{"id":195,"date":"2007-10-05T14:18:04","date_gmt":"2007-10-05T18:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/godandculture.wordpress.com\/2007\/10\/05\/preaching-to-the-dead\/"},"modified":"2007-10-05T14:18:04","modified_gmt":"2007-10-05T18:18:04","slug":"preaching-to-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/preaching-to-the-dead","title":{"rendered":"Preaching to the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outreach Magazine<\/a> is out with its\u00a0list of the 100 Largest U.S. Churches for 2007<\/a>. No such list appears anywhere in Scripture. While it certainly could be argued that numbers mattered to the New Testament church, as is indicated by their citation in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the broader point is that churches in the New Testament are nowhere ranked in terms of their numbers. The opposite in fact may be true, demonstrated by Paul’s reminder of the danger of “measuring ourselves by ourselves, and comparing ourselves among ourselves” (2 Corinthians 10:12). “Let him that boasts boast in the Lord.”<\/p>\n

Can you imagine any of the inspired writers of the New Testament ranking the church\u00a0at Ephesus above the church at Philippi, and Philippi above the church at Thessalonica based solely on how many people were showing up each week? Forgive my provincialism, but it would appear that the level of faith, hope and love at work in each of these assemblies was a much more\u00a0significant indicator\u00a0to the Apostles than the number of people present for a weekend service (see any of Paul’s epistles and Gene Getz’s work on this subject, The Measure of a Church<\/a><\/em>, 2002; Regal Books).<\/p>\n

Accompanying this year’s list of America’s largest churches was a piece by Kem Meyer, the communications director at Granger Community Church in Granger, Indiana. Titled Top Ten Things You Should Know About Unchurched People If You Want Them to Hear What You are Saying<\/a><\/em>, it included\u00a0such insights as, “Talk about what makes life better for the guest,” and “People aren’t motivated by your need (the church’s need). They are motivated by theirs,” and “People relate when you talk about them or people like them.”\u00a0In plainer words, the success of the church depends upon motivating unregenerate people to join your cause by enticing them with how satisfying and fulfilling it can be, in the same way ski lodges sell lift tickets. Could anything be further from a true presentation of the gospel?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jesus said, “If any one would be my disciple he must first deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Motivating people by their own needs\u00a0is like forcing a square peg into the round hole of\u00a0Jesus’ call to abandon\u00a0ourselves for His sake and the sake of the gospel.<\/p>\n

Ms. Meyer also suggests\u00a0that we have to be careful in our communication with the unchurched NOT to\u00a0give the impression\u00a0“they aren’t OK where they’re at and they’re not as good as they should be.” Really? I thought the whole premise of the gospel was that I’m not OK and you’re not OK and that’s why we needed the gospel in the first place. So to reach the unchurched the best thing to do is to NOT tell them what God’s word says about their sinful condition, the plight they are in, and the wrath they are under – as Paul did in the first three chapters of Romans? What’s the point then? What is Jesus saving them from if not their sin?<\/p>\n

The point at which I had to wrap my head with duct tape to keep it from exploding was when Ms. Meyer suggested, “People feel left out and frustrated when you use insider’s language,” and “People aren’t impressed with your theological vocabulary and holy dialect.” In other words,\u00a0a sure fire way to guarantee no unchurched person will ever become churched is to\u00a0quote scripture to them. After all, if Scripture isn’t “theological vocabulary” and “holy dialect,” what is?<\/p>\n

And yet, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”\u00a0“It pleased God by the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” “My speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”\u00a0It is the word of God that convicts and converts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is a reason the unchurched aren’t impressed by our theological vocabulary and our holy dialect. It’s not because they don’t understand it. It’s because they\u00a0can’t<\/em>. Refusing to speak to them in biblical terms only makes the problem worse.<\/p>\n

Scripture is clear that “the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” The unchurched are “dead in trespasses and in sins;” and\u00a0“the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbeliever to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel;” and\u00a0“the preaching of the cross is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.” We proclaim a senseless message, to blind and deaf people, who have no desire to hear it, let alone respond to it because they can’t unless and until the spirit of God breaks into their heart through the word preached.<\/p>\n

The church has been called to communicate a message that, short of a miracle of the Spirit of God, is incommunicable! Rather than shrink back from proclaiming this message based on the measure of results (or lack thereof), we must be much more bold to speak the word without fear and leave the opening of ears and hearts to the Author of the word.<\/p>\n

It’s not\u00a0our creative\u00a0packaging of the message that causes an unchurched person to truly hear. It\u2019s not our words, our Power Point presentations, the lighting in the room, or the professional signage throughout the building. It is the Spirit of God working through the word of God that produces a response from those who otherwise couldn’t care less about what we are saying. Ms. Meyer’s list betrays a total dependence on human ingenuity to accomplish only what can be accomplished by\u00a0our total dependence on the Spirit of God. Getting a response out of the spiritually dead is improved only by doing that which today\u2019s market-driven church leaders refuse to hear. “He who has ears, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Outreach Magazine is out with its\u00a0list of the 100 Largest U.S. Churches for 2007. No such list appears anywhere in Scripture. While it certainly could be argued that numbers mattered to the New Testament church, as is indicated by their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}