Monthly Archives: August 2011

Top Ten Mistakes: Second Five

Here is the second half of my list of what I believe to be the top ten mistakes made by Evangelical churches in America. See the first five here.

Closing the Communion Table: Communion is the most effective evangelism tool ever invented, because it utilizes all five senses to communicate the Gospel. When we ban people who do not yet believe from the table, we are withholding a powerful, life giving message from them. In our church, we take time every Sunday to share a meaningful meal together, and we have seen several people who don’t yet believe grow in their understanding and acceptance of the gospel through participating in the table. Concerned that unbelievers might eating and drinking judgment to themselves? Read my very first post.

Blending Politics With Theology: While serving as a pastor in Arizona, the reddest of red states, I received a “voting guide” from a Christian organization. This “impartial” guide was meant to be distributed in our church, and claimed to give a non-partisan account on how various candidates voted on issues which were supposedly pertinent to Christians. Included in the guide was data on how each candidate voted on various right wing (but not necessarily biblical) interests such as gun control, school vouchers and tax codes. What was missing was Jesus’ interest of how each candidate acted to protect the poor, oppressed and helpless in our community. This unbalance causes Christians to seem as if we have an hidden alternate agenda, and that we do not really believe what we teach. Jesus is not a Republican. Nor is he a Democrat for that matter. We should want to create an environment where the lesbian pro-choice feminist who sits in the cubicle next to us will feel welcome in our gatherings; and perhaps even feel as if she can belong before she believes. Therefore, we need to consider removing obstacles such as mini anti-Obama rallies at the bagel table or proselytizing for Sean Hannity. We must create an environment where the only obstacle in our churches is the already offensive enough stumbling block of the cross.

Failure to Release People to Lead: Many churches function as what I like to call “benevolent dictatorships.” This model, borrowed from business, keeps power centralized among a few highly trained and competent (and many times very godly) individuals. In this model, people are trained to serve in the church using their gifts. Whether in the sound booth or greeting at the door, we excel at helping people find ways to use their gifts for ministry. However, in most cases, these servants are merely implementing the mission of the executives. Rarely do we truly let go and release people to take responsibility and lead. Some resist letting go out of a genuine concern for excellence, others from a less noble fear that if they allow another to lead, they will be usurped. However, the biblical model is that we must raise up leaders, then release them to lead—with real authority. Like Jesus, we must become examples of humble, servant leadership which seeks to empower and send people to fulfill all the dreams for which God has prepared them. The gospel is about God taking ordinary people and using them in extraordinary ways. We must therefore let go of the need to control every outcome, and allow room for the Holy Spirit to mold our communities through many gifted men and women whom we have unleashed. Then we will really have something to show to this culture which is far more accustomed to leadership which “lords down” upon them.

Using the “Talking Head” Model Exclusively: After I visited a church where I was the guest speaker, my wife and I stood in the empty worship center after all the people went home. I asked her: “Hon, if you were an alien from outer space, and came into this room, what would you guess the purpose of it was just by looking at the way it is set up?” Her answer: “I would say it is a place where a bunch of people come to hear the same information at the same time.” Unfortunately, my wife made a correct assessment of what many churches have become – merely seminars were nameless people receive a one way flow of pre-determined information, then go home. This is even true of many of our small groups, where we pop in a DVD and listen to a famous teacher. However, if we truly believed in the doctrine of “The Priesthood Of All Believers,” then we should be greatly motivated to create environments where the Spirit will work through us to be each other’s teachers. Nonbelievers value speaking with someone, not being “talked at.” If we truly demonstrate a desire to hear what someone besides ourselves has to say, perhaps that same someone might be more inclined to listen when there is a talking head. At our church, we have implemented an alternating Sunday morning format where on certain weeks the lesson is in a discussion format. We truly leave space in the lesson for people to teach each other. Yes, this is getting trickier as we grow, but it is worth it.

Confusing Numerical Church Growth With Church Health: Turn on your TV and watch a Christian channel for a few minutes. If that doesn’t convince you that numerical growth does not necessarily mean health, then nothing will! Some of the largest and fastest growing churches in America are unfortunately perpetuating many of the above dysfunctions to such a large degree, that a rapidly increasing number of Americans are viewing the church as completely irrelevant and worthless. Perhaps we should begin to measure success not by asses in the seats, but by asking ourselves if we see the effects of the gospel in our community: restored lives, healed marriages, reconciled relationships, sent leaders and transformed hearts. Otherwise, our numerical growth may lull us into a false sense of success, leaving many people outside unaffected by the gospel because our delusion has caused us to stop pursuing innovative ways to fulfill our mission. Disclaimer: I am not arguing against increasing attendance per se. I am arguing against programming our gatherings with the primary goal to increase numbers, and against measuring success by our attendance.

Top Ten Mistakes: First Five

Here is the first five of my list of what I believe to be the top ten mistakes made by Evangelical churches in America, in no particular order. I believe that each of these mistakes cause us to be less effective in our mission to participate with Jesus in bringing about restoration through the gospel. I hope you enjoy reading this post, because it came at the expense of my youngest son’s lunch, which I burned because I paid more attention to this article than I did his knockwurst. Next week, I will post the next five of top ten mistakes.

What do you think? Disagree with one? Have more to add? Please comment and let me know!

Sharing Half the Gospel Message: Recently, an unchurched friend asked me, “Why do Christians use the term ‘saved,’ don’t they realize how judgmental that sounds?”  My answer was that many times, we Christians communicate our message as merely rescuing, or “saving” someone from hell–that Jesus only died on the cross to “forgive your sins so you can get to heaven.” I then let him know, that while I do believe that that Jesus died for my sins and that I will go to heaven when I die, that sometimes we forget to mention that there is also a life in-between! Jesus not only died to provide legal forgiveness, but he also rose to give us a transformed life in the here and now. Jesus has a story in which he invites us to participate. That truth should also be part of our message. Amazed, my friend said “Yes! I never heard that before, That makes a lot of sense. I need to take some time and think about that.” My friend has always understandably seen the church as completely irrelevant, since he had heard little or no talk about a restored life the present, but much talk about how he needs to be saved. Hopefully he is beginning to rediscover the relevance of the Gospel in his everyday life.

Lack of Timeliness in Baptisms: Baptism is also a powerful evangelism tool because it is a picture of the complete gospel: that Christ both died and rose again. It is also an opportunity for people to take a tangible and meaningful step after coming to faith. In fact, for some people baptism is the very step that they take to profess their saving faith – much like the “sinner’s prayer” does for others. Some churches delay baptism after a profession of faith to allow for some sort of process. However, a timely baptism demonstrates that nothing else is necessary but God’s grace. I have always been amazed to witness people who were close to believing finally come to faith immediately after witnessing a baptism.

Drawing a Line in the Sand Over the Theory of Evolution: The church made a similar mistake 400 years ago when it drew a line in the sand over a geocentric view of the universe. This view that the earth was the center of the universe was based on literal interpretation of verses such as Psalm 19:6, which says about the sun: “It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other.” Galileo’s good science eventually proved not that the Bible was incorrect, but that the church’s interpretation of the Bible was. The resulting causalities were the many people who were alienated from faith, because when the church drew a line in the sand, they had no choice but to step over it. Likewise, we may be drawing a line in the sand by insisting that Genesis is meant to be taken as historical narrative, thereby laying out a necessary time sequence for the origin of life. However, it is conceivable that Genesis may be in some way intended to be taken in a more figurative, poetic way, much the same way as we now understand Psalm 19. This does not mean that we understand it to be any less true. Among the people who held this view was St. Augustine, who is way out of any of our theological leagues, and had no pressure from science to interpret it that way.

So, let’s just admit that we are not scientists, that we don’t really know anything about Potassium-Argon Dating, and allow science to run its course before we alienate even more millions of people. If it is done well, science will certainly reveal new amazing truths about God and his work in the universe, much like Galileo’s telescope has done for us today!

Lack of Emphasis of Corporate Prayer in Worship Gatherings: When I was in college and involved in a campus ministry, we took time every at every meeting to share prayer requests and pray for each other – it seemed so natural, even though there was easily 100 people present. Then, when God answered prayer it not only strengthened our faith, it also demonstrated to the people among us who did not yet believe that God is real. It was exciting to see the result of many students on campus coming to faith. Compare my experience to a recent study showing that prayer consists of merely 5% of the worship service in the average contemporary evangelical church.

Deemphasizing corporate prayer potentially shields people from seeing God do his best work. Prayer also demonstrates that we are a community of people who love and care for each other. I recently met a young woman who came to faith because during a service she witnessed a church gathering around to pray for a member recently diagnosed with MS. The love of the community demonstrated in that act is what won her over. Our church takes time in every gathering to share prayer requests and pray for each other, and it has been a highly effective form of evangelism lately as nonbelievers have been witnessing God answering several prayers.

Having Separate Events for Outreach: I guess we can also call this “Having Events for Christians Only.” The transformative power of the gospel working in and through the people in the community of faith is a very powerful evangelism tool. When the gospel changes people, others notice! This means that we must be patient and gracious enough to create an environment which allows people to belong before they believe. We must create a paradigm in which it is typical to include unbelievers at every event, whether they are worship services, service projects, bowling nights, or informal Sunday afternoon dinners in one’s home.

We have made a commitment to no longer get together with “just our Christian friends.” I now grieve over years of missed opportunities when we did not invite our unbelieving friends to join us for the evening because they did not fit into the correct “category.” We falsely believed that they would not relate to the gathering. Now, I understand that the problem was not in their inability to relate to the environment, but in our inability to create a relatable environment. My middle son, who is also my proofreader, reminded me on this point that our exclusivity at times also makes us appear “stuck up.” Good point.