I realize that I am a little far down on this blog but, I agree with Craig. If we are constantly looking inside the walls of the church to find a solution then we might be looking in the wrong place. Let’s concentrate on those outside thye church walls and bringing them to Christ. Lets look at the community around us and see what their needs are and what therr makeup is and fashion the church according to their needs. Lets try to do church and be the church to those who need it most. Those outside those four walls.

Mr.Pastor
Are you at your church with the folks that want to be there on Sunday Night?

Are you there on Wednesday Night for Mid-week Prayer and Bible Study with the folks
that want to be there.

JESUS said,” Where two or three are gathered in MY NAME,I am in the midst of them.”

Remember that Fig Tree,JESUS was hungry
he went to the tree there was no fruit,
not even last season’s there.
What did e say to that tree,
What was seen the very next day when they passed by it?

Enough Said
John

While the church has in many ways failed to reach the un-saved, and we have portrayed Jesus poorly in many instances, I still bel-ieve that we shouldn’t compromise with the world. When we start putting basketball goals in our sanctuaties and serving donuts and coffee during the worship service, we have defiled the sanctuary of Almighty God.
While these things may “draw the crowds” we fail to teach the very important concept of reverence for God. We need to show the love of God, but we need to instill in people the reverence for God or as the Bible calls it “the FEAR of God”. We have raised a younger generation who fear nothing. I believe it is time that we return to solid Biblical teaching, a balance of the sound scriptural concepts that this country was founded on.
As far as what the Beatles think about christianity, their opinion doesn’t concern me much remember the words of John Lennon “We’re bigger than Jesus Christ”

sorry for such a long post… I paired it down three times in hopes to get better at my communicating… again sorry.

JCE, I agree, we MUST get to the CORE issues and go into the discussion knowing that if we cannot discuss Scriptural issues among church leaders, where are we going to do it?  With college professors?  With unbelievers?  With new Believers?

You’ve broken the “core” into two camps:  “Evangelism” and “Discipleship” and I would like to suggest before analyzing these first, look at what they are built on:  teaching….

because Evangelism and Discipleship are based on teaching (what we have been taught.. by men and what we understand in Scripture - which also is in many ways is viewed through the eyes of the person who taught us)… what if these things are wrong even just a little?

I mean if we’re wrong about discipleship, wouldn’t that make our disciples wrong too? 

What if we’re wrong about evangelism, wouldn’t that at the VERY least tarnish some or all of the evangelical efforts?  Both, things we all want to take serious. 

Again, we’re not talking about methods or styles, it goes much deeper… it comes down to testing what we are REALLY teaching, in our “styles” and “methods”.

Sooo… how do we know if the guy on TV is right or the guy on the radio is wrong?

I truly believe this is where we MUST start:
With questions like....
Who Is God?  What is He?  What is He like? Etc…

They may seem preliminary considering the audience but I think we can ALL learn from where we believe… where are worldview begins.  I don’t assume where I start is THE Truth, I test it with Scripture as a Bearean (sp) would.  Scripture will reveal my TRUE position EVERY time.

Peter responding to my post:
[You stated “As church leaders it is our job to teach those who God has placed in our care, who HE Is (His Charachter and Attributes - His Nature) and who we are IN Him and how we teach about God IS of utmost importance.” I think that is ONE of our jobs as church leaders, but when you look at what Paul, Peter, and others did in Acts, representing Christ to a world that doesn’t know Him is certainly part of it, too, wouldn’t you agree?]

I would have to ask what you mean by “representing"… again, it isn’t something we “do”, it’s something we ARE.

Using the book you referred to, Acts, you’ll see The Gospel is what Peter, Paul and others are exactly about.  They hold no punches in their presentations; they lay it out factually, using the Scripture (Old Testament) as their point of reference because of the authority behind it and they are very clear in their message.... BUT they also poured their lives into other Believers like Barnabus, Timothy, Titus, and Luke, etc.

The point being that we as church leaders must learn to pour our lives into Believers that they too may be found representing Christ in His Fullness.  This is how we REALLY reach the world, when they see how we treat one another and glorify God for our good works.  Do we help someone in need?  Sure, but how much more important to help a Brother in need. OR for an opposite view, imagine if you had 5 older brothers and the oldest (wisest… most “pastoral”) was always going out looking for neighbors to take care of when your other 4 older brothers are desperate themselves for his assistance but he is too busy with the non-blood neighbors thinking that if he does enough, says enough and befriends enough, they will come, when in fact, our Father is the only one that adds blood relatives to our family (younger brothers – and in prayer, we hope, a MULTITUDE).

The more we teach them about Who God Is the more excited AND thankful they will be about their Savior… No program or style will ever replace this Joy of Discipleship and rejoicing of evangelism (properly representing Christ in all we do and say).

This requires constant training, supervision, dedication of time… sometimes meeting with men 4, 5 and 6 times a week, phone calls, emails, lunches and coffee.  They have to know you and your family and you have to know them and theirs.

At the very least the pastor should pour his life into the elders and deacons (knowing that he cannot pour his life into hundreds - unless he is doing it through his friends and Brothers by his training them in sound teaching that never fails).

So to be clear, we should represent Christ, not as a thing we “do”, like a class or program but who we are.  Teaching a class is finite.  Raising a child is infinite.

It’s not a disagreement Peter just a difference in point of perspective (view), which I am always ready to test with Scripture.

The Lord be Glorified!

Dan,

I totally agree with you when you said:

“The church is in the business of making disciples:

- Believing: Saving their lost souls.
- Being: New creature in Christ.
- Belonging: submission to the local body of Christ, the church.
- Behaving: Living for Christ per the teachings of the Bible.”

However, and I believe this is a large part of what is wrong with many churches today, I had a prof at the first seminary I attended (until God got it through my thick skull that where I was going was NOT where He wanted me) who almost flunked me in a Theological Ethics class for making a similar statement. His idea for the purpose of the church? To be an agent of social justice and to teach pluralism and tollerance. I forget the rest of the rhetoric.

It’s very disheartening when many who are in our mainline seminaries who hear this, buy into it, hook, line and sinker. That will sink the church.

Blessings,
Tony

BeHim,

Absolutely I agree with you that what we have been taught and teach others is foundational in determining what will be an authentic representation of Jesus, how we will “do Church” (an oxymoronic phrase), and how we will walk out our mission.  I want to affirm your passion for the obvious conviction that “Doing” is a manifestation of “Being”!  It is very difficult for me to get my arms around understanding how any follower of Jesus could even consider the possibility that there could exist those who are truly “Being” the Church without the corresponding “Doing” as its natural outflow!  Yet, it is easy to believe, and, in fact, we are plagued in epidemic proportions with those who practice, teach and preach the “Doing” completely content with walking it out as priority #1 whether the being is there or not.

I stand believing that our devotion will forever be passionately EQUAL toward both of these endeavors when we understand our mission in perspective to the role it plays in His mission.  For it to be anything short of or compromising with that level of commitment would be to set ourselves outside the realm of agreement with our Father.

Even so, our priority in the way we walk that devotion out, will by necessity set one of the two in subservience to the other.  We have been doing this (without honestly admitting it) for generations in evangelical Christianity with evangelism (doing) ruling as our top priority, and discipleship (being) taking back seat and relegated to a supporting role of our perceived higher priority.

What we have accomplished operating this way does not need to be mocked nor railed against as being somehow evil or even not Christian.  Father knows, I am sure, that our motives have been pure for the most part and we have truly believed this to be His plan and purposed agenda for the Church.  Why would we have been doing it this way otherwise?  We would not.  Besides that, while we cannot validate or measure our successes from His perspective, we can certainly know for sure that we have gone a long way toward extending His Kingdom and brought millions into relationship with Him through our relentless passion for doing His mission. 

I am inclined to believe His plan is for Discipleship to take place wherever Christians (Disciples) are.  To suggest that is exclusively in the Church, is spiritually and theologically accurate, in the sense we all know the only thing that can really be called the Church Biblically is we the people who are the Church.  But we do not live or hang out in our chosen gathering places 24/7, and a good deal of our lives are lived in the world.  So it seems safe to believe there is not a designated place for Discipleship. Although, the gathering together of Christians in a local fellowship certainly needs to be wholly devoted to the work of Discipleship.

Evangelism, on the other hand, by the very nature of its existence, and the postured state or relationship of its targeted people with God and with His Church, makes it impossible spiritually and theologically, and problematic logistically for its happening “in the Church.” But we, in our relentless tenacity, have somehow managed to pull it off.  I don’t have all the answers for this dilemma and I’m not ready to suggest we throw the baby out with the bath water either.  But I am convinced we have created a perpetually infantile and impotent majority in the Church through our process of building her for the lost in preference to the household of Faith.

It would be wonderful and ultimately evangelistically powerful if we could be about the business of learning to love one another, develop in our gifts and Christian maturity, and be equipped for the work of the ministry, in an environment that is wholly committed to that focused purpose and mission without the invited presence of unbelief constantly in our midst.  When a gathered people of God have such an environment, what the world will see from them whenever they come into their presence, and when the Church lives it out in the world, will be nothing short of the manifest presence of Jesus Christ.

BeHim,
At the risk of being irrelevant, antiquated and perhaps hyperspiritual..."AMEN"!

Speaking of relevancy, I just went to get gas in my car and drove past one of the most “Cutting Edge” Churches in our area as concerns the movement of Churches driven by the “make them want to come through relevancy Doctrine”.  They have a huge electronically controlled digital flash kiosk out front and it literally says, “Join us as we celebrate the Holiday Season without the boredom of Religion.”

That says it all!

I agree with Wendy...although I wish the kiosk actually said Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays.  There may be many *MANY* forces in this country trying to kill the idea of Christmas...but Christians themselves are unknowingly leading the charge.  It has lost all of its original meaning in the majority of even the Christian world.  It’s either about commercialism or about boring tales of some baby in a manger told year after year in such repetition that many Christians only pay it lip service themselves it seems.

It’s boring.

I applaud this church for admitting that they realize what this time has become and telling people they are attempting to change it.

Christmas, on the whole, has lost its reverence as well as its relevance.  That church you denounce is doing something about it.

Wendi and Matt,

I did not say one word about the kiosk being wrong, nor did I denounce the Church for “doing” it.

What I did, in fact, was acknowledge this Church as a “cutting edge” Church in the relevancy movement, and paid public tribute to the grandness of their cultural genious!

You both had to make some real assumptions to come up with those projections. It is very umlikely that anything I write here will ever be coming from a place of “right or wrong”, or “judgement and denouncing”.

However, the things of God are, in fact, spiritual, and impossible to be understood with the natural mind.  For that very reason we have been given the Spirit of God so that we may be able to recgnize the difference between that which is Spiritual (a thing of God)and that which is natural (a thing of man). In this light the Word tells us that a Spiritual person will judge (evaluate) ALL THINGS!

To make such an evaluation from the dwelling place of spiritual habitation and the mind of Christ is neither an accusation of wrongness nor a denouncement in judgement.

It is what it is! If the powers of leadership that be in any given Church know that they know that they know, that they received their direction, strategy and logistics for what they are “doing” from the Lord, there is no reason for them to ever feel a need to be defensive. 

Paul came to the Greeks in the name of their unknown God to bring them the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus.

As a Pastor and Professor of Cross Cultural Studies & Church Growth, I am as committed to bringing the Truth, Love and message of the Gospel to people in the context of who they are as anyone you will ever meet.

But I will assure you that when I bring them with me to Father’s House, if they don’t find it to be a house of prayer, and drstically different than the norm of their cultural comfort zone, I am going to do some serious soul searching about who is really wielding the power of influence!

Is there a right way of doing church.Yes! When two are three are gather in his name.We are doing church the right way.Its just when we gather for the other stuff its the worng way.What other stuff you say.Stuff like kicks for Christ dancing for Christ , taxes for Christ skateboarding for Christ you get the picture.When its. about anything other than Jesus its the wrong way of doing church.Lets look at rev.2:1-7 the church at Ephesus was doing alot of good stuff but they left Jesus out are maybe they just put him second like alot of us do. Question would your youth group be as big if you got rid of the video game room and turn it back in to a prayer room.Are made it 90 minutes of God time and 15 minutes of skate time.What if we gave the childern Jesus instead of sponge bob and cookies would then still come in droves.How about if the pastor gave meat instead of milk every sunday.Would your church still be full.Yes I said your church because Jesus took his lampstand and left alot of churches years ago.Repent and start over make him (JESUS)the reason you do church at all.Lets all get back to are first love and do this thing we call church the way He (JESUS) planed for us to do it .Gather in his name and his name only and we will be doing it the right way.lots of other reasons to gather but that not having church.its fellowship

Wendi
[The religion of the Pharisees WAS boring and irrelevant. Jesus said as much.]
[Healthy Church - Cooperates with other churches in ministry (21:18 & 24:17)
Unhealthy Church - Isolates themselves from other churches - exclusive and sectarian.]

Jesus didn’t speak out against the Pharisees because they were “boring” or “irrelevant”, Jesus spoke out against them because they were deceiving themselves and everyone they taught.  They took the Word of God and twisted it to work for them.

I wonder if Jesus, Peter, Paul, John and James were cooperating with other “churches” (belief systems) or isolating themselves from the other churches - exclusive (One Way) and sectarian (dogmatic and narrow gat… I mean minded).

Wendi
Wait a minute, in one post you agree sectarianism is wrong: ["I agree with this statement"… Unhealthy Church - Isolates themselves from other churches - exclusive and sectarian.]

Now, you think denominationalism (sects, ie… sectarianism) is the “richness of our faith”.

This isn’t a “play” on words, they are synonyms…

Remember, denominations came to be because of differences in doctrine and beliefs and are more a testimony akin to moving Scripture more to fit our own needs and wants than to holding to a dogmatic doctrine (much like the Pharisees did in their day - which to me would suggest that denominations are not a good thing… BUT neither is unity in the name of tolerance).

Also, I do think God has something negative to say about our “sects” or… “denominations” ("NAMES"):

“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write,
‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have A NAME that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.[a] 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you. 4 YOU HAVE A FEW NAMES even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
6 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”’