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08/07/2011 - by Chuck Monan, Preaching Minister
Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel’s as others see us!
It was frae monie a blunder free us
And foolish notion.
~ Robert Burns
It is a difficult task to see ourselves as we truly are. Just as hearing your own voice on tape is jarring, so is the undertaking of performing a searching and fearless moral inventory. We give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, we make excuses, and we rarely see ourselves as others see us.
The same dynamic applies to institutions.
Churches of Christ have had no shortage of critics in recent years. They have loudly pointed out our flaws and shortcomings, of which there are many. Listening to them, though, would lead you to believe that we are the only ones in need of improvement. Frequently their critiques have less to do with a spirit of repentance and rekindling of our first love than it does with pushing a new agenda for the church. They cite declining numbers as proof that sweeping doctrinal changes are long overdue.
Dr. Bill Gammon is Church Growth and Evangelism professor at Southern Seminary. He is also an Associate Pastor at the First Baptist Church in Rincon, Georgia. Addressing the issue of what the data say about Southern Baptist Church closings, he writes some things we would do well to consider:
Southern Baptists are struggling for growth. We have churches barely keeping the doors open. The church buildings are old and antiquated. We have many SBC churches who wish to hide behind the walls of their buildings and only accept their kind. We have churches who have failed to adapt to their changing communities.
We have pastors and congregations who are afraid of work. We have SBC churches that are afraid the children and the youth are going to damage their facilities. The cold reality here is that the children and the youth are the future church. There are SBC churches that constantly fight within and fail to realize the community watches and sees no example of the living Christ.
Thom Rainer and Chuck Lawless have been the prophets crying in the wilderness for the last seven years. Rainer’s research has been phenomenal on church growth. Lawless has tried to warn people of the reality of spiritual warfare in our churches. Is anybody listening out there? Perhaps now the reality has sat in, and people see a flame that is not growing.
Where is the passion among our pastors for the lost? Perhaps they are so beat up by the junk they have to deal with daily, they can’t see Jesus. Where is the passion for prayer among our churches? The average prayer meeting in Southern Baptist church is about 25 minutes and we go home. We focus too much time on illness and fail to realize what our God can really do if we pray, and I mean really pray. When was the last time your church prayer meeting went three or four hours? Jim Cymbala at Brooklyn Tabernacle can tell you what God can do in a prayer meeting.
Southern Baptist churches have structured God. We know his next move. When will we let go and let God have His way? This one fact is probably the most frightening. What if God decided to send a wind through our churches? Unfortunately many Southern Baptist churches really don’t want the wind to blow. The real cure for change and growth in our churches depends on the people in our SBC churches, and their shepherds.
We must get on our knees before almighty God and ask Him to heal us of our sins of laziness, lack of belief, lack of prayer, lack of passion, lack of vision, lack of trust in His power, and then finally we really will experience God in a fresh, new way.
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