Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

2 October, 2006   comments: (0) Athenian Awards   Perry Noble Shakes Up Church, TKO's Strawmen My latest Athenian Spirit Award goes out to megachurch pastor Perry Noble for the new ideas presented in his recent series of blog posts entitled "The Church And It's Passion!". The Athenians of Acts 17 were always after something new, and likewise - it is Perry's expressed goal to avoid the church-norm and "continually shake things up". The music is new, the messages are new, and most of all - the purpose of church gatherings is new. But is it biblical? First off, let me say that I have chatted back and forth with Perry a couple of times in the blogosphere, and I really like him. We are roughly the same age and have a similar sense of humor and interests. I also think his drive for evangelism is admirable, and if I had the power to do so, I wouldn't tone that down in him one bit. A key point at which we differ however, is in the definition of what a church does when it assembles, and how (or whether) the bible regulates what we should do in church. I've decided to write a blog post about Perry's views because he is representative of how so many pastors think today. He is also very influential with other pastors, speaking at various innovative church conferences, and writing one of the most popular blogs in that genre. Reading Perry's blog reminds me a lot of the church that I used to attend. The pastor of that church fell in love with the modern concept of churches being something like "Evangelism Factories". He believed that Christians should go to church on Sundays in order to operate the factory's "evangelism machinery". I remember reading about a similar pastor who even prayed "Lord don't send Christians to our church"; he wanted to use as many seats as possible for unbelievers. That may be more extreme than Perry Noble's idea of church, but the impression that I have from reading his blog for over a year now, is that evangelism is the most important thing a church does when it meets, and it should be a church's primary aim and focus. In his series of blog posts on church growth (P0, P1, P2, P3, P4), Perry has some colorful hints about (at least some) church activities that don't seem to fall under the category of evangelism: "I am so glad that there was a group of people in 1990 [when I was converted] who were not satisfied with the way things were-they did not want to focus on licking the lint out of their navals." "[The Acts 2 church was] more concerned with getting those who did not know Christ IN the kingdom rather than hanging out with the preacher OR doing an in-depth Bible study on the goat in the book of Leviticus!" "Sadly too many churches in this country are interested in having studies on fishing gear and baiting techniques rather than actually reaching people". Athens Bookstore People who have read this post have also read: But isn't it true that - teaching aimed at believers was one of the four things mentioned in Acts 2 that the church did when they met together? If the book of Romans is any indicator of the kinds of things that the Apostles taught in the first century, their teaching was probably very in depth and doctrinally meaty. Remember, such epistles were written to church people, not theology professors. Even animal sacrifices in the book of Leviticus would have been an inbounds topic of study. We still remember their admonition to "study to show yourself approved" (2 Timothy 2:15). The other three things mentioned in Acts 2 include prayer, fellowship with other believers, and breaking bread. I don't see evangelism in that list of things-to-do at church at all. It seems to me that, once you've made evangelism the primary aim of your church gatherings, you can really no longer call it a church. You should just give up that label and call it an Outreach Center or a Billy Graham Crusade or something along those lines. Later in his series of posts, Perry Noble asks: "I thank God for people and churches who have a passion for the lost! - - Let me ask this - do you think that God EVER gets mad when we share Him with others? Do you think God EVER gets mad when a church sees more and more people accept Christ? NO-why, because people and churches who do this - are - OBEDIENT!!!" I too thank God for such people, but insofar as the crux of that question is referring to evangelism being the primary function of church assemblies, allow me to ask: Is there ever a time when God wants us to do something even more important than sharing Him with others? In church, we know that evangelism is secondary to worship, so I think the answer to Perry's question might actually be "yes"; God could be mad if we were to redefine church by giving biblical worship a backseat to evangelism. If you are going to say that a church largely consisting of unbelievers (seekers) is capable of worshipping God in spirit and in truth, I would have to ask, does a crowd really worship? Al Mohler made a similar point at the 2003 Shepherds' Conference: "One of the fundamental issues of misunderstanding that leads to corrupt churchmanship in our generation is the failure to distinguish between a crowd and a church. The failure to distinguish between a crowd and a church is ... to misunderstand everything about preaching, everything about ministry, everything about our task. If we think our business is to build a crowd, frankly any of us can do it. There's a way to bring and draw and attract a crowd. . . . Let us never mistake a crowd for a church or think our business is to draw a crowd." Perry Noble makes the following point in his series of posts: "People can argue all they want - but READ YOUR BIBLE - you NEVER see God getting angry about a church growing - lives being changed - people being saved. BUT you often see God getting ticked when He is disobeyed - and churches that are not reaching people are NOT only selfish - they are DISOBEDIENT!" I can't help but think of one interesting account in the book of Acts that Perry didn't mention in his series of posts, and that is the story of Ananias and Sapphira. What's interesting about them, is that - when God became angry at their sin - He ended up wiping-out any chance for widespread in-church evangelism at the time. Verse 13 of chapter 5 reveals that the 'seekers' were scared away, and dared not join them in church. If God's ultimate priority for churches is for their gatherings to center around seekers, why would He scare them away like that? That's not very sensitive. It's as if God has some other things that He gives a higher priority to than church growth. And for us to fail to operate our churches according to His priorities would be a matter of disobedience. We have to remember that it is God who gives the growth anyway, right? Perry Noble brings up the topic of creativity and then says: "a church is in trouble when it desires for things to be normal. One of the things that "bothers" people about [my church] from time to time is that we are not like "their last church." That is true - and we never will be. It's not our desire to be normal - it's our desire to continually shake things up - that is EXACTLY what God is doing here!!! We do not desire to do music like it has "always been done." We do not like to do messages like they have "always been done." Our desire is NOT to keep things safe and sanatized when it comes to the relm of our vision - but to use creativity to attract people who don't know Christ..." "Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new".--Acts 17:21 But doesn't this perpetual creative shake-up seem like an entirely different approach than the one that the Apostle Paul used? Here's what he says in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5: "And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God." Isn't Paul essentially saying here that he chose not to employ brilliant ideas in bringing them the Gospel? Rather he was determined to deliver the message in a straightforward simplicity, relying on the power of God to make the message effective and produce growth. We have to ask, are many of today's "innovative churches" really resting on the power of God and the Holy Spirit, or are they resting on their own wise creativity? Finally, Perry's series of posts spend quite a bit of time propping up and then tearing down some of the usual CGM strawmen. For example, those churches that think it's somehow wrong to count the number of people that are in church. (for what it's worth - I happen to be the one in my church who counts attendance every week) Another is the ridiculous strawman of a church that rejects growth when it comes knocking at the door. Perry writes: One more thing on being "too big". What if we used that excuse in other areas of our lives? What if we called our stock broker and said, "Hey dude - stop making me money - my 401k is TOO BIG!" But that's not a realistic representation of most of the opposition to the Church Growth Movement. It's not "church growth" that's being protested; the real issue is the unbiblical practices used to achieve that growth. So a more realistic analogy for Perry would be someone calling their stock broker and saying: "hey dude, stop breaking the law; I'd rather not have millions of dollars earned through illegal methods". One last strawman involves the rejection of "undesirable people", as Bill Hybels demonstrated in a recent newspaper article: "You may think that a church that cares for lost people is normal ... The average church on the corner of Elm and Vine doesn't give a flying rip about people far from God. They're an annoyance. They use bad words. They sleep in the wrong bed. They drink too much booze. They're an annoyance." I'm sure there are churches out there that resemble all of these strawman arguments, but they are not an accurate reflection of the mainstream opposition to the Church Growth Movement. The reality is, many of us labor to evangelize the world, as Perry does, but we strive to do so in a biblical way that preserves God's design for biblical worship. We see that as something that (like evangelism) is "not optional". Have you seen these churches? . . . I didn't think so Because Perry Noble teaches pastors how to "continually shake things up", and promotes a new definition for churches, while at the same time scoring a total knock-out on weak and defenseless strawmen, he's my choice for this Athenian Spirit Award. Whatever your opinion may be of Perry Noble's methods, he's a friendly guy with a genuine heart for lost souls. I hope he will consider stopping by to interact with us on some of the points above; he is more than welcome to post any comments below. Related Information and Resources: Shouldn't church be evangelistic? If so, how? Is church for Christians or for seekers? Should winning souls be our end goal? Acts-church was built through purity not pragmatism Do large followings always indicate ministry success? The message HAS changed, not just the delivery method Perry Noble condones worldly and Un-Christian lyics Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.476   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism