SHOCKING!!

A survey was carried out amongst 5,000 non Christians. They were asked “if you desperately wanted to know something about the Bible or the Christian faith, where would you go”.

The top answer was “the public library” with 27% (that’s 1,350)
A close second was “don’t know” with 20% (that’s 1,000)

That means nearly half would not turn to the church for information.

What does that say about the church? Either the unbeliever doesn’t equate church with the bible or it has become totally irrelevant to the average man in the street.

I don’t know about you but that tells me we have got some serious thinking to do as it is clear that we are not impacting society in any meaningful way.

I have to admit that if I wanted to know something about the bible or the Christian faith I would not go to the local church. After 54 years as a Christian, a theological education at Bible College, three university degrees and a personal library of over 1,000 books, what I am offered in the average church is very superficial.

As God said to me one day, most Sunday morning meetings all we are doing is playing in the sandpit. It is nothing more that an hour or two of personal pleasure to satisfy no one but ourselves.

I realise that there are many Christians, most in fact who are content to do the same thing week in and week out with nothing to challenge them or take them out of their comfort zone. The nearest they get to taking up their cross is to have to sit somewhere other than their favourite seat because someone didn’t realise that it was their favourite seat when they sat there.

The church is not the place for vigorous debate and apologetic contending for the faith. In fact they are positively shunned for a staid one voice fits all mentality that churns out the usual ‘nice’ sermon each week to keep people happy so they won’t leave and take their money elsewhere.

I have yet to hear one like “I don’t want you here unless you are prepared to give 100% and if you don’t know what that means stay behind after the meeting and we will tell you.”

Since the prosperity and church growth movements have taken over Christianity we have this strange idea that numbers is evidence of the blessing of God. The fact that their brand of Christianity is 3 miles wide and 3 inches deep does not seem to matter.

What else doesn’t seem to matter is that when 30,000 fronted up to be part of Gideon’s army, God got rid of 29,700 of them. His mission was accomplished with just 300. Perhaps the world would turn to the church if we had 300 doing things God’s way rather than 29,700 doing things their way.

I read of one church in the UK which had a new minister appointed. He decided to add some new toilets to the building. Half the church left as a result. Definitely not flushed with success.

I spend time on the internet arguing for the good news of Jesus Christ in forums. Generally speaking, platitudes and clichés won’t cut it. To make a credible argument, I have to give an account of the validity of faith in God and the reasons why a person needs salvation. Assuming that a person understands the teaching of the bible is a recipe for disaster, so unless I know what they are, the unbeliever is not going to.

One thing is sure and that is the church desperately needs a restoration of spirit led teachers who can hear from God, understand what he is saying through the scriptures and fearlessly teach it.

Whilst we refuse to recognise their God appointed ministry, the church will remain irrelevant to the world.

GOD, WHERE ARE YOU?

I am reading an interesting book at the moment that basically denies the ‘second blessing” experience as it was known in the 60s or as it is called today the “baptism of the spirit’.

The book acknowledges the gifts of the spirit that are outlined in Paul's Corinthian letter, but, according to the author, they were a stop gap means of conveying truth for a church that was between the apostles doctrine and the cannon of scripture.

Now that we have the cannon of scripture we no longer need the miraculous says the author.

I don’t know whether this is condescending or patronising towards God, but it certainly sounds as though God and the Holy Spirit are pigeon holed by us into set formulas and experiences that fit our finite take on things.

If God is the same yesterday, today and for ever, why is it that he cannot or will not back up his word with the supernatural today because we have a thing called the Bible? Why is it that in the last 100 years he has changed his mind on what he said in his word?

Where does it say in the Bible that the gifts of the spirit were “stop gap revelations” and that when the cannon of scripture was decided on, he could depart the scene?

Why is the God we know today no longer infinite and all powerful like he was in the New Testament?

Perhaps the real truth lies not in the interpretation of man that sidelines God from our existence, but in the apostate church who do not want God to rock the boat of their well ordered lives.

Think about it. If you have a system of religion that is well ordered, runs smoothly, gives a lot of people a job and an income, endows a certain kudos on a special race of people known as pastors or priests, and doesn’t demand much more than turning over the machinery, why would you want God to interfere if it meant discomfort, challenge, railed upon by the media, not popular with society, having to say things that will upset a few people, having to live by faith, uncovering your nakedness if you don’t have it, having to live what you preach and all that.

What is the best and easiest way to prevent that all happening? Simple, just move God out to the sidelines and give him a bit part in the scheme of things and bingo, you can get on with a well ordered life without too much challenge or disruption.

Satan knows this so he has invented the idea of believing in some esoteric supernatural being known as God but don’t believe what he says. As long as you ignore the teaching of scripture, or better still say that God didn’t mean what he said and bingo, you have a religions system that has a form of godliness but denies the power of it.

Score line, Satan 10 Christians nil. How can anyone prove that God is who he is without the supernatural? The answer is, you can’t. That is why the New Testament is full of stories about…the supernatural.

Of course we won't mention all the people that are being raised from the dead, healed from sickness and being delivered from demons today. We don’t need to as they don’t happen do they. All we need to do is read the bible and that proves there is a God.

DON'T ROCK THE BOAT

" I am paid by the church organization and if I am to continue to get paid, and if I expect to get retirement pay, I can't rock the boat"

This was posted on a Christian forum on the internet. The poster was someone who has shown his very keen sense of what the scriptures and the Lord is saying to the church.

This was the response he got from a minister when he raised something that was not backed by scripture.

If the truth were known, the “don’t rock the boat mentality” motivates most paid ministers in Australia and the US and probably the UK.

This mentality would explain why only 1% of the churches in the US are growing according to a poll conducted amongst them.

This “don’t rock the boat mentality” is probably why the majority of churches do not obey Jesus command to go into all the world and make disciples. To do this requires commitment, challenge, being taken out of our comfort zone and doing what God wants, not what we want.

Most churches do not have the slightest interest in that sort of thing. Most activity in most churches is for the benefit of the people who are already attending.

It has been said that the most spiritual in the church often are the people who block anything remotely different as they have built up their power base over the years and are comfortable with the way things are so they don’t want anything to happen that will “rock the boat” and maybe diminish the power they have.

The other side is that, and I have been told this, if we do whatever has been suggested, some people might leave so we can’t allow that to happen. The fact that it might be God’s will to do it and that twice as many will join as leave as a result seems to escape them.

I guess when you are fearful of man what happens is what the bible says will happen as in “the fear of man brings a snare” (Job 28:28). It goes on to say that the fear of the Lord is wisdom. Seems that there are a lot of unwise leaders out there. In Proverbs 29:25 it says that those who trust the Lord will be safe (not those who don't trust the Lord). Amazing how much we ignore God's provision.

Those ministers who are focussed on retirement and their pension are certainly snared by complacency and obsolescence. It is no wonder that the church is irrelevant to most people outside the kingdom of God.

One other thing. This attitude is another sign that the one man paid pastor in most cases is the biggest barrier to the church being the army of God and being equipped to take our cities for God as we are required to do as our prime objective.

No army goes into battle with the Captain, a few lieutenants and a sergeant major equipped for war and all the other troops looking on to see how they go. Except the church that is. We equip a few, pay a few, anoint a few and then ask all the others to be their cheer squad.

Paul told the church, not just the leaders and few underlings to put on the whole armour of God. Why did he do this? So that we can have an armour fashion parade? So that we can look good whenever we go out? So that we can let people see that our armour is better than theirs?

He told us to put on the whole armour of God for one reason only. The church is not a fashion parade, it is an army barrack. We are foot soldiers of the King and we are in a battle to put Satan in his place. If you and your church are not doing this you are not a church, you are just a religious social club, run by an executive committee who ignore most of the rules of engagement that are in its manual, the bible.

PASSIVE CHRISTIANITY

Dr. Paul Borden, a USA church growth specialist says in one of his seminars, that regardless of the size of a church, only 40% of the congregation can be utilized in the internal ministries of the church. Unless the church is engaged in external ministries, 60% of the congregation will be passive observers, rather than participants in the life of the church.

Statements of this kind indicate how important evangelistic and caring ministries are to the church. In addition it tells us that learning is a waste of time unless we can do something with it which should not surprise us as that is what all education is about.

To demand or expect people to sit week after week listening to someone tell us what the gospel is all about and not have any opportunity to put it into practice is at the very least, a complete waste of time.

I know that every believer needs teaching on how to walk the Christian walk and in learning what that is to then do it. But that has limitations as once you have learned whatever it is you are supposed to learn, where do you go from there.

Whatever we learn it should be the good news as everything about the gospel is good news.

Let me ask you this. Do you know anyone who has got married who has tried to keep it as quiet as possible and has tried to hide the fact?

Do you know anyone who has given birth to a child then tries to hide the child from everyone?

I remember when my wife Anne was pregnant with our children. Each time I wanted the world to know because we were so excited that we were going to become parents.

As a church, we have a message and a mission. The message is Jesus Christ the son of God, saviour, redeemer, and soon coming King. The mission is to let everyone know of that fact.

Jesus said to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. Since he said it in 33AD, I cannot find anywhere where he said that was no longer necessary.

If the church is not making disciples of all nations two things are happening. One, we are disobeying God and two we are preventing 60% of the congregation being actively involved in the life and ministry of the church and please note, going to meetings is not active ministry.

We need a church that does not spend all its time sitting on the premises. We need one that is standing on the promises and if it is to do that we have to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. That is non-negotiable.

HOW ALTERNATIVE IS YOUR CHURCH?

As I said Jesus came to set up an alternative kingdom. The question is, how alternative is your church? The church cannot reflect the alternative Kingdom of Jesus unless it is…alternative.

In my town and probably every other one you can think of, the church is divided up into separate tribal groups who meet according to their tribal rules every Sunday morning, 52 weeks of the year.

The tribal rules determine what you do when you meet. In most cases they determine that you have to follow the tribal routines fastidiously every week without deviation. They determine that a select few will do the same thing every week and the rest of the tribe will look on as spectators apart from singing a few songs.

The tribal rules allow everyone who attends to have a good time and feel good about themselves and to make sure that as many as possible contribute finance so that the tribe can meet next week and do the same thing again.

Tribal rules insist that in 12 months time the tribe will be doing the same thing without changing a single aspect of the tribal meeting.

Whilst all this is going on, Satan is out there in society wreaking havoc wherever he can get someone stupid enough to believe his lies. The tribe consoles itself that despite this being fact they are doing their bit to provide a respite from life’s traumas. If we can escape for an hour or an hour and a half from all this carnage, we can recharge the batteries that will allow us to cope with the mess that society is and then next Sunday we can do the same thing again. What you might call weekly pit stops.

Not exactly alternative is it if every tribe is doing exactly the same as every other tribe. Oh, but you say we are different to the other tribes because we sing lots of songs one after the other accompanied by a band that has keyboards, guitars and drums and we have a lively choir out front to encourage people to sing and we do a lot of shouting (in case God is a bit deaf).

And may I ask how is that going to defeat Satan…out there?

Well it does say that God inhabits the praises of his people.

And may I ask how is that going to defeat Satan…out there?

Well it fires us up to follow God.

And may I ask where to?

Uhm, where he asks us to go.

And where is that may I ask?

Uhm, I don’t really know because we don’t usually ask him. We try and work it for ourselves.

So, you have a king who wants you to follow his instructions but you don’t ask him what they are. How stupid is that might I ask. So what do you do with your time?

Basically what we do every week.

Sounds to me that what you are really doing is avoiding what you are meant to do and that is signing up for the army of God. All you are doing is playing in the sandpit.

ARE YOU BUSY?

I found this one on the internet.

Satan called a worldwide convention of demons. In his opening address he said, "We can't keep Christians from going to church. We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can't even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their savior. Once they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to their churches; let them have their covered dish dinners, BUT steal their time, so they don't have time to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ.."

"This is what I want you to do," said the devil: "Distract them from gaining hold of their Saviour and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!" "How shall we do this?" his demons shouted. "Keep them busy in the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. As their families fragment, soon, their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!

Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive. To keep the TV, VCR, CDs, DVD's and their PCs going constantly in their home and see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly. This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ. Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards.

Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogs, sweepstakes, guaranteed credit cards, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services and false hopes.. Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV so their husbands will believe that outward beauty is what's important, and they'll become dissatisfied with their wives. Keep those skinny, beautiful models on the magazines to grab the attention of their young sons at a very early age. Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night. Give them headaches too! If they don't give their husbands the love they need, they will begin to look elsewhere. That will fragment their families quickly!

Give them Santa Claus to distract them from teaching their children the real meaning of Christmas. Give them an Easter bunny so they won't talk about his resurrection and power over sin and death. Even in their recreation, let them be excessive. Have them return from their recreation exhausted. Keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God's creation. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead.

Keep them busy, busy, busy! And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences. Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Jesus. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause."

"It will work!" "It will work!" the demons screamed. It was quite a plan! The demons went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busier and more rushed, going here and there, having little time for their God or their families, having no time to tell others about the power of Jesus to change lives.

I guess the question is, has the devil been successful in his schemes? You be the judge!!!!!

WHO'S YOUR GOD?

In my 54 years as a Christian I have attended various churches. Baptist, Methodist, independent, charismatic, Pentecostal, brethren, charismatic brethren, house church and Anglican.

Apart from the house church and charismatic brethren, all the churches whatever they called themselves all did the same thing at the same time and with the same results in most cases, notwithstanding that some of them were quite good as churches go and I enjoyed being part of them.

The focus of the church was their Sunday morning meeting and in many cases you were judged on the basis of your attendance at that meeting. With a few variations every meeting was the same. It comprises of hymns or songs, a prayer, communion, an offering and some preaching where one man stands up in front and tells everyone what he thinks a verse of scripture means. I realise that there are exceptions to the rule but I am not talking about them.

The congregation then leaves with maybe a chat to one or two friends and in most cases never to see each other again until next Sunday, unless you are really spiritual and meet during the week for another sermon and a bit of praying.

Now let’s say you are one of these churches and in your town there are seven brothels full of women servicing the lusts of the men of the town. If what the scriptures says is true then Christ died for them and God doesn’t want any of them to perish. How is your stereotype service going to give them the chance to hear the gospel? Are any of the prostitutes likely to come into a ‘church’?

Having been involved with Teen Challenge who minister to that type of person, the chances of you having any effect on a prostitute is nil for the simple reason you are demanding that they meet you on your terms instead of meeting them where it hurts.

Paul said he wanted to be all things to all men. Would your church be caring enough to say “we have a group of people that need to experience the love of God? We need to know how to reach them and we may have to do things a bit different. Show us Father what we need to do to reach them.”

If God said to turn your building into a café and lounge and ditch your Sunday morning ritual, would you do it? If not, why not? Isn’t the eternal destiny of these prostitutes more important than your little rituals that make you feel good?

I know this. Until we crucify the God of the Sunday morning meeting, we are not equipped to bring the gospel to anyone because the word tells us that we are not to have any God’s before the one and only God. And that includes our rituals.

THE CHURCHES BIGGEST ENEMY

Any idea what the churches biggest enemy is?

Perhaps it could be apathy. What about affluence or as Kath and Kim call it “effluence”. Have you thought of religion? Then there is shallowness. What about shepherds who do not look after the sheep? Surely it must be denominations and the power and authority they spawn. Division amongst churches? Devotion to programmes instead of people. The clergy/laity divide. Church being a spectator sport rather than everyone contributing. Full time paid ministers who are expected to do all the work ending up doing all the work. Lack of vision. A lack of interest in the needs of those who are unbelievers. Picking and choosing what parts of the bible we will believe. Believing that Christianity is there for what I can get out of it.

Makes you think doesn’t it.

If the bible is to be believed the biggest enemy of the church is….being lukewarm. What makes a church lukewarm? It says that it is rich and does not need a thing. When a church thinks that it has ‘arrived’ the next step is luke warmness.

What happens when a church is lukewarm? God says he will spit it out of his mouth. The Greek word means to ‘vomit’ you out of my mouth. To prevent this happening, the church needs to be hot or cold.

Funny isn’t it. God would rather the church was cold than lukewarm. I guess if it is cold it can be warmed up and it doesn’t mean that it thinks it has arrived. Being lukewarm means that the church is arrogant as that is what you become if you think that you have arrived.

Better still, that it was hot, on fire for God then anything can happen.

The lukewarm church is wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked and the sad thing is that it doesn’t realise it. It is described as shameful nakedness.

What is the cure? One simple word and that is repent. In today’s present climate that is going to be difficult because repentance is not in vogue at the moment. Our gospel tends to be come to Jesus and you will live happily ever after. Come to Jesus and have your sins forgiven and Jesus will make you prosperous. Accept Jesus into your heart for a long and prosperous life.

Repent! What’s that?

The final word to the lukewarm church goes like this “to him that overcomes….” Sounds like a bit of a battle has to take place. A battle to overcome arrogance and shameful nakedness. Could leave you a bit frazzled, but I am sorry to have to tell you there is no other way. Where do you want me to put the first incision?

AN IRRELEVANT CHURCH

In Australia, the church is irrelevant to most people. At most it attracts 10% of the population despite large numbers saying they are Christians, whatever that means to them. One has only to read social comment and lifestyle magazines and columns in the newspapers to understand that the primary focus of most people is their physical well being. They are obsessed with body image, physical looks, their fitness or lack of it, and diet.

Their spiritual wellbeing takes a distant second, and is usually fuelled by their need to discover themselves and their personal psychological wellbeing expressed as self esteem. This has created a new industry of ‘life coach’ and psychologists are raking in the dollars and made the New Age movement which embraces facets of Hinduism and Buddhism mainstream.

Despite all this, it is very obvious that it is failing miserably to achieve its objectives as stress and depression are major causes of Workcover claims.

The world has passed the church by but it has failed to notice the fact. In most cases we prefer to go our own merry way, believing that we are fulfilling all that is required of us as long as we turn up for our weekly religious ritual and put our 10% in the money bag.

The church has in most cases disengaged from society and where it has not, it is nothing more than a social organisation to care for the physical needs of those who make use of its services.

Vibrant, life changing, supernatural, Christ exalting churches are few and far between. Oh yes, there are churches that are full of activity and have lots of noise through so called “contemporary” praise, and are attracting young people by the thousands, but the question remains, if all this secular expressions were removed, would they still attract them.

Would the self denial, cross carrying Christ life be as attractive? One where sacrifice, poverty, sharing, dying to self and living for others be as attractive to young people if you took away the self satisfying sensual expressions of music and happy meetings.

When these evangelical christian churches are the subject of discussion the main comment is what a wonderful job “the pastor” is doing. Jesus? Who is he?

Would the churches that are dying on their feet because they fiercely defend the ‘status quo’ the one that they have been doing for 200 years grow if they forgot the status quo and took on board what Christ wanted them to do. “But we are doing what Christ wants us to do.” In that case, why is the church dying?

The bottom line is that we have left a vacuum in society because of our insistence that we know better than the Holy Spirit how to set the world on fire for Jesus. For hundred of years we have gone about building the church with man made ideas and schemes, choosing to sideline the Holy Spirit and all his gifts and making 'the church' a building.

We are so entrenched in the fact, that our heresy has superseded the truth of scripture. Consequently, the world has said “bye bye church we don’t need you”. And they don’t because we are just another social club for people who want religious devotion to appease their conscience.

Until the church acknowledges the truth of scripture that without Jesus we can do nothing and invite the Holy Spirit to take control of what we are and do, we will never ever fulfil our mandate of making disciples of all nations.