Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:57:51 AM |
Age 46, MO |
Good article, timely and on theme with the #1 problem the church faces today from the pulpit. The #2 problem is apathy of the congregates and it is the result of the feminine theology being preached today. However, in regard to your article,, it ended too suddenly, is there a part 2 comming?
Keep up the good writing!
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:55:04 AM |
Age 41, FL |
I belong to a purpose driven church. I have felt that lately, all we talk about is strarting a 1000 new churches. Alot of talk of targeted demographics (age group). It is my understanding that we are to be fishers of all men. Thanks for this article it hits close to home.
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:49:53 AM |
Age 51, FL |
Ray,
The reading of the Word is key to a believer's discernment regarding the misdirection the church has taken. This deception has claimed so many in the Body. It seems only a remnant remains that adheres to doctrinal truths. Thank you for taking a stand.
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:39:21 AM |
Age 53, AZ |
Wow, is this an encouraging article! So who exactly is this pastor and where is his church? I am glad to see the shepherds of the flock are finally starting to wake up!As a Precept teacher, I was especially heartened to see he discovered the inductive Bible study method. With the recent scandals exposing Rick Warren for the false teacher that he is, maybe, just maybe, more pastors will follow the lead of the pastor of this article. The church desperately needs such pastors.
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:35:55 AM |
Age 28, NC |
It seems to me that the problem was no the methods of church growth that the author used, but his attitude. Being focused on numbers as a measure of success is not wrong when you realize that numbers equal living, breathing people that need the message. And as far as the "ugly ingredients" go, messages that meet needs, chairs and worship styles all sound like great things.
Also, you can have iductive sermons that still meet needs...it's called application.
And if your church has lost people in leadership, that's a problem of organization, not the church growth.
When I was in school, we were asked to write book reviews. I found it very easy to take a contrary position to the author. It is easier to refute something that it is to find a lot of evidence to agree with it. I'm admiting that I took the contrary approach because it was easier, I think the author of this article needs to do the same.
Keep stiving to reach people!
"I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." 1 Cor. 9:22 b
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:28:45 AM |
Age 38, CO |
While I agree mostly with this article, I want to caution you on lumping some very Biblical churches in with your "Ingredients" section.
I understand completely why you would feel like that, as I've been to some of those mega-churches, but there are a few of those buildings, where they have contemporary music and even two 5000 lumen projectors that do in fact teach the Bible. They don't water down the truth. It's not feel good messages every week. It's verse by verse Bible study as it should be.
With all of the different denominations out there that completely ignore many truths of the Word, if you plant a Bible believing, Bible teaching church in the middle of them, it will grow. People who are honest with themselves, who have the Holy Spirit illuminating Scripture, who see the lies in denominations, will be attracted to the truth. I watched that happen in Denver, and the small weekly Bible study at one mans house has grown into what you might call a mega-church. Still, the pastor is preaching the truth, verse by verse, and I've never heard him pull up on something for feel good purposes.
Big churches do have their own unique problems, but so do small ones. In both settings, you will have those that are there for reasons other than seeking God. It's the leaven in the lump, and you can't escape it anywhere.
Now I live in a town of 3500, and the same problem is here. Virtually every church is a social club and the Word is barely taught at most of them. We have found one church though, with a recently new Pastor that is not afraid to proclaim God's truth. It's interesting to watch some people squirm, and I figure that some will leave soon, but the church is also starting to pick up new members who are wanting to learn the truth.
We even have a projector now.
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:18:59 AM |
Age 43, TX |
Amen. I completely agree and saw myself in what you said. Although, I never did preach the easy believism sermon, I was right on line with all the others. Not only is our world view as Pastor's sometimes wrong, but why is it that we are always judged by the numbers? I was wondering that and saw God move mightily in the life on one of the individuals at church. This truly inspired me, and through God working in his life, I realized what my true focus should be.
Thanks for this article, it is inspiring to know that I am not alone.
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:16:58 AM |
Age 65, CA |
How wonderful to see a pastor discover the truth.I pray for more to come out of this growing apostasy of give the people what they want in order to fill the pews. My prayers for you and others to do the same.
In faith, SW Ca
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:08:41 AM |
Age 53, MI |
Welcome back! Our prayer should be that many more join you!
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:06:34 AM |
Age 54, CA |
Isn't our God great! Isn't He Awesome! I praise God that you were obedient to hear His small still voice. It is all about Jesus Christ not the programs. His word says to feed my sheep. Programs do not feed the sheep. It brings in the unbeliever and they start to take over. Now what do we have? A social club? Now it is grounded in the world not in Jesus.
Keep looking up for the time is near
God Bless you all
Pam
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:04:54 AM |
Age 50, WV |
Refreshing to see writen that it does not and should nottake modern admen and worldly spin doctor to reach the elect, all one need is the spirite of God. Or simply said one need walk in the light not in the high lites of progressive new age waves and fast time fads.
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:04:50 AM |
Age 54, MI |
When my family first moved here from Ohio, we joined a small (about 60 members) independent church whose pastor was an excellent teacher. He attended a seminar on church growth, and everything changed. He started preaching as opposed to teaching, the leadership would bend over backwards to get new people to join while ignoring the needs of existing members. The old 80/20 rule applied, where 80% of the work was done by 20% of the people - usually the original members. When we voiced our concerns to the leadership, we were answered with platitudes and rationalizations. Eventyally, as soon as we were able to find someone to fill in for what we were doing, we quit.
These days we attend a small (about 200 families)Baptist church. I fear these same things are drifting in here, too. My first alarm was when we stopped using "Baptist" in our name as presented to outsiders. I mentiond my concer about our becoming "seeker sensitive" to one of the elders, and he felt my fears were unfounded. When I asked why we stopped calling ourselves "Baptists" to outsiders, he answered that there were some negative stereotypes associated with the name "Baptist" that they leadership wished to avoid up front. I stated that THAT was exactly my point, he seemed to miss the point entirely.
All is not lost, though. My pastor is aware of the allure of big numbers and actively fights it, although I fear his discernment is a little fuzzy around the edges. A few years ago, against my protests, the church participated in the "40 Days of Purpose" program, and there are some "outreach" events that are too man-centered for my tastes, but my pastor teaches about sin and repentence, and the leadership still actually listens to the concerns of the rank-and-file members.
We haven't felt led to shake the dust off of our feet yet.
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 09:03:49 AM |
Age 53, NY |
Your article is very well written and you express your heart well. However, with every criticism of church growth strategies and mega-churches, the question still remains in my mind, how do we reach the millions in our nation that are currently on their way to a Christless eternity? I know that one-on-one is the most effective. But is there a place to "become all things to all people to save some"? In fairness, I have met many people who attend church growth motivated congregations and have found them to be deeply committed, mature, and involved believers. There are shallow believers in every church, larger churches just have more of them. Can we aim for both quality and quantity?
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 08:53:18 AM |
Age 37, TX |
I agree with you that we need to be careful not to water down the gospel or remove God from the center of our church. And I recognize that numbers are worthless if real change isn't occuring in the church. However, I've been part of both small and large churches and seen shallow Christians. And I've seen Christians grow strong in both small and large churches.
In Acts, Peter preached and over 3000 became Christians. They had a mega-church. Numbers aren't wrong in themselves--it's when the numbers become the focus instead of real life change.
I agree with you that messages that "meet people's needs" can sometimes lose sight of God and preach psychiatry instead. But that can happen in a small or a large church. If the message sovles peoples problems by pointing them to stronger obedience to God, then I don't see anything wrong with that.
I'd rather be a part of a church that reaches out to share the life-changing gospel with my neighbors than with a "holy huddle" church that keeps the gospel to itself lest it somehow become unpure. If a church is making serious disciples of Christ, what's wrong with reaching out to the neighborhood?
There is nothing "spiritual" about being a small church versus a mega-church. In fact, if a church always stayed small I'd wonder if it were really following the God who wants us to make disciples. Churches of all types make mistakes and learn from them. If they honestly are trying to follow God, and put God center, and see God changing non-believers into passionate, obedient, trained disciples of Christ, then I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt and pray for them.
We want depth AND numbers, not one or the other.
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 08:50:23 AM |
Age 35, MD |
Hi Ray,
I think you lay out a good thesis -- indicating that our measurement of church success by the numbers is unhealthy. You point out the symptoms of this misguided mindset as
"man-centered theology, relevant messages that solve peoples problems by meeting their needs, events and programs that reach out to the community, and music that is contemporary and entertaining. For best results, remove pews, dress casual, and install a 5000 lumen projector"
My question is, are you saying that if we do the opposite, then we are OK? That means God centered theology (no argument there...) irrelevant messages that exacerbate peoples problems by ignoring their needs, events and programs that reach into the church, and music that is outdated and boring. Add pews, wear a tie, and use an overhead (or hymnal for extra bonus) and church health is soon to follow. Right?
Well sure, I am being a bit facetious here, but the point I am making is that we are responsible for our motives AND our methods -- so stubbornly immobilizing the mehtods of your church, just to avoid being lumped in with the people who focus only on church growth, may not be God honoring either.
For a really thought provoking look at this and related issues, I recommend you check out www.jakecolsen.com and download their book (in pdf) and read it. It talks all about the problem of the church being "affirmation driven" and on a more foundational level, that the church (like all institutions) gets (is)easily sidetracked into sustaining itself, instead of the original mission. Short read, but very interesting and one I'd love to see a discussion about on this site. The book is called "So you don't want to go to church anymore" and is out in paperback now.
Read it and let's talk!
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 08:47:26 AM |
Age 60, KS |
This article is "right on". What is important is the growth of the individual believers and keeping our focus on God not ourselves. Humility is sorely lacking in the church today.
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 08:44:41 AM |
Age 41, NY |
PRAISE THE LORD... HE KNOWS HOW TO RESCUE THE GODLY FROM TEMPTATION, AND TO KEEP THE UNRIGHTEOUS UNDER PUNISHMENT FOR THE DAY OF JUDGMENT. (2 PET 2:9) HE IS FAITHFUL TO GIVE US A 'WAY OUT' OF OUR TEMPTATION, IF WE WILL ONLY SEE IT AND OBEY. PRAISE GOD FOR YOUR TESTIMONY! I PRAY THAT THE LEADERS OF MY FORMER CHURCH WOULD DO THE SAME...
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 08:43:25 AM |
Age 41, OK |
I loved this article! I have been saying this for years. My parents pastor a church, and we get asked all the time how is your church doing. What they basically want to know is, "How many members do you have." I can honestly say that we might not have many members but the word is rich and true. We don't have a lot of people because we don't have great music (a concert every church night)! We don't have a youth department. We have taught the youth they need to be entertained at all times, which is wrong. When I was young after Sunday School we sat in the service. This taught us to reverence God, reverence his spirit and it taught us to be sinsitive to his spirit moving. Kids don't receive that today. I know the Bible talks about David wanting to number the people. God said not to, but he did it anyway. It cost him. I believe when we look at numbers we are making a mistake. I have said what this article states many time. What determines success to you? Numbers? My answer is, am I showing Gods love like he tells us to, am I growing in the spirit. Am I following Christ's example and living my life according to his. Can people see Jesus in me. If so, then this means success!
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 08:30:47 AM |
Age 51, MT |
Praise God ! Lets ALL return to Spirit Driven, not the pupose driven dribble that is so rampant in our churches.Follow Christ not man, because man will ALWAYS let you down, because he is NOT God !
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Re: Church Growth Hormone - a Biblically Banned Substance
| Posted On: 12/07/06 08:30:10 AM |
Age 25, TX |
As a whole, I don't disagree with you. Most churches toss Jesus out the window in order to get unhealthy growth. You added a couple things to the "ingredient" that taken individually are not bad but only when added to the others do they become dangerous. If you are going to list these "ingredients," please define them in context.
- Contemporary music
- Events and programs that reach out to the community
- Dress casual
Do you really think that these are bad things or just when taken with bad theology and pointless "messages?"
Just looking for clarification since I don't necessarily disagree with the point of your editorial.
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