The Church
Church Growth

The modern church spends a lot of time being concerned with church growth. Because we live in a post-modern culture, it is believed, in many circles that the church must adjust or die. Many have swallowed the ideas that no culture is superior to another and there is no absolute truth. People want spiritual experiences, but no doctrine. Post-modern folks have no time for a God Who tells them what to believe or how to behave. So, how do we grow a church in such an environment?

We need to be more relational. We need to help people with their marriages, children and jobs. The church must learn to care, understand and help people with their daily living. Please, no talk of sin, repentance, holiness or service. The church is an agency of “programs” to help harried, overworked folks cope in this world. Therapy has replaced transformation as the mission of the church.

Trouble is, Jesus doesn’t agree with how we build our churches. In Matt. 16:18, our Lord tells us “….I will build My church.” This promise represented a word of encouragement to a discouraged band of disciples. These boys could never quite let go of their expectations of Jesus’ Messianic Kingdom sweeping the world with them as the field marshals. These words were spoken in Caesarea Philippi near the end of His ministry. It was nowhere and they were going nowhere fast.

Beginning at verse 21, Jesus tells them that He is going to suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law; that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to new life. Talk about dashing dreams. In the contemporary vernacular—Bummer!

We can draw comfort from and be forgiving toward these men. They could not see that He would build the church via the cross. But, how is it that today, on this side of the cross, we miss what He said? The true church is being built by Him through what He did. Jesus alone is in the church growth business. It is not the domain of man. If God left the building of Christ’s church to human endeavors, it would have disappeared long ago.

God’s plan for establishing the church is found in Eph. 5:25-27:
“Christ…loved the Church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing with water through the Word that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; that she should be holy and blameless.”
Jesus gave Himself as a sacrifice for the church so that the church might be presented holy and blameless. Building a church is a God sized work that only Christ can accomplish.

In Matt. 16:18, the Lord teaches us of the certainty of His church [“will”]; the personal nature of the church [“My”]; and the invincibility of His church [“the gates of Hades will not overcome it”]. Who of us with our paltry programs can do or promise that? The church is a supernatural work of God the Father through Christ the Son. No amount of human wisdom, marketing designs or church board ideas will supplant Him as builder of the church.

Jesus is building His church with the sacraments [Baptism and the Lord’s Supper]; the preaching of the Word [His Gospel] and the teaching and making of disciples [having no spot or wrinkle…holy and blameless]. How humbling that he chooses to commission us to be His ambassadors, representing the King. How? Go all over this earth making disciples by baptizing them in the Name of the Triune God and teaching them to observe all the commandments of God (Matt 28: 18-20).

Somehow, the “church growth” movement has forgotten that Jesus Christ alone builds the church. We have forgotten that His saving grace applied to lives causes His church to grow. We have forgotten that our role is to proclaim Him through His Word, and His sacraments. And, lest we think His plan is not relevant for today’s post-modern world, listen to His final words of His commission: “…lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Yes, a time will come when the situation for the church changes. But, it will not be based on how man sees the world. It will be at the end of the age when Christ returns in glory and judgment. Until then His promise stands: “…I will build My Church”.

The Church
The Age of Entertainment and Amusement

More and more churches seem to be boarding the amusement and entertainment bandwagon. Worship services that are “traditional” are being forsaken for “contemporary” worship. More often than not, that means the folks in the pews want more “relevant” [read entertaining] worship. And, the churches are capitulating.

One simple question needs to be asked: Where is the Biblical warrant for entertaining and amusing the sheep? Since when has the church militant become the church relevant? The saints are to be a light in the darkness not part of the darkness. And, why must the church offer sweet treats when Christ said we are to be salt?

Jesus never offered a more pleasing alternative to the truth. When the rich young ruler walked, our Lord did not run after him offering a different way. Nowhere did Jesus instruct His disciples to offer a short, attractive, pleasant experience to His followers. In John 6 many left Him when they realized He did not come to meet their expectations. Jesus knew what He stood for and what He came to do was offensive. And, He knew that many would not believe (John 6: 61-66). Yet, there was, and still is, no alternative to the Gospel.

Those who remained His followers understood well. After arrests and punishment for preaching Christ, they did not pray for a more pleasing way to present the Gospel. No, they prayed for boldness to speak the Lord’s Word (Acts 4:29) and after being beaten they rejoiced for being worthy to suffer for Christ and “daily in the temple, and in every house, they did not cease preaching Jesus as the Christ (Acts 5: 42). The early church was not about ease, comfort and pleasure.

What the people want is not the issue. C. H. Spurgeon says: In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of gospel amusement. But, the emphasis on entertainment and amusement in the contemporary church continues to grow. The sound preaching that lead to the flourishing of the early church either takes a back seat or is absent in today’s worship.

This contributes mightily to the pluralism that grips the church today. Refusing to focus on the mission and message of Christ in worship fails to plumb the distinctiveness of Who He was and what He did. There is a failure to teach the doctrine of Christianity. Therefore, we have large numbers of people who, in the words of J. C. Ryle:
. . . live is a kind of mist or fog. They see nothing clearly, and do not know what they believe.

So when a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness comes to the door, no one knows what to say. When our culture collides with Islam, we have no idea why Christians are different from Muslims. Those who have been amused and entertained, and not taught, are ready and willing to compromise with the world in all matter of things. They possess what Ryle calls a boneless, tasteless, colourless, lukewarm, undogmatic Christianity!

This is precisely what Paul wanted young Timothy to avoid in his ministry. Preach the word! . . . Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. (2 Tim. 4:2). Why? The time will come when Timothy’s sheep will think they know better than the shepherd. They will not want sound doctrine, but want to turn away from truth to fables. Could this be where the church of the 21st century is in the USA?

Has your church abandoned the sound teaching of the whole counsel of God? Is your worship service no longer focused on preaching Christ and Him crucified? It may be necessary to endure affliction in refusing to bend to the will of the people (2 Tim. 4:5). Endure the clamor and desire of the folks in the pew who want their way. Whatever label your church places on its worship service, be diligent to ensure that the Word is preached and God is glorified. That is neither entertaining nor amusing. However, it is God’s way to equip the saints and edify the body so that they will all come to faith, maturity and fullness in Christ, avoiding the cunning and craftiness of he world thereby growing and building the Body of Christ in love (Eph.4: 11-16).

The Church
Ecumenism…Mission Impossible

Is rapprochement possible between the Roman Catholic Church [RCC] and evangelical churches? Carolyn Nystrom and Mark Noll in their book Is the Reformation Over, attempts to draw some sort of symmetry between the RCC and evangelicals. Carl Trueman of Westminster Seminary sees that as a flaw in the book. He claims there is no symmetry:

…at the outset, we have an institutional church, with clearly defined authority structures, creeds and an identifiable history—in other words, a self conscious identity—being discussed in relation to a movement which lacks all of these things and is really only unified by a somewhat nebulous and ill-defined field of family resemblances—and family resemblances which have, over the years, become increasingly vague.
[His full review can be read at http://www.reformation21.org/ ]

To Trueman, it is a categorical error to assume that the RCC with a clear place to stand can find common ground with evangelicals who cannot agree where to stand.

Trueman believes whether the Reformation is over is the wrong question. The more important question is: Why does the collection of churches calling themselves evangelical “not possess a thorough, clear and God centered account of our faith as the Catechism offers to Roman Catholics?” He suggests a simple straightforward answer:

…one cannot abandon elaborate theology as a point in principle in order to build a trans-enominational movement then hope to produce something akin to the Catholic Catechism which, by definition, requires an elaborate theology to express; it simple cannot be done.

This failure of theology in the contemporary evangelical church was thoroughly analyzed and critiqued in David Well’s No Place For Truth which sent shockwaves through the evangelical world.

The contemporary evangelical mishmash of churches have no cohesive theological beliefs that provide a foundation for faith. Thank goodness for the confessing churches that have enunciated what they believe. But for the most part, those churches with “no creed but the Bible” have a difficult time knowing what they believe and why. What the Bible teaches us about God, us, what He has done and what is expected of those who belong to Him requires an understanding, sometimes called a Christian worldview, which permits Christians to be in the world but not of the world. Right living begins with right belief that transforms us to be more like Christ. Not knowing what you believe and how to apply it where we are is the primary reason that professing Christian behavior is like pagan behavior in this world.

And, for those who say, “I’m not into doctrine, I just love Jesus”, that is itself a doctrinal statement. Who is Jesus? Why did He come? Where is He now? How does He relate to us? How do we come to know and love Him? What does it mean to love Him? These are questions that must be answered based on that simple statement. And, that requires a cohesive and clear set of beliefs known as doctrine. In his discussion of the “mystery of lawlessness [that] is already at work”, Paul says those who perish “refused to love the truth and be saved” [2Thess. 2:10] and God sends strong delusions to those who will be condemned “who did not believe the truth” [2 Thess. 2:12].

Paul teaches that loving, believing and knowing the truth is tied to salvation. What do you believe and why do you believe it? A very good question for every church and believer to ask as this New Year begins. Living the Christian life depends on it.

Celtic Proverbs
Life is a tricky plaything

And so we do as He wishes so that life will not undo us and death will bring not everlasting torment but everlasting joy. Many say that there is no more to it than that, that we don t believe n Him as much as we believe in our skins and that sympathetic magic is as alive and well in the Christian liturgy as it was in the caves at Lascaux. However that may be, there is still a price to pay and even the spiritually indolent will have to admit that to love Him with all of our hearts, to feel no rancor towards those who hate us and to accept humiliation, torture and death not for our own sake but for the sake of others, is, if and when the total is taken, an impressive price indeed.

R. Martin Helick, Travelers From an Ancient Land, Book XII, An Chros, (Regent Graphics: Swissvale, PA, 1993)

Global Warning
Biblical Environmental Stewardship

Is there a Biblical position on the environment to use in assessing the global warming [gw] debate? From Scripture we know that when He created the world, God set aside a unique place, the Garden of Eden, and placed in it the first man, Adam (Gen. 2:8—15). God instructed Adam to cultivate and guard the Garden (Gen. 2:15) that is to enhance its already great fruitfulness and to protect it against the rest of the earth. Having also created the first woman and having joined her to Adam (Gen. 2:18—25), God commanded them and their descendants to multiply, to spread out beyond the boundaries of the Garden of Eden, and to fill, subdue, and have dominion over the whole earth and everything in it (Gen. 1:26, 28).

Both by endowing them with His image and by placing them in authority over the earth, God gave men and women superiority and priority over all other earthly creatures. The implication is that proper environmental stewardship seeks to harmonize, but that human need and responsibility is above that of all other creatures. Man is the vice-regent of God when it comes to creation. To “subdue” and “rule” is only given to mankind. It is as if humans have the status of royalty in the created order. Psalm 8 says this about man:

You have made him a little lower than heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands: you have put all things under his feet.

There is a world and life directive to man: have dominion over my creation.

Michael Bullmore, referred to in an earlier post on gw, emphasizes the good of all creation and man’s mastery over it to promote and preserve it. Of course, he spends much time on two key verses about man’s responsibility: Gen. 1: 26-28 & Gen. 2:15. He asks the rhetorical question: Man is clearly given supremacy but is it “dominion”? To Bullmore, believing in dominion ignores the responsibility to “cultivate and care for” creation [Gen. 2:15 NIV]. Thus, he disputes what he calls the “subjectivist perspective” idea of dominion.

He argues that the idea of “rule” and “subdue” does not carry the “strong forceful subjugation” long believed and practiced. Rule does not mean strong subjugation since all God’s creatures cannot be reduced to be useful as only man determines. Bullmore specifically says:

While the exercise of that authority [rule over] does include the freedom to use creation appropriately to sustain and nourish human life, man must not so exercise his authority so to be harmful for God’s intentions for all creation. In fact, he must sometimes exercise his authority to protect and preserve God’s creatures from human subjugation. [Emphasis added.]

Secular environmentalists reject the dominion vision as "anthropocentric" or "speciesist," and instead promote a "biocentric" alternative. But the alternative, however attractively humble it might sound, is really untenable. People, alone among creatures on earth, have both the rationality and the moral capacity to exercise stewardship, to be accountable for their choices, to take responsibility for caring not only for themselves but also for other creatures. Bullmore thus casts his lot with those who would say that in some circumstances nature is more important than man and nature needs to be protected from man. The conclusion reached by secular environmentalists and there sometimes unwitting supporters is for the state to take the initiative and impose a “biocentric” view of the environment that saves the earth. In the gw context there is the ongoing pressure for an international solution by embracing the global solution of the Kyoto Protocol.

Now it is true sin makes it difficult for man to exercise godly stewardship.
But to reject human stewardship by individuals in favor of an unaccountable state [or international body] “protecting the environment” is no stewardship at all. Biocentrism is no alternative to selfish anthropocentrism. What the Scriptures actually posit is a Theo centrism: a vision of care of the earth with God and his perfect moral law at the center and human beings acting as His accountable stewards. God does not need government to protect what is His and, as we have repeatedly seen, governments become their own gods.

Biocentrism has at its core pantheism and government control. While there is a role for government in the world, it is not to develop environmental policy of how to use creation. Rather, it is to create a legal framework that holds people responsible and accountable for harm they may cause to others [Rom 13: 1-7]. This is a crucial Christian understanding of government: God has ordained government to do justice by punishing those who do wrong and praising those who do right [Rom. 13:1—4; 1 Pet. 2:13—14]. The Biblical position on the environment is not government taking control of the mandate given to man. Freedom, the expression of the image of God, may be abused by sin and, therefore, needs restricting [1 Pet. 2:16]; but governmental power, necessary to subdue sin and reduce its harm is exercised by sinful humans, who may also
abuse it [Ps. 94:20; 1 Sam. 8].

These principles indicate that a Biblically sound environmental stewardship is one in which it is recognized that man., created in God’s image, is fully responsible for dominion and control of creation. Scripture mandates that man, the image bearer of God, has the right and duty to subdue and control the creation. Stewardship is accomplished by responsible humans acting virtuously and in harmony with God’s perfect moral law. The role of carefully limited Biblical government is to ensure sinful behavior is punished, not to decide how to subdue and control the creation. Man, appointed by God, has dominion over God’s creation and he is responsible to God alone. Environmentalism of any other kind is an exercise of rebellion and lawlessness whereby man proclaims himself to be God [2 Thess. 2: 3-4].

Celtic Proverbs
Live, horse and you will get grass.

Saint Paul tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. On the face of it, this is nonsense, for what could be more unsubstantial that that which is yet to be made manifest or less evidential that that which we cannot see? But if we deny that existence of everything that we have yet to experience, how can we discover anything that we can make truly our own? And if we are so obsessed with the tangible and the quantifiable that we cannot cope with the uncertain and the unknown, and we in Robert Browning’s words, “finished, finite clods, untroubled by a spark”, what is life but the tedium of waiting until the dry winds of autumn blow us finally away?

R. Martin Helick, Travelers From an Ancient Land, Book XII, An Chros, (Regent Graphics: Swissvale, PA, 1993)

Living in the World
The 110th Congress

We're not prisoners of the past. We're shaping the future, and it's all about the children.
Nancy Pelosi

The 110th Congress convenes today. Two new developments in the republic will occur. Nancy Pelosi will become the first female Speaker of the House. And, Keith Ellison will be sworn in using a Quran instead of the Bible. Interestingly, the Quran is an English translation owned by Thomas Jefferson, which Islam views as no Quran at all because the true Quran is in Arabic.

Much has changed, and is changing, in this republic. Over at http://sgmmagazine.blogspot.com I have begun a series on the American Founding. Did religious principles factor into that founding and were they Protestant religious beliefs? While change is inevitable, it is not necessarily all good. Akin to constitutional construction and immigration, each of us has to decide whether there are founding principles, what they are and what can and cannot be changed.

As to Mrs. Pelosi’s quote above, here is a voice from the past to which she is not a prisoner;

But what shall I say of those women who claim on their own behalf, or of their advocates who claim for them, a participation in the labors, occupations, rights and duties which have usually been considered as exclusively appertaining to men? There are those who would expunge the line of demarcation which nearly all nations have drawn between the duties and occupations of men and those of women. Christianity has provided a place for women for which she is fitted and in which she shines; bur take her out of that place, and her luster pales and sheds a feeble and sickly ray, Or, to change the metaphor, woman is a plant, which in the seclusion of its own greenhouse will put forth all its brilliant colors and all its sweet perfume; but if you remove it from the protection of its own floral home into the common garden and open field, where hardier flowers will grow and thrive, its beauty fades and its color is diminished. Neither reason, nor Christianity invites woman to the professor’s chair, conducts her to the bar, makes her welcome in the pulpit, or admits her to the place of ordinary magistry. Both exclude her, not by positive and specific commands, but by general principles and spirit, alike from violence and license of the camp, and debates of the senate, and the pleadings of the forum. And they bid her beware how she lays aside the delicacy of her sex and listens to any doctrines which claim new rights for her, and becomes the dupe of those who have out themselves forward as her advocates only to gain notoriety or perhaps bread….The Bible gives her her place of majesty and dignity in the domestic circle—the heart of her husband and the heart of her family, It is the female superiority of that domain where love, tenderness, refinement, thought, and feeling preside, It is the privilege of making her husband happy and honored, her sons and daughters the ornaments of human society. It is the sphere of piety, prudence, diligence in the domestic station and a holy and devout life.

John Angell James, A Woman’s Mission, exerted from the book Female Piety

Voices have been raised over Ellison’s use of the Quran as being damaging to the Christian tradition of America. But, could it be that a woman speaker is even more damaging? Again, what are the founding principles and what can or can not be changed? It should be an interesting two years if the Lord tarries.