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| A church that decides to employ the methods used by large, popular Sunday-keeping mega-churches often weakens its commitment to the mission and doctrines of the world church. |
Many of the largest mega-churches have two characteristics in common. First, they tend to be congregational in governance. That means that the local congregation owns and operates the church. Second, the mega-churches are for the most part doctrinally generic. It is... Read More |
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| Christ's methods were not what people sometimes portray them as being. |
People often quote the following statement made by Ellen G. White: "Christ's method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Saviour mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their... Read More |
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| Church growth and church planting as in and of themselves doctrinally neutral. |
A term that has been given major emphasis in recent years is church planting, with an accompanying emphasis on church growth. While both of these terms are on the surface benign, they carry with them an inherent danger--they are doctrinally neutral (in other words, generic). The... Read More |
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| Constantine meant no harm when he decreed Sunday the official day of worship. He was simply trying to make the gospel "user friendly." |
This strategy was further developed in the succeeding centuries when the pagan gods were given the names of Christian equivalents (the saints), and their images were introduced into the church. A study of history reveals that attempts to contemporize the true faith and bring God down to... Read More |
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| God's people in the last days must not be concerned about being politically correct. |
It is well to note that throughout history what caused the people of God to abandon the faith didn't happen overnight. It was always the result of a process. The church has never gone down like the World Trade Center towers--suddenly and all at once. Its fall has usually been... Read More |
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| Is it possible for a person to truly worship who has not made Jesus the Lord of their lives? |
| No. What they do will either be self-centered or pure flattery. |
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| Just because something is successful doesn't mean that God is blessing it. |
It is dangerous to measure the blessings of God with a material yardstick. It is sobering to realize that the fact that people are preaching in the name of Jesus and having success isn't evidence that God is blessing the work (see Matthew 7:21-23). At the end of the day, everything... Read More |
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| Just because we haven't seen the ground open up doesn't mean that God is pleased with our worship styles. |
There is a struggle these days over how much we should let our culture influence the way we conduct our worship service. If we come to church to worship ourselves, to make us feel good about ourselves, then we'll do what makes us feel good. At that point culture is king. If, however,... Read More |
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| Madison Avenue, which is the advertising center of New York City, uses sex appeal to sell its products. Could people ever be tempted to use sex to sell the gospel? |
The answer may be Yes--through music. Allan Bloom, author of "The Closing of the American Mind," wrote, "Rock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual untutored. . . . Young people know that rock has the beat of sexual intercourse." Another statement: "The heart of... Read More |
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| Some are saying that we should plan worship services for the "unchurched." How can people worship when they haven't made Jesus the Lord of their life? |
Worship is not about us; it's about God. If worship is to be acceptable, it must be consistent with who God is. More and more frequently, though, we are hearing that worship is to meet our needs. While it's true that we need to worship God, it is unthinkable that we can worship... Read More |
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| Some people are placing more emphasis on the methods we employ than on the message we preach. |
We must take heed that the methods used for spreading the three angels' messages not take on a life of their own. It is not unthinkable that we could pay more attention to the methodology than to the theology we intend it to convey. We have to some extent become obsessed with... Read More |
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| The fact that Jesus associated with sinners doesn't mean that He partied. |
Jesus was accused of being a drinker and a glutton (see Luke 7:34). So, people who wish to justify participating in worldly entertainment sometimes argue that He associated socially with sinners and therefore so can we. While there is no doubt that Jesus was often found in the... Read More |
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| The methods we use to communicate the gospel are never program-neutral. |
Methods of communicating the gospel are either correctly representing it or misrepresenting it and thereby inventing a new gospel. Some commercial advertisers have turned this concept into a well-honed science. Likewise, the methods used to promote the gospel are never... Read More |
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| To invite a person of the twenty-first century to have a relationship with Jesus is ineffective. |
We are continually inviting people to have a relationship with Jesus, but what does this mean? To ask this generation to have a relationship with Jesus is not enough. Everyone already has some kind of relationship with Jesus, even Satan--he hates Him. What is needed is not a... Read More |
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| "Unchurched" is a code word for agreeing not to engage in "sheep stealing." |
The Bible doesn't see people as being "churched" or "unchurched" but rather as being saved or lost. Focusing on the "unchurched" can affect our mission. The message that God has given our church to proclaim to "My people" doesn't have this ethic. A candid appraisal of the... Read More |
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