Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

29 July, 2007   comments: (0) Today's Synergism   Shallow Conversionism & Church Growth Idolatry    Quoting James White . . . Anyone who has endured the end-of-the-year push to meet a goal of baptisms for a year knows well what takes place. Entire sermons on baptism, all aimed at getting as many bodies through the baptistery as possible, along with "bring a friend" drives, all end up producing what can only be called Christian mutations: baptism without conversion, religiosity without repentance, non-discipled disciples, moistened but now guilty of religious hypocrisy as well. The numbers may look good, but what do they represent? Some of the largest, conservative denominations are particularly guilty of inspiring this pulpit crime in their ministers and churches. The rampant assumption that the work of the Spirit of God can be plotted on graphs and charts has created an entire mind-set that refuses to recognize God's own sovereignty over his church and that it is the Lord, not man, that adds to the church daily those that are being saved (Acts 2:47). The idea that God could actually have a purpose in a church with a growth rate less than double digits but where he is praised in purity, his truth proclaimed with clarity, and those in the fellowship are growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, needs to be championed again. "Church growth" can become an idol when viewed outside the balance of God's Word just as any other good and proper concept. While the church should never be complacent about the proclamation of the gospel and the salvation of sinners, in many places today, that singular goal has become the only calling of Christ's people, and that concept cannot be substantiated by a fair reading of Scripture. The "numbers" mentality has resulted in egregious abuses of baptism at the hands of ostensibly orthodox men. In recent years a large church in the United States became known for having a children's baptismal service featuring the firing of cannons with confetti and lights and a siren going off when the child was baptized. Though the church later attempted to put a biblical spin upon this blight on their reputation, the fact remains that the only reason the concoction ever saw the light of day was to seek to encourage young folks to make a profession of faith followed by baptism. We are truly brought back to a fundamental question by such out-of-balance practices: who saves, and for what purposes? Those who make human autonomy and free will definitive of their theology have little consistent basis for avoiding such excesses, but those who rest upon the sovereignty of God and His divine ordination of both the ends and the means are in a position to do honor to all of the biblical revelation. A child drawn to baptism out of a desire to be baptized is being put in spiritual danger for the rest of his or her life. Those who have had "their tickets punched" and have been assured, mistakenly, of their eternal salvation solely due to something they did, a card they filled out, a prayer they recited, are some of the hardest people in the world to reach with a real message of repentance and faith. It is a pulpit crime indeed to encourage such shallow "conversionism" that is not born in the heart by a mighty work of the Spirit of God resulting in repentance and faith in Christ. An example from my own experience will always remain fresh in my mind. I was in attendance of one such push for baptisms at a very large evangelical church a few decades ago. the entire service was focused upon getting as many people as possible into the baptistery at the end of the service (and it just so happened the church reporting year ended next weekend). Fifty or sixty people made the trek upstairs to the front, and we all dutifully stayed in our pews to observe the lengthy service. Of course, a grand total of possibly ten minutes had passed between the time these people "came forward" and when they entered the waters, so these folks were operating on nothing more than the instruction found in the sermon itself, which was hardly in depth, and was focused primarily on baptism, not upon the theology of the gospel. As the people filed through the baptistery, a woman came down to be baptized. The pastor was standing behind, preparing to baptize her, quoting the standard formulary he used to do so. He could not see that the woman, right as he was about to baptize her, crossed herself in typical Roman Catholic fashion. the entire congregation could see it, even the television cameras caught it, but the pastor had no idea. Now surely, this woman could have been a life long Roman Catholic who had been converted and was simply going on instinct, and I like to hope and pray that it is the case. But, it is as likely, if not more so, that the woman had no concept of whatsoever of what that church professed to believe nor how that was relevant to her faith as a Roman Catholic. She was simply doing something religious. And given that I later learned that in a particular congregation 83% of all those baptized were simply "gone," without contact, without connection, within a year of their baptism, that is probably what happened in that situation. I fully understand that, thankfully, only a small number of men actually go into the ministry thinking they will use to their own ends and will happily abuse even the ordinances (Baptism and The Lord's Supper) of the church as long as it leads to their own satisfaction and self-aggrandizement. Even some of the worst examples of ordinance abuse came about because of a slow and all-too-common process. The young minister goes into his task with high motives, but, he is not alone in the fellowship. He is under pressure from those in his church to meet certain expectations, some of which are not godly nor are they biblically grounded. There is the pressure of other ministries in his association or denomination. There is inevitable comparison of "success" in ministry with those in his area, down the street, across town. At first the compromises do not seem that major, just small matters of "freedom." The initial step down the path may be quite defensible in some contexts. "It won't hurt to do this one little thing, we have the right motives." But then that is followed by another small step, and eventually the non-compromised minister finds himself staring at a situation he never dreamed would come to fruition in his experience. What began with good motives but what still involved a "minor" infraction of god's revealed will ends up a full blown pulpit crime, and once again God's wisdom in revealing his will within clarity is vindicated. From:  Pulpit Crimes   Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.733   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism