Many in the church think we need new ways of “doing church;” that we need to adapt the church to contemporary Western culture. This thinking has led to the seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven and emergent church models that are flooding North America today. No one would dispute that methods would change over time; technological advancements as simple as electronic sound reinforcement or as sophisticated as PowerPoint™ presentations are welcomed innovations in the church.

Yet while we recognize that technology has changed, we understand that the purpose of the church has not changed. The church continues to be God’s plan for His people. Today’s ‘pastors’ seek help from church management literature, written by consultants who possess an entrepreneurial, technical view of ministry. However, these leaders would do well to incline an ear to the thoughts of theologians of the past. As an old teacher of mine used to say, ‘its not what’s new that saves us, but what’s true.’ Contemporary church management literature may promise new techniques, but true success is found in the purposes of God.

John Calvin spoke on the work of the church in his treatise, The Institutes of Christian Religion. He wrote, “the Church [is] the gathering of God’s children, where they … helped and fed like babies and guided by her motherly care, grow up into manhood in the maturity of faith” (231-32). Unlike most church-growth proponents, Calvin saw the church’s primary responsibility as the care of the saints, not the work of evangelism. For him, Christian sanctification was a life-long process, requiring the church’s constant assistance:

Our ignorance, laziness and vanity are such that we need a great deal of help to bring us to living faith. We also need to grow in that faith. So God has made sure we have enough encouragement by entrusting his Gospel to the Church. He has appointed pastors and teachers to build up his people and has given them authority. (231)

God’s plan for pastors is to teach the Word of God. Calvin recognized the significance of this, for he knew that Christianity was taught, not caught:

The phrases used of the Church by Paul in 1 Timothy 3:15 have real meaning: ‘God’s household’ and ‘the pillar and foundation of the truth.’ In these words Paul shows how the Church is the guardian of the truth, so that the world does not extinguish it. God has chosen to use her to preach his Word in all its purity and so he reveals himself to us as a parent, feeding us with spiritual nourishment and whatever we need for salvation. (235)

It is in the teaching of the Word of God that Christians are transformed into fully devoted followers of Jesus. Sadly, the systematic exposition of the Word is becoming a rarity in many churches as they pursue a seeker-sensitive agenda for church growth. Seeker-sensitive ‘pastors’ rely on the words of man, gathering the substance of their sermons from the self-help literature of pop-psychology. They might use the Bible to prove a point found in a book, but they do not present the Bible as the authoritative source for Christian life and conduct. This has serious implications. It is literally a rejection of the Word of God. And as such, it distances that church from the company of the true church of God:

Wherever the Word of God is sincerely preached and listened to and wherever the sacraments are administered according to Christ’s institution, we can be sure the Church of God exists… (234).

The true Church of God magnifies the preaching of scripture. The Word of God is its full and final authority. Today’s leaders oppose this form of preaching using varied vocabulary, yet that opposition is always rooted in one source:

We must recognize the marks of God’s Church, and see them through his eyes. Satan would love nothing better than to get rid of these characteristics, bring them into contempt and urge us into open revolt against the Church. His wiles ensured that for centuries the preaching of the Word disappeared, and now, with the same evil purpose, he is working to overthrow the ministry. Christ has so structured his Church, that if this is removed, the whole building will collapse. (235)

No church can hope to succeed if it rejects the preaching of the Word. It may grow and become prosperous in this world, but it will no longer be a church of God. Calvin suggests that true success comes from the preaching of the Word and the right administration of ordinances:

The preaching of the Word and the observance of the sacraments cannot happen anywhere without producing fruit and prospering because of God’s blessing. I am not saying that wherever the Word is preached, there are immediate results, but that everywhere it is received and accepted there is always blessing. When the preaching of the Gospel is listened to reverently and the sacraments are observed, the Church is seen in truth and clarity; no one can with impunity reject her authority, ignore her rebuke, go against her advice or ridicule her judgment—far less revolt openly and destroy her unity. (234)

What can we conclude from these thoughts? First, the church is where the people of God learn of God. The church is where God’s Word—His revelation of His will for humanity and His character—is proclaimed and explained. The church is the place where the Word of God transforms converts into fully devoted followers of Christ. The church is where the children of God are equipped to walk in the Spirit. The church is a place of the Word.

We need to pray that today’s pastors recognize that God’s design of the church for His children has not changed since its beginnings. Technologies and settings change, but purpose does not. The church needs to be a learning community; therefore, pastors must teach and preach the Word of God. Let us pray that we may find true churches in which to fellowship and learn.

John Calvin, The Institutes of Christian Religion, ed. Tony Lane and Hilary Osborne (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996, 1986).

One of the issues I have with seeker-sensitive / purpose-driven ecclesiology is that it transforms the local church into primarily a center of evangelism. The institutional church has a role to play in evangelism, yet it is individual Christians that have been charged with the Great Commission. As the old saw accounts, sheep beget sheep. The pastor’s work must always be flavored with the evangelistic, even as it seasoned with teaching, governance and the prophetic. Yet he is not an evangelist, but a pastor. His work then is to be primarily directed toward the care and feeding of the sheep, not enlarging the flock.

What does this mean for the local church? The local church should be the place where the needs of Christ’s people who are called to go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature are met. The local church is not for the lost but for the saved, and while the nourishment it stores and distributes is for the feeding of all, it is intentionally designed to house sheep, not lodge goats. In the local church, Christ’s disciples are refreshed, renewed and reinvigorated to return to life in the world. Seeker-sensitive /purpose-driven ecclesiology reverses this order. The apostle of seeker-sensitivity aims to turn mature Christians into “self-feeding individuals,” while remodeling the church into a space for the lost to feel comfortable.

What should the church be—sheep pen or evangelistic center? While the New Testament is silent about church organization, it does speak loudly to the church’s work. From the beginning, the church was a place for Christian fellowship and the learning of apostolic doctrine:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.   —Acts 2:42

The founding apostles recognized that God’s will for salvation was intimately linked to doctrinal teaching:

This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.   —1 Tim. 2:3-4

Teaching the Word was important, because it was seen as the means by which the lost would be transformed into fully devoted followers of Christ:

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed…   —Rom. 6:17

Disciples were encouraged to remain faithful to church teaching:

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.   —Heb. 2:1

To drift away from the teaching was to drift away from the Word. The early church recognized that such movement held dire consequences:

Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.   —1 John 2:24

Therefore, the apostles warned Christians to protect the teaching they had received:

O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.   —1 Tim. 6:20

By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.   —2 Tim. 1:14

The first apostles were not so far removed from Judaism that they forgot the necessity of the systematic teaching of the Word of God. They placed a high value on the teaching of the doctrines of God, Christ, man, sin, redemption and eschatology. The early church emphasized teaching as the antidote to the ways of the world:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine…   —1 Tim. 1:8–10

What can we conclude from this? From the beginning, the church was a learning center, a place where the Word and the apostles’ doctrine was systematically expounded. The church was a place where people learned of God and His Son, Jesus Christ. They learned about the life, death and resurrection of Christ, and the meaning, import and cause of Calvary.

When the church is a place of teaching, those seeking God will come to learn. The church does not need to redefine or reinvent itself to reach the world, it needs to return to its historic roots and teach God’s people to reach the world. Let us pray for pastors to depart from the strategies of men and return to God and His ways. Let us pray that the church will once again become a place where the sheep of God’s pasture can be fed and cared for with His Word. May God have mercy on us…. 

In certain circles there is a great concern for the future of the church. Pastors cast wide nets in hopes of finding tools and techniques to improve their church’s life. They devour management literature and attend conferences to learn techniques to fuel church growth. They appear genuinely alarmed by the specter of postmodern culture sweeping North America.

Some claim that the church must be reinvented if it is to last to the next generation. One pastor compared today’s church to a now defunct retail chain store; he suggested that if the church did not change to meet today’s needs, it too could face a similar fate. The enormity of that prospect obviously weighed heavy on his heart.

But while his concern was sincere, and while the efforts of these other pastors are surely prompted by nothing more than a sincere love for the church, they manifest a startling ignorance of the supernatural character of the church. Matthew’s gospel gives us the seminal teaching of the nature and foundation of the church of Jesus Christ:

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”   —Matt. 16:13–18

The core teaching in this passage is that the church is founded on the revelation that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Yet we learn many other things as well. First, we learn that it is Jesus, the Son of God who builds the church: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” The responsibility for church growth and development resides not with men, but with God:

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.   —Acts 2:46-47

The work of salvation—of translating lost humanity out from under the authority of darkness and into the kingdom of Jesus Christ—is a work done solely by God. Humans do not choose to come to the church; the effectual calling of God draws them. In response to the preached word of God, God gives people the faith necessary to respond to His offer of salvation, and to become members of His church. Therefore church growth and increase is the result of the work of God, not the management or marketing of men.

Second, we learn that the church is built on divine revelation: “And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.’” This last sentence contains a delightful play on words in the original Greek. The name Peter is from the word petros, meaning a rock or stone. When Jesus continues with “and upon this rock,” he uses the word, petra, which means a massive rock formation or bedrock. The revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is the massive bedrock formation upon which Jesus builds His church. Jesus rewards Simon with a new name that forever associates him with that revelation. Peter is something of a chip off the old block, so to speak!

That the church is founded on divine revelation teaches us that the church lives by the revealed word of God. The Word of God provides health, sustenance and vitality to the church. If a church is weak or failing to address its community or culture, it needs a fresh infusion of the preached word of God. The Word of God is more than mere symbols on a page, it is God Himself, embodied in the language of humanity:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.   —John 1:1-2 (KJV)

Since the Church is born of the Word of God, nourished by the preached Word of God, and increased by God’s daily addition of those who should be saved, we can say that the Church is God’s work, not man’s. That agrees with Paul’s teaching in 1st Corinthians:

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.   —1 Cor. 3:6-9

The church is God’s—it is His organization, instituted, empowered, and enlarged by Him. Ministers—like Paul and Apollos—plant and water: they plant the seed of God’s word (Mk 4:14; 1 Pet. 1:23), and water with the water of God’s word (Eph 5:26; 2 Pet. 3:5). But it is God who gives the increase.

Those that worry about the continued viability of the church in our time need to be encouraged to faith in God. They need to be refreshed through a new reading of God’s precious, holy written Word. They need to be reminded that their task as ministers is to care for God’s people, not grow and develop the church. After all, it is written that he gave, not managers or marketers, but pastors and teachers to equip the saints (Eph. 4:11). These pastors and leaders must have faith in God and His Word. Jesus did not say that the church would have to be reinvented to forestall bankruptcy; instead, He promised that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

When we recognize the supernatural character of the church, we can relax in God. We can trust Him that as long as He ordains for the Church to exist in this earth, it will. People may come and go, cultures change, and businesses will open and close, but the Word of our Lord remains forever! Glory be to God!  

There are books that challenge me on many levels—intellectual, moral, and spiritual. But there are a few books that always seem to leave me wondering if I am even saved. They are hard to read; not because of any convoluted logic, wordiness or ethereal vocabulary, but because the holy character of God and His expectations for his creatures come forth so clearly. They may not be easy to read, but they need to be read regularly.

Scripture is like that for most of us. There are chapters in Galatians, 2nd Corinthians and Hebrews that hurt. As a minister, I find that much of 1st & 2nd Timothy pierces my conscience. The cavalier response to this is that it “hurts so good.” And it does, in a way. I appreciate the hurt, not because I am masochistic, but because I know that the power of the Living Word of the Holy God hurts as it disciplines, corrects, reproves, rebukes and rebuilds me. God help us if we ever get to a point of being able to read or hear the Word without discomfort!

Scripture reading should be high on our list of daily activities. But we must also make time for devout reading, for the reading of sermons and teachings that open the Word and provoke critical reflection on our walk with God. There are two books that I am (re-)reading right now, and I must confess that I find them painful. The first is The Reformed Pastor by the puritan evangelist, Richard Baxter. This is an excellent book for anyone in ministry. It provides an insightful reminder to check our hearts regularly, and to ruthlessly evaluate the motives behind our ministries. It is also an excellent book for church members, to be encouraged against the incessant urge to criticize pastors and teachers. It offers a compendium of prayer points we can offer up for those who minister to us.

The second book is William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. I tell you truthfully, I tremble when I read this book! It takes a while to enter into the cadence of Law’s style and language, but the message of God’s holiness and our obligations as His children penetrate immediately. Nearly every paragraph provokes a spoken prayer to be found in Christ and Christ alone!

These books are not an easy read, largely because of the conviction the Holy Spirit brings through them to our conscience. They remind me of just how desperately I need Christ. They rebuke any thought that I might have grown or matured to a place at which I could merit salvation. They also remind me that we all stand in the same condition before God, that each one of us is in as desperate a need for His grace and mercy as any other. We forget that frequently, and end up evaluating each other after human standards. And we need to repent of that.

We engage in a daily battle of ideas, philosophies, and practices—both within the Church and in all of life. It is a necessary battle for Christians, because Bible truth is actively resisted in this world. The devil’s deception is so subtle that any one can slip and be deluded for a time. But our battle is not with flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and rulers of the darkness, and their foul teachings and systems. We must strive to remember that, and guard against the constant temptation to criticize others in the effort to be seen as right, worthy of recognition, power, and approval.

In the theatre of theological disagreement, we can—and will—bump up against each other, bruise one another, and sometimes hurt one another. That is not our goal—it must not be. I certainly repent before God and His people if I have caused harm to any. I pray to God that my focus will be solely to purge the lies of the devil and to edify His people. But I too am a fallen man, needing grace and mercy. That is why these devout readings are good, because they lead one to a place and time of prayer and repentance.

They say that confession is good for the soul, and that is surely true. A dear friend of mine used to encourage me to keep short accounts with the Lord. As difficult as these readings may be, they help remind me to close those accounts quickly. I encourage you to find readings that will help you as well. The time is short, and we know not the hour of His coming. But He is coming, and that right soon. May God have mercy on us all!

Many of the proponents of seeker-sensitive and/or purpose-driven ecclesiologies focus on the need for the contemporary church to be more open and accessible to those ‘distant from God.’ To lower perceived barriers to entry, seeker-sensitive leaders argue for the rejection of traditional theological language and the adoption of more user-friendly terminology. This thinking spills over into the content of seeker-sensitive church ministry and worship. Sermons are crafted with an eye toward contemporary culture; biblical exegesis and exposition disappear in favor of topical sermons and self-improvement messages. The emphasis on PowerPoint™ overheads combined with the use of less traditional translations and paraphrases conspires to discourage the bringing of bibles to church. The aim is to present one clear message and to avoid the usual questions unbelievers raise when confronted by the multiplicity of denominations and translations. The thought seems to be that the simpler and less strident the presentation, the more comfortable the lost will feel, heightening the prospect that they will return to the church and catch hold of the faith.

But why do people come to church? Interestingly, according to Thom Rainer, a leading church consultant and founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, “unchurched” seekers are not in the market for churches that soft peddle their beliefs. To the contrary, Rainer’s research has found that the unchurched are drawn to churches that are passionate and unapologetic about proclaiming their deepest convictions.

Rainer’s work found that seekers desire “to discover truth and conviction … about the reality of God, Jesus, and the entire supernatural realm” (Rainer, 127). He suggests that the unchurched are particularly attracted to “conservative, evangelical churches that were uncompromising in their beliefs” (128). Far from being repulsed by the truth claims of historic, orthodox Christianity, Rainer found that seekers were searching for absolutes “in a culture where few absolutes are perceived to exist” (136).

In contrast to some of the findings in the Willow Creek study entitled Reveal, Rainer found that “the formerly unchurched indicated a greater interest in doctrine than longer-term Christians” (126). For 91% of former seekers, doctrine was determinative in their decision to join a particular church. Yet they were not just interested in a published statement of faith. Rainer found that seekers “were insistent that the churches should be uncompromising in their stand” (127). Rainer quoted one particularly blunt respondent: “I visited a few churches before I became a Christian. Man, some of them made me want to vomit! They didn’t show any more conviction about their beliefs than I did. And I was lost and going to hell!” (127).

Rainer cites additional research from the Barna Research Group, which found that the “single most critical issue in reaching people” was the theology and doctrine of the church (129). Contrary to Bill Hybel’s current suggestion that the promotion of social justice activities will draw the lost into the church, Barna indicates that ministry to the poor was the least important reason for attending a church (129).

Rainer’s research serves as a powerful rebuke to the many protestant churches watering down their message in the hopes of making it acceptable to the dominant culture. While some evangelical pastors seek for new ways to “do church,” Rainer’s study suggests that they are misreading the times. Seekers are attracted to “biblical, conservative and convictional” churches that offer “deep biblical teaching” (225, 226). These churches prioritize evangelism; they incite passion in their members to continually reach the lost (225). These churches recognize that as they teach the Word unapologetically, their congregants will go out and reach their community.

Rainer’s research provides solid documentation for a common-sense understanding of the mission of the Church. Whatever drives the seeker-sensitive church marketers, it is obviously not a biblically orthodox ecclesiology. Although it is only one survey, it seems safe to conclude that Rainer’s research reveals that new and novel attempts to sell Christianity will ultimately fail. As Scripture says, it is the Lord God who builds the church. We should pray that our church leaders recover a biblical view of the church.

Ref: Thom Rainer, Surprising Insights from the Unchurched and Proven Ways to Reach Them (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).

After reading my previous post, a friend forwarded the following from John Piper’s blog, Desiring God:

20 Reasons I Don’t Take Potshots at Fundamentalists

1. They are humble and respectful and courteous and even funny (the ones I’ve met).

2. They believe in truth.

3. They believe that truth really matters.

4. They believe that the Bible is true, all of it.

5. They know that the Bible calls for some kind of separation from the world.

6. They have backbone and are not prone to compromise principle.

7. They put obedience to Jesus above the approval of man (even though they fall short, like others).

8. They believe in hell and are loving enough to warn people about it.

9. They believe in heaven and sing about how good it will be to go there.

10. Their “social action” is helping the person next door (like Jesus), which doesn’t usually get written up in the newspaper.

11. They tend to raise law-abiding, chaste children, in spite of the fact that Barna says evangelical kids in general don’t have any better track record than non-Christians.

12. They resist trendiness.

13. They don’t think too much is gained by sounding hip.

14. They may not be hip, but they don’t go so far as to drive buggies or insist on typewriters.

15. They still sing hymns.

16. They are not breathless about being accepted in the scholarly guild.

17. They give some contemporary plausibility to New Testament claim that the church is the “pillar and bulwark of the truth.”

18. They are good for the rest of evangelicals because of all this.

19. My dad was one.

20. Everybody to my left thinks I am one. And there are a lot of people to my left.

——————

It sounds good to me. Amen? (Thanks, “d”!)

In a recent sermon, a local pastor suggested that contemporary American evangelicalism dwells in two camps. One is the so-called “progressive evangelical” camp; it is supposedly open and accepting and places a high value on works of social justice. The other is the “rabid conservative fundamentalist” camp; he described it as primarily concerned with culture war issues (abortion and homosexuality) and judgment. The pastor opined that it didn’t take too much to recognize which of the two camps presented the more attractive option to an unsaved world.

His comments triggered a flood of thoughts in me, but one of the first was, ‘What’s so wrong with being a fundamentalist?’ Now, lest you think I’ve completely lost my mind, I am fully aware of the trip fundamentalism took down the road to provincialism and anti-intellectualism. Finding themselves outmatched by the scholarship and rhetoric of their opposition, fundamentalists withdrew into a subculture characterized by a rejection of all things modern and a suspicion of reason, education and intellect. They met their waterloo at their battle against the natural sciences. Their defeat in that arena was absolute, and they crawled off into ignominy, becoming the objects of ridicule and being rendered irrelevant.

Yet what brought fundamentalism to the fore—a desire to guard the content of the historic Christian faith from liberal revision—was, and continues to be, a worthy calling. Fundamentalism grew in response to the serious attack on the historic Christian faith by liberals in the early 20^th century. Liberal theologians began with the premise that religion was merely a human phenomenon; Christianity was no different, it too was just a human attempt to understand life. As a result, liberals removed the supernatural from Christianity, explaining it as an accretion from a less intelligent, more superstitious time. These liberal theologians presented a new understanding of God, man, sin, Jesus, Calvary and love. Their gospel was no longer about redemption from sin; instead it was an encouragement for humanity to love each other. Sin did not break humanity’s relationship to God; to the contrary, every human being is a child of God, and all humanity brothers or sisters. God loves each and every one tenderly and compassionately.

For the liberal theologian of the early 20^th century, Jesus was not a supernatural wonder-worker, but simply a man in touch with the divine spark resident in every person. His death was neither substitutionary nor sacrificial, but exemplary—not designed to pay the penalty of sin, but to offer humanity an example to imitate. The new life spoken of in the New Testament was not some supernatural impartation as a result of repentance and faith, but a conscious decision to amend one’s behavior. The Bible was not the inspired, authoritative word of God, but a composite of human wisdom and reflection. These liberal theologians held to a view of humanity as essentially good, but in need of some instruction or coaching. With the right kind of environment, humans could create God’s kingdom on earth.

It was the incursion of this theology into the protestant church that gave birth to fundamentalism. Fundamentalism was not a reaction to or rejection of modern culture but a reaction to the heterodox theology of liberalism. The name came from a series of articles defending the historic, evangelical faith published in volumes titled The Fundamentals. The articles dealt with the inspiration and authority of Scripture; the deity, virgin birth, and supernatural works of Jesus; and the nature and significance of Christ’s death, resurrection and imminent return. Additional articles addressed the reality of sin; the necessity of salvation by faith; the teaching of the new birth; the power of prayer and the obligation of evangelism. In time, anyone who sought to defend the historic, orthodox Christian faith was called a fundamentalist.

Not surprisingly the term fundamentalist came to be redefined by the culture and turned into an insult. The world and its media despise orthodox Christianity. What is surprising is that pastors would adopt the world’s definition and malign fundamentalism even while standing in a conservative evangelical pulpit. A pastor should stand as a prophetic witness against the lies of the world. They should teach truth, which involves teaching the true meanings of words.

But then again, perhaps it is not surprising. For today we in the protestant church are under another assault by the forces of theological liberalism, although this time their attack is more devious. Theological liberalism now presents itself in the guise of the seeker-sensitive, market-driven church movement. Their ecclesiology strips the church of its supernatural character and encourages its leaders to a practical atheism. Market-driven ministry operates under the assumption that it is its responsibility to build and preserve the Church. Both market-driven and emergent church leaders market Christianity as an experience to be shared and/or a feeling to be caught, rather than a truth to be accepted. They avoid the preaching of sin, holiness, the Law, eternal damnation and salvation. That is ‘churchy’ language that the denizens of the 21^st century have evolved beyond. Instead, they magnify feel good solutions to the life-style problems of their congregants. In far too many of these churches, the essential tenets of the historic Christian faith are being forgotten. Biblical literacy is disappearing. Theology is optional. So why be surprised if these pastors use the language of the world? It is the world’s theology that they’re preaching, the world’s salvation they are offering. They are building churches in the world and of the world. But are they birthing Christians?

It may be time for a new fundamentalism, a new effort launched to reclaim and restore historic protestant orthodoxy to the evangelical church in North America. I for one make no apologies for calling myself a fundamentalist—I hold to and am ready to defend the essentials of the faith. Has there been error associated with the name fundamentalist? Of course there has; no human activity is devoid of imperfection and error. Yet I would rather be on the side of those holding to generations of truth, than to be numbered among those who think they need to reinvent the truth for their generation. Selah.  

Paul charges Timothy, his own “son” in ministry, to focus on the preaching of Scripture:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.   —2 Tim. 4:1-4

Paul gives us a hint of the alternative to preaching the Word-when ministers do not preach Scripture, they end up telling stories designed to meet individual human needs that are ultimately useless. In a letter to another of his ‘students,’ Paul explains that the minister must be a man of the Word:

He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.   —Titus 1:9

Why is it so critical that ministers preach the Word? We can begin at the beginning-because it is the Word that makes us Christians. We are regenerated by the Word:

[Y]ou have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God….   —1 Pet. 1:23

The Word sanctifies us:

…Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.   -Eph. 5:25-27

The Word is the Agent of our complete transformation:

Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.   —James 1:21

Our very lives as Christians—including our continuing transformation and final destination—are a product of the Word of God. Ministers need to preach the Word because it is the only way we can ever know God. God is hidden to all of our natural senses. We cannot hear Him, see Him, smell Him, touch Him or taste Him. We can know Him only through His Word. This is not surprising, since God and His Word are One:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.   —John 1:1-2

Christianity is not an experience of God apart from the Word. It is a relationship with God through His Word. If we do not abide in the Word, we do not have a relationship with God:

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.   —2 John 9

The Word of God is our sure guide for knowing God, knowing ourselves, and knowing life. The Word is true, astute and applicable to us even in our time, because God inspired it:

All Scripture is inspired by God, and is beneficial to instruction, to reproof, to correction, to training in righteousness, so that the man and woman of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.   —2 Tim. 3:16-17 (own translation)

Because the eternal, omniscient, omnipotent God stands behind the written word, we can count on its veracity and accuracy. The word is truth, because God Himself is truth. Jesus revealed this in his prayer before his final passion:

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.   —John 17:17

If we want to know the truth, if we want to know God, if we want to know the answers to those questions that plague us throughout our lives—we need to know God’s Word. To learn why we need salvation, to learn how we are saved, to learn how then we should live once we are saved, we need to learn the Word of God. No wonder Paul tells ministers to preach the Word! It is the source of Christian life and direction. How much more should preachers today be preachers of the Word?

The Church should be the place where the Word of God is systematically and faithfully expounded. Sadly this is not necessarily true in our time. We need God’s help. He is the Head of the Church and is listening for a people who will cry out in hunger and thirst for His Word. May we be that kind of people. May God have mercy on us, and give us His Word afresh and anew!

As our world rapidly approaches the multicultural, religious pluralism that characterized the first century world of the apostle Paul, many churches seek for new ways to address their changing environment. I recently heard a pastor confess a fear that his church might go “out of business” if it does not change to meet the needs of the community. That kind of thinking betrays an incredible ignorance of the nature of the church and reveals that, for that pastor at least, the success or failure of the church depends on men and not on God.

Interestingly, for the apostle Paul and other ministers who participated in the unparalleled world-changing expansion of Christianity in the first century, the issue was never one of marketing but of proclaiming the Truth. Unlike many pastors in the 21^st century, preachers in the first century made no apologies for the gospel. Those preachers witnessed the gospel’s power to change culture while today’s preachers are subsumed by culture. Today’s preachers are justly afraid of being rendered irrelevant. But first century preachers made an impact. Those first century evangelists faced a myriad of competing worldviews and their audience faced a significant cost to accepting their message: for those in the Roman Empire, a sentence of death could result for confessing Jesus as Lord. Yet in the face of those obstacles, the preachers in the first century achieved a success that our contemporary pastors will never know.

The strength of first century evangelism was not in the new, novel ways that they enticed the culture. It came not from adapting their message to the felt needs or opinions of their neighbors. Instead, they simply proclaimed the facts of Jesus and the gospel:

 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day pin accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.   —1 Cor. 15:1–5

They didn’t share their personal experiences or their opinions, they preached the Word. And they didn’t do it “sensitively”:

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. … Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”   —Acts 2:22–24, 36

 Even to a secular audience with neither an understanding nor a vocabulary of Judeo-Christian religion, first century preachers did not equivocate. They preached the truth:

 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.   — Acts 17:16–18

 Paul did not adapt his message to the pagan world because he knew that the gospel was God’s truth:

 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit….   —Eph. 1:13

 But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.   —2 Th. 2:13

First century preachers understood that preached truth generated obedience in response:

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God….            —1 Pet. 1:22–23

 When these first century preachers surveyed the world around them, they knew better than to think that what people really needed was a place to belong. They did not believe in the inherent goodness of people, and they had no confidence in people coming to God through the process of doing good things. In the first century, preachers understood people on the basis of God’s Word; they recognized that humanity was depraved because it was deprived of the Truth:

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth….   —1 Tim. 6:3–5

So Paul, Peter, James and John preached the truth—and countless nameless others followed them through the centuries. Their languages changed and words varied, but the content never did. They preached the Word of God, the gospel. And in doing so, what was at its beginning a tiny sect within Judaism became a worldwide religion. Not because any of these men in themselves were great orators, and not because any of them did market surveys or customer satisfaction measurements in their congregations. They succeeded because it is God who builds His Church, and He does it through His Spirit and the foolishness of preaching His Word (1 Cor. 1:17–21). If pastors today are genuinely concerned about the church “going out of business,” perhaps they should return to that which built the church in the first place. Let us all pray and ask that God would ignite a fire in the hearts of men around the world to once again preach the Word.  

The Western world is rapidly approaching the multicultural, religious pluralism that characterized the first century world of the apostle Paul. Our culture is being thoroughly informed by paganism, pantheism and animism. Not surprisingly, churches are casting about for ways to reinvent themselves. Their efforts would be downright comical if it weren’t for the dire implications their failure holds for people both within and apart from the Church.

Contemporary pastors seem blind to the fact that the loss of Western culture is due in large part to their embrace of that culture. Over the last forty to fifty years, the Western church has relinquished their hold on propositional truth. They have followed secularism’s drive to privatize faith and they have encouraged it to be thought as a matter of personal preference. They have abandoned systematic, expository preaching of the Word of God in favor of delivering pop psychology and book reports. Church services are no longer about the reverent worship of God or the sustained discussion of His Word; today they are motivational seminars designed for personal empowerment and self-esteem enhancement. Pastors have discarded theology as both unnecessary and divisive, and embraced an emotional understanding of faith and love. Feelings have trumped facts and meaning has triumphed over truth.

The American protestant evangelical church has been hijacked by entrepreneurs who have eviscerated the pastorate and remade it into an organ of marketing. Pastors are no longer sought for their knowledge of the Bible or theology; today they are valued for possessing the techniques of church growth, management, and conflict resolution. In fact, many church leaders are even abandoning the title of pastor, preferring to refer to the position as a ‘coach of Christ followers.’ Today’s church developers and managers are quite adept at increasing attendance and activity within their enterprises; the proliferation of megachurches across America based on either the Willow Creek or Saddleback model testify to this fact. Yet for all the growth, for all the participation, it becomes increasingly evident that America’s public culture is growing progressively more polytheistic and pantheistic. One has to conclude that these churches are having no success in either promoting authentic Christian conversion or in fostering genuine, Biblical discipleship in their ‘followers.’

It is no surprise to any right-thinking Christian that as the church abandoned the teaching and preaching of the Word and doctrine, its ability to foster conversion and discipleship disappeared. Yet apparently these megachurch marketers were entirely caught by surprise! How should they respond? By increasing the teaching of the Bible and its doctrines and application? Heavens no! Instead, they will“coach … attendants how to be ‘self-feeding individuals’” and increase their compassion outreach to the world. I suppose if you can’t cooperate with the Holy Spirit in creating Christians, you can increase the opportunities for people to act like Christians! The mere participation in this commitment to social justice will apparently trigger “multiplied impact” around the world. What that impact will entail is yet undefined, but one doubts that it will mean an increase in true disciples. It may very well grow more and larger churches, but whether they are filled with children of God recognizable to Jesus, Paul, John or Peter, well, that may be problematic.

One cannot help but be grieved by the condition of the church in America in our time. What has happened to the pastors? I am staggered by the extent to which our pastors and elders are departing from the biblical model of shepherding. This new generation of “coaches” displays no worthy character traits to emulate; they witness to no supernatural work of the Spirit in their lives or ministry. Rather than humble themselves before the throne of God and pray, they run to one Hybel’s management conference after another. Their intellectual vacuity is displayed by their penchant for assigning Willow Creek books like Reveal to their staff. They don’t even study to prepare their own sermons; they buy ready-made packages with PowerPoint™ slides and everything to offer their congregations each week. Have these men no Bibles to read? Is there not a God in heaven whose ears are open to the cries of His people? Is there no Holy Spirit, who directs the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in its manifold expressions and worship on the earth?

It is time to tell the truth. These men are cowards, afraid to admit that they know nothing about the work or Word of God. They are deceptive developers, interested more in numbers and activity than in the spiritual habits of the heart and soul. Sadly, many in the church welcome them, and God is giving them what they desire. Elders and search committees lust after the chance to become the next big thing on the Christian landscape. These leaders want to acquire seats at the table of the powerful and talk about the direction of the Church in the days ahead. As a result, we have a Christianity devoid of theology and the Bible, and a faith that demands neither inward transformation nor seeking after God. Instead, we have churches in which we can do good to feel good and be thought of as good by our neighbors.

The time for silence has passed. It is time for the people who know God to rise up in these churches and resist this harlotry. Let us consecrate a fast, let us call a solemn assembly, let us humble ourselves and cry out to the Lord in prayer. Let us remember that these people are still people for whom Christ died; they are not our enemy. It is the Deceiver who is behind this apostasy that we must resist. Let us ask God for light and for vision, that this cancer may be removed from the church. Let us ask the God of the sheep for shepherds after His own heart. Let us take a stand, knowing full well all that it may entail. But if and when that persecution comes, may it witness to the glory of Christ.