|
I began last month pointing out
the increasing differences between the conservative and contemporary
churches. I have tried to spend more time describing the conservative
resurgence rather than the contemporary departure (but it has been
difficult). This will be a continuation of those descriptions. I have
titled these things with the words “Thesis” and “Antithesis” following
Hegel’s famous dialectic. I left off the obvious result which is almost
always a “synthesis” between the original conviction and the new
protest movement.
In addition I ought to point out that,
having been a student of the Postmodern phenomenon and an observer of
the Converging Church movement and other supposed “paradigm shifts,” I
think that fundamentalists and other conservatives who have also studied
these things and yet have decided that a contemporary approach to
ministry is necessitated by them are sorely wrong. To have studied our
current culture and then to have decided that we must become more like
it in order to reach it is to be contrary to Scripture (James 4:4).1
For a Christian to be “culturally relevant” is not to be “in the spirit”
of the age (that is what Demas loved, 2 Tim. 4:10) but rather to respond
to the age in the way God would have him. Results and popularity have
never been biblical indicators of right and wrong in these matters.
Unfortunately, many have already committed themselves to comparing
themselves among themselves, and are not wise (2 Cor. 10:12).
In the last days
perilous times shall come (2 Tim.
3:1). Paul’s admonition to Timothy (and to us) is to be
instant in season,
out of season (2 Tim. 4:2).
We’re not to vacillate up and down as a wave of the sea, driven with the
wind and tossed, nor be carried about by every wind of doctrine but to
be steadfast like a anchor fastened to a Rock.
I continue now with the descriptions of
conservative churches as opposed to contemporary churches.
Visitation
and Invitations
One of the most noticeable marks of a
conservative church is that it still has a visitation program during the
week and that it still gives public invitations in the Sunday services.
The way these are done has never been exactly alike in all churches but
the fact that they are done shows that a church believes in the power of
the gospel to change people upon their hearing it. To discontinue these
practices shows a lack of trust in the power of the Word or a lack of
interest by believers. There is a growing antipathy for the public
invitation, much of it by our Reformed friends and much of it by
progressive churches who don’t do anything that is disturbing to their
“seekers.”
One can see the evidence of the gospel
followed by an appeal for a response (an invitation!) in almost every
chapter in the book of Acts. Where a gospel appeal is not being made, a
church appeal to the believers is! James says that visiting the
fatherless and widows is part of pure religion (Jas. 1:27). The rich
man who died and went to hell wished for someone to visit his loved ones
with the gospel (Luke 16:27-28). Pastor James testified at the
Jerusalem council that God had “visited” (the same word that James used
in his book!) the Gentiles with the gospel (Acts 15:14). Three times
the word “persuade” is used in connection with Paul’s preaching ministry
(Acts 18:4; 26:28; 2 Cor. 5:11).
Even though the
appeals of the gospel are clearly in Scripture, still many try to blame
Finney or Sunday or
Moody for beginning this practice.
Whether or not they began the practice as we know it does not matter
(most of us would be totally at home in those old meetings with their
invitations). It was William Carey and his friend Andrew Fuller in the
late 1700s who, though theological Calvinists, pleaded with the churches
to make public appeals with the gospel. After being scolded by John
Ryland, Sr. that God would win the heathen without their help if He
wanted, they, nonetheless, began the
Particular Baptist
Missionary Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen.
Carey published
An Inquiry into the
Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the
Heathen. Fuller wrote,
I believe it is the duty of every minister of Christ plainly and
faithfully to preach the Gospel to all who will hear it; . . . I
therefore believe free and solemn addresses, invitations, calls, and
warnings to them to be not only consistent, but directly adapted, as
means, in the hand of the Spirit of God, to bring them to Christ. I
consider it as a part of my duty which I could not omit without being
guilty of the blood of souls.2
Recently I read the biography of John
Broadus written by his son-in-law A.T. Robertson. Broadus is best known
for his Greek scholarship, co-founding of Southern Baptist Seminary, and
authoring his enduring book ,
Preparation and
Delivery of Sermons. During the
Civil War years Broadus traveled with the Confederate troops as a sort
of chaplain, preaching often to the soldiers in their camps. He
describes one such service: “Many wept during the sermon, and not at
allusions to home, but to their sins, and God’s great mercy . . .
Gilmer is dreadfully opposed to inviting men forward to prayer, etc.,
though Lacy, Hoge, and most of the Presbyterians, do it just like the
rest of us.”3
An observer of Broadus’ meetings wrote:
The songs, simple old hymns, containing the very marrow of the gospel,
were sung, ‘with the spirit and understanding,’ and stirred every
heart. The reading of the Scriptures, and the appropriate, fervent,
melting prayer, such as only John A. Broadus could make—were all fit
preparations for the sermon. . . At the close of the service they came
by the hundreds to ask an interest in the prayers of God’s people, or
profess a new-found faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I doubt not that
our beloved brother has greeted on the other shore not a few who heard
him that day or at other points in the army.4
Let me say again, it is not that every
invitation is given exactly alike but it should be said that throughout
the gospel age those who have loved souls have appealed to them for
immediate change. Iain Murray, in writing against the public invitation
as we are used to seeing it, still has to admit, “Wherever preaching has
ceased to require an individual response and wherever hearers are left
with the impression that there is no divine command requiring their
repentance and faith, true Christianity has withered away.”5
The omission of the invitation in our day will eventually lead to a
reversion back to catechisms and confirmations, gradually making nice
moral people into Christians through an education process rather than
conversion because it is less offensive and much easier to do.
Seniors and
Youth
A biblical church will honor both their
senior saints as well as their young people by treating them as God
treats them. Paul told Timothy to
Rebuke not an elder,
but entreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; the elder
women as mothers; the younger as sisters with all purity. Honor widows
that are widows indeed (1 Tim. 5:1-3).
John wrote, I
have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from
the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are
strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the
wicked one (1 John 2:14).
The contemporary church, frankly, has
had no love for either. The seniors are (in a shocking fashion) told to
leave, die or get out of the way; and the youth are not told anything!
Rather than the church insisting (Biblically) that the elder saints lead
and the younger saints follow, the churches have given leadership to the
worldliest young people and have told the seniors to follow. This can’t
be honoring to God but it is happening wholesale with biblical blinders
on.
I have been in a national pastors’
meeting where a teenage girl performing as a “worship leader,” dressed
in jeans and T-shirt, at the close of a song presumed to lead the 1000+
congregation of ministers and their wives in prayer! Many walked out.
I just read Rick Warren (web site: Pastors.com) telling young pastors
who are willing to take their church in his “Purpose Driven” way to push
the older saints out of the way lest they get in the way! “I'm saying
some people are going to have to die or leave.” How can men of God read their Bible and
still do what is being asked here? Is success so important that a man
ordained to the gospel ministry will blatantly violate the Word of God
for it?
Godly saints, older and younger alike,
are being held hostage by a few who threaten havoc in the church and at
home if they don’t get their way. This happens because true
spirituality does not strive nor is it possessive of mere things. It
easily lets go of earthly possessions and can walk away in good
conscience. Immaturity, however, will seize the limelight as well as
the property though it did not pay for it nor sacrifice for it. What is
harder to understand is the senior who acquiesces and participates in
the immature worship, or the godly young person who does the same out of
peer pressure and fear of being ostracized. Where are the young men
that John wrote about who are strong and have the Word of God abiding in
them and have overcome the wicked one? One wonders when the spirit of
boldness left our Christian youth.
There are many senior saints across our
land who are grieving sorely over having to leave their church of many
years because they could no longer participate with a good conscience in
the immaturity and worldliness of the church. I think to myself, “how
appropriate!” It is a right thing for people to attach themselves to
their church, to love it and sacrifice for it for many years. It would
be an unnatural thing if such people did not go through a grieving
process in such a loss.
I have noticed another phenomenon
surrounding the contemporary church. If young people cannot perform,
are not the beautiful children, cannot wear designer clothes and have
perfect bodies, cannot dance and do not desire to be an American idol,
they will be only pew-fillers. After all, even in young churches,
someone will be asked to just pay and pray. Someone has to stand in the
crowd and do as the crowd does: sway back and forth with hands raised
and clapping, because there is no room for nonconformists in such a
crowd.
Even young people in our religious
schools wonder if they can measure up to the success-standard that is
expected of all students. Can you climb the ladder quickly? Can you
pioneer a work into an obvious successful contributor? Are you good
enough to be invited back to speak where your mentors spoke? The
pressure will be too great for most young people. They will quickly
adapt to the accepted and ordained methodology that can bring them
success. Some ministers in mid-life are still “trying on” the latest
method, waiting for some affirming miracle to happen.
Biblical Christianity with Biblical
local churches will always be around. They are around today, just not
in big numbers and not in the cultural spotlight. Many older saints are
finding that they do not have to acquiesce to an unbiblical standard of
being ruled by novices; that they still have good years of wisdom and
service to give. Many young people are finding that reward for ministry
comes in the next life, not in this one; that spirituality is reward in
itself, not a means to an end; that their generation needs true cultural
observers who, rather than falling in line with the crowd, will not love
the world, neither the things in the world, but will boldly and
faithfully submit themselves to a biblical world-view and a biblical
church organization. Unbiblical ministries cannot last long. There
will be a resurgence of walking by faith, not by sight; of being in the
world without being of the world; of walking with God when no one will
walk with you. Now that will be revival!
Notes:
1. Some argue that culture is morally neutral and
therefore never to be avoided, or that methodology is morally neutral
or that Fundamentalists are hiding their heads in the sand. These
points are catchy but nonsense. More people have been reached by
separatists than any other evangelizing groups. Far from them being out
of touch, they have always known exactly what their culture really
needed.
2. A.C. Underwood,
A History of the English Baptists (London: Carey Kingsgate Press,
1956) 164.
3. A.T. Robertson,
Life and Letters of John A. Broadus (Philadelphia: American
Baptist Pub. Society, 1910) 208.
4. Ibid, 208-209.
5. Iain Murray,
The Invitation System (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1984) 1.
|
