselves. The cross of Jesus causes us to crucify ourselves daily. Offensive, and denies the customer their rights. Churches will water down truth to not offend, and they will be harshly chastened.
ReplyDelete4. Evangelism - the great sales pitch. I am starting to see that we treat evangelism like a pitch more than an investigation. People use 3 second tracts to try to show people scripture. In Acts you have Phillip that goes through ISAIAH so that the Ethiopian man can have hope and understanding of scripture. The goal of the disciples was to make disciples, that is that they would build a person into the faith. They would not stop teaching a person until they could stand in the faith all by themselves.
5. Missions - Its all about putting your name on something. A church wants to build a water well and promote themselves, not God. The culture of missions has shifted from making God famous to doing good deeds. We share a works-based salvation - pray this prayer and you can be saved. (do this action and you get salvation.). Some don't even let the customer "have it their way" in the prayer. Here is a pre-made prayer of Salvation that you can pray. How does this differ from what the catholics were teaching in the days of Martin Luther? Missions has to be about teaching people to obey God's word. Teaching them that God is always with them, Training others to carry on the work of the Holy Spirit by obedience to his Word. (this would require the scriptures in every language) Churches will invest in a building before investing in seminaries that train men to die for the faith. Steeples over changed lives. Pews over bible translations. Carpet color splits churches and many churches are color-blind when it comes to seeing the God of other countries that moves out of their own personal context. Pastors preach to retire, instead of preaching to win the world. POOR POOR POOR vision.
ReplyDelete6. Burger King verses McDonalds - They both make burgers. They are only slightly different menus. But they want your business more than the other guy... Here's the thing. In the place were I was raised, there were 5 or 6 baptist churches in a small town. If we have the same scripture, same Savior, same history, same Spirit... why do we fight for people to stay in our church. I actually heard a pastor tell another youth pastor from another church to not to try to "take his kids while the church looks for another pastor". Bickering, fighting, name-calling, gossiping, bla bla bla. Get over it. WE HAVE A JOB HERE. And it's not to be the best church in the city, it's to be best that God made us. This mentality causes something else.
ReplyDelete7. Bigger and Better - If this church gets a new building, we need a new building. If they start a kids program we start one. Forget being unified, lets outdo each other. Leads to this number 8.
8. Lack of creativity in the churches. Early Churches enjoyed the arts. Music. I have yet to walk into a church with a D.J. that worships God with that music. But this is a style of worship. I don't see worship services that utilize painting for Jesus. Every church has a simular organization status. If you do something that other churches don't you are not creative, but stupid. Most Churches don't meet on Monday night. Why? some people work on Sunday. Some churches are scared to use technology, why? There is this fear of being creative. Creativity is not an excuse for doctrinal inerrancy. We don't get slain in the spirit, because its not in scripture. But worship is more than music. We don't teach this in churches. We mostly organize our churches to only teach music (and some even narrow it further to a specific form of music) as a means of worship. So you may not be a worship team unless you have a choir, or a drummer, or a base guitarist. Poor view of worship.
9. Cookie Cutter - Since all the churches seek to outdo each other. They all look the same. They all have many of the same warts. And people write books on how to be a better church administrator. Church Pastoring is more than good Public Relations and Organization skills. But you wouldn't know that by talking with pastors. What does a Ministers Alliance look like here in the states... What does it look like when Chinese Pastors get together in the underground churches. Tears, puddles, face down people, each asking God what to do. The church in China explodes, while the American Church is beginning to fizzle.
ReplyDelete(LASTLY) - Probably my most controversial
ReplyDelete10- Democracy becomes the lens through which we do church. Basic Rights, Tolerance, Allegiance to the country first. We never see God outside of our own cultural context. We only see him through our own. We don't desire to see How God transcends India and the castes systems their. We don't desire to see what God is teaching believers in Zimbabwe. We claim to be a Christian nation, but we are becoming the pharisees all over again. Give money to the poor to be seen. Toot your horn of self-promotion. We have begun to "assume" the gospel. We assume everyone knows it. Our Job is done. We "assume" our kids understand what Christianity is. and if we are not careful we will assume until the gospel message is lost.
Ten excellent points, Daniel. You bring a lot of thoughts to mind for me, but perhaps it is best to simply let your words stand as they are. What you've said really resonates with me and is helpful on this issue. Also, I think you would find the Lausanne Global Conversation to be a very great online community to be a part of http://conversation.lausanne.org/en
ReplyDeleteFrom there, you will find a gateway to the global church and a lot of like-minded folks. I've actually posted this same discussion there at http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/11081 If you create a profile, you'll be able to post these 10 points there and really stimulate the conversation globally.
Blessings, bro. Good to hear from you.
The Local Church section of the Manila Manifesto is simply profound and needs to be read. It goes a long way in answering some of my questions regarding the idea of local church v. local franchise that were raised after reading the LTWG paper. Also, in includes a powerful "determination" to "turn our churches inside out" in the wake of Lausanne II. This itself calls attention to the for us to examine the "determination" statements that have been made in the past at Manila and Lausanne to see if we have indeed been faithful to carry them out.
ReplyDelete