BEST CHURCH IN THE WORLD

If you were asked what was the best church in the world what would your response be? Saddleback or Willow Creek in the USA; Yonggi Cho’s church in South Korea; Hillsong in Australia: Westminster Temple in the UK; Toronto Airport in Canada; Latin American churches that are bringing transformation?

All possible contenders no doubt and for good reasons as they attract numbers which most churches only dream of and they all seem to be “successful” as modern day churches go.

My choice is not any of these nor any church that has been used by God to bring revival to a nation although I would put these higher on the list than those stated at the beginning.

No, my choice is the New Testament church. The reason for this is the fact they achieved what no other church has done. They changed the known world in 30 years and they did it with unlearned and ignorant men (Acts 2) not people with academic degrees and dog collars.

God said that he will not share his glory with any other. He made sure that’s how it was in the New Testament church as what happened could not be put down as someone’s ability or cleverness. If it wasn’t the work of the Holy Spirit it didn’t happen at all.

When you compare the New Testament church with the church of today, in most cases you will not find much of the Holy Spirit in operation. Mostly we are subject to the ideas and control of man. That is probably why there is very little of the supernatural happening. If the Holy Spirit is not welcome the supernatural will not happen because he is the only one who can make it happen.

Where he is welcome, and that is often the case where a country or people group are very conscious of the spirit realm through the worship of gods, the supernatural does happen because that is what they expect to happen.

Bearing in mind that behind all the various spirits and gods of other religions and cultures is Satan, who is very happy to produce supernatural events to control his followers with fear, we are quite foolish to believe that we can make a difference in such a culture without the supernatural happenings of the Holy Spirit.

In western society, the satanic supernatural has taken over with the new age movement, alternative therapies and black magic. Its vision statement is “if it feels good then it must be right” so all religious experience is condensed into what is good for me, making its adherents totally self centred, which is quite the opposite of the Christian faith or it should be.

Unfortunately, instead of counteracting this with a good dose of the supernatural produced by the Holy Spirit, we have adopted new age thinking with a “feel good” gospel whose main tenant is prosperity. What it boils down to is what I can get out of being Christian.

This is the opposite of biblical Christianity which says let a man deny himself, take up his cross and follow Jesus. In other words the Christianity of the New Testament.

That being the case, it is no wonder we are failing miserably to be anything like the New Testament church.