I heard today that while 80% of the people in America claim to Christian’s only about 20% actually attend worship services. I also learned that of that 20% who do attend worship services regularly only 65% will have actually opened and read their Bibles over a one year period of time. I suspect that many of those who do read the Bible do not accept it as God's word. We have the largest churches in the world just down the road from where we live. These churches broadcast their services on television and through live streaming on the Internet. Their pastors and musicians have national followings and have written books on virtually every subject imaginable and still despite all this the influence of Christianity is declining with each passing day.
One writer recently said that Christianity is going to loose the “battle” with Islam because most
I recall my wife’s uncle, then pastor of a large Mississippi church during what I call the pre-mega church era saying essentially the same thing. He said, “I have a church full of people who as Christians are a 100 miles wide and only a few inches deep. The slightest trouble or trial that comes into their life destroys them.” They are desperately in need of a closer walk with the Lord.
As I listened to this I thought to myself, “These things ought not to be.” If they are true and I suspect they are, what is the reason and what is the answer.” I also thought, “If I am to find an explanation and an answer where do I turn?”
My first thought was that I need to go back in time to a time and place when Christianity was turning the world upside down. The persistent witness of the church was penetrating the Roman world and its myriad of cultures and changing them. If we are going to recapture the ability to impact the world in which we live with the Gospel we are going to have to discover what it was about those early believers that shook the world.
The first thing I think of when I think of those early believers is the testimony of the man who was born blind and Jesus healed his blindness. He couldn’t answer all the questions that the religious leaders plied him with. Instead, all he would says was, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"
All he could do was tell what he had experienced. But then that is the secret, he had experienced something and was willing to talk about what he knew. So, in my mind we must make sure that we have actually had a genuine life changing experience with Jesus Christ. That’s the beginning. Until one has had a life changing experience with Jesus Christ you cannot go another step.
I do not know the depths of Jesus' love,
That brought Him down to earth from heaven above,
Nor why He bore the cross up Calvary
And shed His precious blood so willingly.
I do not know what pain He suffered there,
The burden of my sin and shame to bear.
It may be well to hide it all from me,
Lest my own heart should break in sympathy.
I do not know what I can do, or say,
My debt of gratitude to Him to pay;
But I at least may cry,"O Christ divine!
Had I a thousand lives they should be Thine."
But this one thing I know: That when the crimson flow
Dropped to the earth below, It fell on me.
My eyes were opened wide, I saw Him crucified,
And knew for me he died.
This is the foundation of the Christian faith. People do not become Christians through teaching about better homes, marriages, finances etc. They will not become Christians by works of righteousness or giving of alms. People become a Christian by faith in Jesus Christ as their living Lord. This is the kind of faith that transforms a life. In point of fact you become a new creation in Christ Jesus. There are not many ways to be righteous before God. There is but one way and Jesus himself stated it plainly when he said, I am the truth, the way and the life and no one comes to the Father but by me.” Christianity is inclusive in that salvation is offered to all and it is exclusive in that it only given to those who put the whole weight of their faith in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
They community saw these changes that could not be attributed to anything but the working of the Holy Spirit and because they lived in the community and knew the former way of life of their neighbors and understood the magnitude of the changes the Gospel made in their lives. If the world is going to be impacted by the gospel as it was in the days of Peter, James and John then lives are going to need to be changed the same way of Paul, the blind man and the jailer of Philippi.
When I was a young preacher our community had an abundance of people like myself who felt the call of God on our lives to preach the Gospel. Our churches had pastors who understood that calling because they themselves had the self-same call. Consequently they opened their pulpits to us as you preachers and we began at an early age. I think I was 17 when I preached my first sermon before a Sunday night packed house. I mention this to give context to what I want to say about our merry band of young preachers.
First, we had little education in theology. The depth of your theological thinking was what we got in having grown up in Sunday School. That meant we weren't doing any "in-depth" preaching. It was short and to the point and always included the fact that people are sinners, Jesus died for their sin, by faith Jesus would come into their life, forgive their sin and give them eternal life. We then offered an invitation (altar call) to receive Christ and more often than not people were saved. Before these meetings where we preached we spent hours during the preceding week praying that God would honor His word and lives would be changed. You see we knew our inadequacy and so we heavily depended upon the Holy Spirit to use what we offered. We always saw the lives changed not as a result of our ability to preach but as the product of the Holy Spirit's power to convict and convert. "To God be the Glory great things He has done." I am saying we need to see God do these kinds of great things in our presence so we have a real reason to sing "Great is the Lord."
It was on the power of these personal stories of faith stories and hundreds more like them that got the cultures attention. So much so that one city official declared that “These people who are literally turning our world on its head have come here also.” The first church which had nothing but their faith and the Holy Spirit were penetrating their world by nothing more complex than the stories of their own transformed lives. It was simple: They said “He lives.” The world says, “How do you know?” They replied, “Because He lives within my heart and you can see the evidence of that in what I say and do.” They would then add, “And what He has done for me He has done for you and will effect in your life if you have faith in Him.” In many ways it was the observation of a changed life that gave opportunity for the believer to say, "Well, let me tell you about the greatest thing that has ever happened in my life" and then followed that by telling what the Lord had done for them. Nothing has changed in this regard.
Now keep in mind, and I know this will be hard to do, that these people did not have the Internet, cell phones, or any of the other electronic devices. They did not have marketing gurus to promote their branding and the did not have sales specialists to teach them how to convince people how to accept their message. They did it through the belief that the Spirit of God through the power of the redemptive story of Jesus Christ and its impact on their individual lives. They simply believed there was power in His story and all they had to do was tell His story and live like him.
They did not target sins but they did target Sin. The modern church does one of two things. We either focuses on individual sins and therefore we join marches, protest, boycotts and engage in shouting matches and condemnation of whole groups of people. We find ourselves in the condemnation business instead of the business of delivering the good news of God’s loved and grace.
Other Christians opt to just ignore sinful behavior in favor of the universal love of God for people. They focus on the nature of God. After all does the Bible not say that “God is love?” Indeed it does but it nowhere elevates love to God. The result of this is that people enter the church bringing all their , shall I use the word, “pagan” ways with them. Neither of these occurred to the early church.
The church, if it is to impact the culture in which we live is going to have to get back to basics. The pulpit needs to consistently and continually proclaim the kerygma (the essentials of the Apostles doctrine) and Christians in general need to live consistent lives that demonstrate to an unbelieving world the power of the Gospel to change lives. To emulate Peter and John who said, Silver and Gold we have none but what we do have give we unto you.” To copy the example of Jesus who said, “The son of man came not to be ministered to but to minister.”
I am not saying this cannot happen with the mega churches but I am not hopeful. I feel strongly that we need to abandon the corporate model for doing church and revive the family model. We were more influential in our communities when our churches were smaller. More lives were powerfully changed than we see today. We developed a Christian culture that while scattered among a dozen church groups infected the whole community. Personally I am not even sure that God ever intended for the church to become institutionalized. There are even companies that specialize in Church Branding, Church Marketing plans and programs, Fund raising companies specializing in churches, architects and builders who do nothing but churches. In short, there are whole industries dependent upon the growth of the mega-church movement.
However, I am pretty sure the modern mega-church is not what He had in mind for His people. The New Testament seems to suggest that the church should meet in small groups (“from house to house” is the phrase) where relationships could be established with depth and where the “least of these my brethren” will not be overlooked.
This return to the family model will be hard because it will have an impact of the religious business industry that has risen around the mega-church. Sermons and books by prominent pastors are copyrighted though produced during their pastoral tenure. Christian musicians now police their music so that small church have to purchase a use license from copyright companies to even sing the songs and God forbid you record one during your service and put it on Youtube. It is a whole new approach to “My house is a house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves.” The spiritual gifting of God is for the edification of the church not the financial enrichment of the believer.
Unfortunately, the corporate model all but eliminated our being the arms and feet of Jesus to “our” world. We want grand concerts with superstar musicians powerfully singing wonderful “new” songs. We have worship teams that are little more than our own full time gospel singers who entertain us with their abilities. There is no place for the weaker brothers and sisters, or the less talented. Many wonder how can they compete with the virtuosos on the platform? Truth be told, I would never heard my mother sing "Face to Face" in church on a Sunday morning in today's worship services.
We are to be a family of believers who come to the same table to dine and go into the same community to live out our faith. What would happen if our communities started seeing people once again dramatically saved. I know I can recite from my own youth many cases where it was clear to all present that what was happening was the Lord’s doing and not anything we had done. Were we surprised? No, we expected God to work. The surprise came when it didn’t happen.
What I am getting at is that the church is the Lord’s body. It is His hands, feet, ears, mouth etc. in the world today. Our churches, though small by today’s standards, would have large groups meeting to pray that they become as the disciples at Pentecost . . . in one place and one accord; To confess sin and receive forgiveness; To experience encouragement and share burdens; And, to acknowledge that it was not by might nor by power but by the Spirit of God that people came to faith and were healed.
In short tell His story by telling your story and validate your changed life through the actions you take and the attitudes you express.
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.
In Christ there is no East or West,
No North or South;
Only one great love
Inside and out.
True hearts everywhere
Some deaf and some blind
Singin' one melody
Lost souls cannot find.
Join hands and have faith,
Whatever your race may be!
Who serves my Father as a son
Is surely kin to me.
In Christ now meet both East and West,
There is no black or white
Only one great love
Hatred cannot divide
Join hands and have faith,
Whatever your race may be!
Who serves my Father as a son
Is surely kin to me.
Join hands and have faith,
Forgive your enemy
Surely we're all a part
Of one big family.
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