Is "Big Church" as dangerous as "Big Government"?

It happens more at Easter; but it happens the rest of the year as well.  The Church in America performs various gymnastics to lure people through the doors of the church building.  Often, these efforts appeal to appetites of the flesh: dropping candy from helicopters, providing professional entertainment, giving away expensive gifts.  Pastors and preachers choose topical sermons according to what they imagine will be of interest to the carnal heart: sex, money, weight loss, popular movies. 


The Church that "Has it All"

And then churches offer incentive to stay, providing ministries and services to meet “needs”: parenting seminars, weight loss support groups, addiction recovery groups, psychotherapy, childcare, life coaching.  These are all good things I suppose—maybe even helpful—but as far as I know, they are not biblically mandated things.  And these are all things you could go outside the church to get.  Shouldn’t they be coming to church to get what the World cannot give them? Jesus says “I do not give as the World gives.” (John 14:27)

Should we Be Any More Attractive to the World Than Our Savior?

In John 15, Jesus goes on to describe how the world will hate us because it hated him, and only those who are chosen out of the world will accept His teaching entrusted to us.  So the “strategy” is to proclaim the message that offends many but will be accepted by those who are appointed to eternal life.  But if we are going out of our way to attract those who we suspect will reject the message otherwise, is this following the Lord’s instructions or his example?

Do Ends Justify the Means?

And how do we suppose we attract the world?  As John says in his first epistle, the things of the world have to do with the desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes and pride in possessions. (1 John 2:15-17)  If we use things to speak to the flesh to draw in a crowd, won’t this work against the love of God that we would want to promote as Christians?  We are taught by Jesus and Paul that worldly desires cannot dwell with spiritual ones.  There is no fellowship to be found between God’s agenda and the world’s.  (Galatians 5:17, Matthew 6:24)

What is the Church's Job Anyway?

The Church is commanded by Jesus to preach the gospel, make disciples, baptize, remember Jesus through the administration of the Lord’s Supper and to generally to love one another.  In many places, Jesus and the Apostles were clear that the commandment to love one another seemed to especially apply to be directed towards the body of believers. (Galatians 6:10, John 13:35, Acts 2:44,45)

Perhaps it wouldn’t be wise to try to draw some line as to how far outside the Body of Christ our charity ought to extend. The parable of the Good Samaritan certainly shows we should be no respecter of persons when it comes to mercy.  But there does seem to be an order of priority given in other passages, and that we should especially attend to the needs of our immediate family and to the needs of the family of believers.  And acts of loving your neighbor out to be a natural outflow, a fruit, of the Gospel, not the means through which the Gospel is preached.  (Remember the Apostles, as they were sent out by Jesus, they were expected to receive hospitality from houses as they went out.  They had no money to offer, but depended on the hospitality of those to whom they preached.)

Although Jesus had compassion on those with earthly needs as He walked in this world, he constantly pointed people towards the world to come, towards a focus on God’s kingdom, not earthly ambitions. (Matthew 6:25)  Jesus wants our focus to be on caring for souls more than the body.  Our bodies, along with all that is in this world, are passing away.  Jesus always emphasized the imperishable over the perishable, as did the Apostles.  He proclaimed heavenly food to be a better food (John 4:34, John 6:58) and heavenly drink to be a superior drink. (John 4:13-14) Indeed a focus on what fills the stomach is a dangerous, dangerous pastime and not what Christians are called to. (Philippians 3:17-19, Colossians 3:1-4)

Is the Cart Before the Horse?


So many churches extend beyond caring for actual needs (food and shelter), but have set out to meet the perceived needs of anyone in the general vicinity of the Church.  Churches reason what they are doing will help draw in members, thereby advancing God’s kingdom.  (This reasoning will cause charitable resources, of course, to be focused towards unbelievers not believers, the opposite priority commanded by Paul.)  Some church leadership may have selfish interest in such outreach, selling books and media and collecting more tithes. 


Is There Really Room to Add to Our Job Description?

Some may instead have the interest of the Gospel in mind, but is the interest of the Gospel served by adding to biblically mandated means of Grace?  Has what God has commanded gotten lost in the traditions of men, gotten lost in the pragmatic American mentality that the ends justify any means?  All these extras take away time, energy and focus from the simple backbone of biblical mandate of preaching the word, studying the word, baptizing, gathering in fellowship at the Lord’s table and in prayer.  This is where God promises his grace will rest.  This is what he has promised to bless.  (Matthew 28:18-20,  Matthew 18:19-20, 1 Corinthians 11:24-26)  He has not commanded more than this.  And the Apostles never seemed to feel the need to go beyond these things in the book of Acts.  But Americans always feel the need to add, to expand, to try something new.  We are absolutely addicted to novelty, but we are supposed to be passing on something old, the faith once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 3)

Wiping Off Dust or Pulling up Bootstraps?

Jesus said to wipe the dust from our feet if someone did not listen to our message.  (Matthew 10:14)  But if he had said that to a modern American, I would imagine we might be tempted to beg for an attempt at a new approach, to find some way to win them over.  If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!  I know I can!  I know I can!  Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and where there’s a will there’s a way!  These are some of our favorite sayings and Jesus just seems defeatist, doesn’t he?

I heard Dr. Michael Horton sum up this pragmatic attitude as “Our strategies vs. God’s means”.  And when we get caught up in our strategies, God’s means are often left collecting dust in the basement.  What are God’s means?  What has God mandated as an acceptable means of church growth?  Does God even command us to “grow” churches, or does he command us to preach, teach, baptize, pray and leave the results to him?

Is Bigger Blessed?

We may plant, we may water, but God brings the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6).  But is the reverse true?  Does growth always come from God?  Is there any biblical basis for this assumption?  Sometimes Jesus seemed to go out of his way to make sure to cut down the numbers of his followers, like Gideon, making sure he was left only with those who could accept all his teachings, such as forgive your brother 70 times 7 and you must eat my body and my blood to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Many left him after he proclaimed these things.  But then there will be those who are left, like Peter, who say “Lord, to whom shall we go.  You have the Words of Eternal life.” (John 6:57-68)

Why Add Spitballs When You Already Have a Sword?

But where are the Words of eternal life now?  They are written in God’s word, the sword of the Spirit. (Ephesians 6:17).  The sword is the only offensive piece of equipment listed in this passage.  If we understood the power of the Gospel the power he granted to the testimony of his Apostles and Prophets, would we devote ourselves to proclaiming anything else?  But God’s word is losing its place at center stage in the modern sermon, replaced by life stories, testimonies, movie clips, skits and whatever else we think we need to do to keep the crowd entertained.  I belonged to a church, growing up, that read, verbatim, and entire passage from the Old Testament, an entire passage from the Epistles and an entire passage from one of the Gospels every single Sunday.  Nothing was added; just pure scripture.  There was a sermon too.  But I came to saving faith early in life without a singly altar call, without an official “sinner’s prayer”.  I believed His Word and was saved.

When the apostles preached, they filled their speech with God’s Word and their testimony about what Jesus had done.  And then the Spirit moved, with the proclamation of the Word.  Read through the book of Acts and notice how similar every sermon was, and how filled with scripture, and how devoid of novelty.  And the believers, after baptism, devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles, to the breaking of Bread (Lord’s Supper) and to Prayer and the Lord added to their number daily.  (Acts 2:42-47)  And they did love one another greatly and gave to the needs of other believers.  But nothing implies that they obsessed with meeting every need everywhere.  The only thing they focused outwardly, the only “outreach”, was the proclamation of the gospel message.

Big Church is like Big Government

Since that time, we have spread ourselves very thin, I think.  I can’t help but compare the American Church with the government in our country.  The American government started with a clear job description, the Constitution.  But since then, the constitution has been left in the dust, by the tyranny of the perceived needs of the public.  And since it is part of the sinful nature to never be satisfied, we never stop coming with our list of needs and the government, like Pilate, fears the people more than God and bows to every public wind. 

Has the church become much different?  Structures of authority and accountability are seen as oppressive.  Pastors preach what they want, what they feel led to preach and there’s no one to call them to account if they go outside the word of God.  So instead of accountability from above: God, his Word and Pastors older than you in the faith, instead we have churches run by what an individual pastor feels “led” to do.  And should it surprise anyone, since a pastor’s paycheck comes from the tithes of church members that the members will hold considerable sway over his opinion?

Settling on a Standard

All that to say, what a congregation does, how it worships, how it serves, should be patterned after the Word of God.  The church does not need to be relevant, entertaining, or seeking to meet perceived needs.  The church serves to proclaim and different kingdom, to meet eternal needs, to be light in darkness.  I close with these words of Paul’s, which are often used to preach against marriage with unbelievers, but that is not the context of these verses.  Paul implies throughout 2 Corinthians that there are false teachers drawing the believers in Corinth away from Paul, teachers who “peddle the Word of God for a profit” and go beyond the simple message of the Gospel.  Paul urged them to maintain a pure faith, untainted by the world:

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.  For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?  Or what fellowship has light with darkness?  What accord has Christ with Belial?  Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?  What agreement has the temple of God with idols?  For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Therefore go out form their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18)