Vol. 7, No. 4, 1990

Articles on Other Religious Topics

The Bible refers to individuals in the body of Christ as being separate and necessary parts of the whole (1 Corinthians 12:12-26).

Some people are referred to as "hands, eyes, or heads." Some of us, including myself, have been affectionately called "an elbow." We have a habit of nudging Christians when they are drifting into error.

Much of our teaching in the churches exhorts the church to become more of what Christ has called us to be.

That is the best cult prevention. Most people going into cults have come from either an anemic church experience or have been mistreated in the church.

Many of our practices and traditions sometimes hinder the life of Christ being expressed.

Now do not misunderstand me: Some traditions are very Biblical and are not to be changed. But some old cultural habits actually stifle the Spirit and appear irrelevant to people in our current culture.

This practice of the church just reinforces how the media and other detractors try to portray us. The following is a glaring example of how stale tradition or form is ineffective.

Several years ago I was working with a church in a small town on developing lifestyle evangelism strategies.

A nearby mainline denominational church felt that they should also have an evangelism strategy.

Their own denomination had declined 27% over a decade, so they appropriated $30,000 for an "evangelism program."

They spent the money on rebuilding their church steeple so that it was the tallest in the city; they erected a large marquee with flood lights to announce their sermon topic and programs; and they took out a large weekly ad in the newspaper.

That was it!

The idea was if we just help the unchurched know where we are they will come to us.

There is a thought provoking article in the February issue of Discipleship Journal, by Jim Peterson, author of the very helpful book, Evangelism as a Lifestyle.

He cites some examples such as "worship being defined as singing traditional hymns accompanied by an organ."

He reminds us that "the church" is "incorrectly understood as a place where we attend rather than God's people living in community" (emphasis mine).

The weekly service becomes the focal point instead of what the body is doing together ministering to one another and to the community.

A church is evaluated by the preacher's sermon quality, choir music, length or form of service, etc. The traditional idea of evangelism is to bring the non-Christian to a church building and let him "get saved."

The determination of an active church member is based on how many times he comes to church activities each week.

We all need to continually reevaluate our structures and traditions, asking the questions:

Are we responding to the questions and issues that the non-Christian is asking "Am I compromising Biblical truth (not cultural norms)?"