Should We Change Church to be Relevant? part 2

            Foundational issues are supremely important.  I pray to God that in the several posts about this topic that I strike a gentle tone of loving discussion on this vital issue.  However, on this one post I intend to lay the one foundation that we must all agree upon.  I ask one question:  which is highest priority, faithful obedience to God’s commands or relevance for the sake of reaching the lost?  Or phrased another way:  What wins out when asking “what does God command us to do” and asking “what is the best way to attract those who are rejecting church” gives us two contradictory answers?  Shall we obey God or shall we be relevant?

            Now many would object to the soundness of this question.  Perhaps they would say that in many important instances we do not get contradictory answers to those questions.  I readily agree with this statement.  I have no doubt that a person could show me many places where our churches could become stronger in outreach without violating a single command of God.  However, to use my illustration from the last post, I am not all that worried about the man working on my house being able to show me walls which he can safely knock down.  There certainly are some.  What I am more worried about is that the man can rightly identify the walls he must not knock down.  And so also with the man who would begin changing the church.  I happily agree there are valid things to change.  But before the church gives you the sledge hammer and its blessing, are you aware that there are things that you must not change?  Are we agreed on this one foundational principle, that what God commands weighs more than what either you or I think would be useful for reaching the lost?

            One verse of scripture that is so remarkable to me is 1 Corinthians 15:34.  It says,

1Co 15:34  Become sober-minded as you ought, and stop sinning; for some have no knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

Here we have a very sincere concern for lost souls.  However his command to them so that they can reach these lost souls is not what we expect.  If your pastor stood before the church to rebuke them for the lost souls around them you would likely expect him to be urging you to greater efforts in evangelism.  For example you’d expect him to urge you to knock on more doors, invite more people to church, share the gospel more, invite more people to your home, etc.  These are the types of things you’d expect.  However, Paul says “stop sinning.”  What Paul says is the obstacle in this particular case is the people’s sin.  Nothing repels unbelievers like hypocrisy, disobedience to the commands of God by those who profess Him as Lord.  No efforts we make will be sufficient to outweigh the negatives of hypocrisy.

            What we need to understand as a foundational principle is moving towards disobedience is a move away from reaching the lost.  However rare we might think the choice will be, we must affirm together that we must never disobey God’s commands for the sake of relevance no matter how promising it might seem for the salvation of souls.  If you disagree with this, your mistake is not over evangelism.  Your error is concerning God’s authority over your life and the life of the church.  Your mistake is over the authority of scripture.  In this aspect, we must all agree.

Should we Change Church to be Relevant? part 1

I want to start a series of posts dealing with a very controversial question.  How should the Church change itself out of a love for lost souls and a sincere desire to reach them?  We have all seen churches grow too inward focused and became absolutely irrelevant to their communities.  We have also seen churches try to altar themselves to reach the lost, only to have the church rocked to its core with conflict.  This series of posts is intended to help us to think through this issue.  But let’s first get a clear picture of where we are headed.

            First, we need to recognize God’s blessing and be thankful that he has sent us people with a heart for reaching people for Christ.  Whether or not you think their methods are misguided, we need to start by seeing the good in them which is a sincere desire to see souls saved.  I know that I personally need all the help I can get in this department.  Chances are your church could use a good boost in this department as well.  We desperately need individuals like this in the body of Christ, and we would do well to begin a dialogue rather than a witch hunt when they suggest changing our hymn book.

            On the other hand, those who wish to begin changing the church to reach the lost need to consider some things.  One particular concern is the mentality that the salvation of one soul would be sufficient justification for any avenue of outreach or any change to the church.  Now many would immediately think less of me for questioning this notion.  Some may stop reading even.  I can understand this reaction because a soul really is priceless in value.  But I urge you to consider one tangible example.  Do you suppose we could get more people in the door to hear the gospel if we simply did away with a few biblical regulations for the church?  What about the command that women are not to be teachers over the adult men found in 1 Timothy 2:12?  This is a highly offensive teaching today and ignoring it would certainly remove a stumbling block for many to come into our services and hear Christ preached.  Do we justify direct disobedience to God’s word for one soul?  What about for twenty souls?  A hundred?  Now some will recoil from this example as extreme.  However, the point I am trying to make is that there are in fact limits.  And we need to have a dialogue over precisely this.

            Let me end today’s post with an illustration of what I’m saying.  Suppose I wanted to tear down some walls in my house in order to make more space.  I hire a contractor to come in and make it happen for me and I instruct him that my primary concern is making space.  Before he goes into my house destroying walls with a sledge hammer, I want to know that he has thought very carefully about which walls in my house are weight bearing walls.  Otherwise, we are going to have a disaster.  The same principle applies to church.  We must desire to see souls saved.  We can rightly label this a primary concern for the church.  But whether it is my home or Christ’s churches, before we give somebody a sledgehammer and our blessings we must diligently consider what NOT to knock down.  When we look back years later, restoring these essentials will not be quite as easy as destroying them.  In the next several posts, I do not intend to strive for a list; I intend to get us to begin thinking through the issue biblically.  Nor do I intend to give a final answer to every issue I bring up.  Each post will not end with "now do this."  But rather I hope that these posts will better direct the conversation for the meager few who will read them.