Originally posted 08-02-2010. Reposted 08-26-2011.
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I’ll never forget reading Brad Powell’s Change Your Church For Good: The Art of Sacred Cow Tipping. It made me weep. I wept because Brad accurately described so many churches I know and have been a part of. They are churches who were once effectively reaching people, but they crept into decline.
I was reading the book on an airplane and looked out the window at the city below. Within eyeshot there were hundreds of thousands of people living without the hope of Jesus. Also within my view there were many churches like the ones described above. It was too much for me to bear and I began to cry. The guy next to me thought I was nuts, but I didn’t care.
Why do churches decline? Why do churches lose their effectiveness and forget their mission? Powell answers those questions insightfully so I won’t try to answer them here. I will say this though: no one started any of those churches with the hope that they would one day plateau and decline. No one started those churches desiring that they would lose sight of their vision and mission. No one planted their churches designing them to die. Rather, people made tremendous sacrifices to start those churches so that they would each be “the getting saved place”.
Let us never forget why the church exists. It doesn’t exist to meet the needs of a fattening congregation. The church exists for the same reason that Jesus came to earth: to reach a dying and hurting world. Let us recall our heritage of evangelism and doing whatever it takes to reach people who don’t know Jesus. Let us fall on our knees broken before a Holy God and repent of our self centered sin. Let us all again make each of our churches “the getting saved place.”
A little reminder that the last words of Jesus were not, “Go and see people get saved”, but “Go and make disciples”. Discipleship – the formation of people into something approaching the likeness of Christ – is what He asked of us then, and it’s what He asks of us still.
This is not – as you (and by extension Mr Powell) cynically put it – the same thing as “meeting the needs of a fattening congregation”. In fact, “being saved” is exactly what it should be: the congregation should be being saved from themselves one changed attitude, one bad habit at a time. It’s manifestly not a one-off job: it’s a lifetime’s work which nobody ever completes, because nobody goes to heaven perfect. And trying to do it alone is a fool’s game – you need every bit of support, human and spiritual, that you can get.
It can and does happen: some of the transformations that happen make people sit up and take notice. But these transformations are the exception, not the rule. On that basis I contend that the reason people don’t think churches are worth it anymore isn’t about cultural relevance: it’s because people see through the gap between the rhetoric about changed lives and the reality of same-old same-old.
Wow James. Thanks for the comment.
How about the book “Transform Your Pastoral Ministry” by Dag Heward-Mills? This book brings every minister back to the true purpose of ministry and the work of the Lord. No minister or church will deviate from their true calling after reading this book. Check it out, and be blessed 🙂