Our churches Are Failing, pt5 of ???

Noah apparently spent a good portion of his time while constructing the Ark, preaching (2 Peter 2:5). However, despite the available room in the Ark (and I bet that if there wasn’t room, God himself would throw animals off the Ark to make room for people of repentance (he’d probably start with Poodles or Chihuahua). However, when the time came, God shut Noah and his family up in the Ark along with no one else. Lot, who we are told spent a good deal of time at the gates of Sodom and Gomorrah, as a preacher had such an ineffective mission, that ten people, whom Abraham ~negotiated with God to reduce the number of righteous people found would spare the city, that the city was still destroyed. We don’t know how long Lot lived in Sodom but it was apparently several years.

Virtually all the preachers in the Old Testament would not have a good resume if it had to list the number or base their strength on preaching with conversion and repentance. Jonah is a good exception to the rule. He went to a very sinful culture and people and presented the word in Nineveh and the city repented (Jonah 3:10 ). Unfortunately, this preacher wasn’t happy because it wasn’t the people he wanted to turn from their sin, he wanted someone else.

In the New Testament, God doesn’t tell us about failed preachers so much as to watch out for false preachers. False preachers are nothing new to the Bible but were more likely called False Prophets. It’s pretty easy to know what God is referring to as a preacher and a false preacher. A preacher is someone who delivers God’s message while a false-preacher makes claims and statements that God didn’t tell them to say.

All, ALL, of the Bible is the Word of God and is good for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16). A false preacher would be one that takes the word of God and skews it into a meaning that wasn’t intended by God. I would also suggest that false preachers are those that don’t preach the whole Bible.

The original New Testament preachers were those that Jesus personally taught. The original disciple, the 11 and others, started the Churches as defined by Jesus. The next generation of preachers were taught by the disciples/apostles themselves. The New Testament time frame, from a history stand point, encompasses about 60 years so we don’t get data points of preachers across a spectrum of time to review their actions and deeds as well as their effectiveness.

The legitimate preachers appear to be highly effective, as well as does the false-preachers. Were both the legitimate and false preachers both charismatic? Maybe. The early church exploded into existence though and one would expect that the world was then hungry for a new religion; was open to the Biblical God, through the Holy Spirit’s leading. So what’s different now from then?

First, I suspect that the world has become numb to Christianity due to the Christians portrayal of the religion, the watering down of the Bibles message and reliance on congregations reliance on preachers that are at best balancing job security and their God given mandate to correct the church. If I’m correct on those observations, then every Christian is responsible for the how others see the Church through their hypocritical actions. Everyone, but especially the Church leadership, is responsible for insuring that the entire word of God is disseminated to the Church and world alike and in it’s proper context; and standing up to the world’s false accusations instead of standing in the shadows and allowing any incorrect thought to fester and flourish. And finally, the preacher needs to be all in for their role to teach and correct first, then worry about job and family security.

That’s a bold statement to make about preachers. Preachers have the same wants and desires as everyone else. They want spouses, children and friends and a stable job that doesn’t relocate them every few months. These are not unreasonable things but these days that can, and likely does, compromise them. To be stable,that is to not have to relocate every few months, to not have to constantly look for new friends, to keep children engaged and socially interactive with their own aged friends, a preacher can’t step on toes. They can’t preach what typically needs t be preached. They have to spread out topics or move on before correcting attitudes and problems because if they stay on target, if their congregations and community will dismiss them as a fire and brimstone guy or a one topic preacher. Those two things are are not bad if they are needed, but usually this tactic isn’t effective.

So to make a stable life, preachers may not teach with a proper emphasis, those things that need to be taught. A good example is the teaching financial responsibility and the giving of tithes. People just don;t want to hear it. Despite Jesus himself teaching quite a bit on the topic, most preachers will only spend a couple of Sunday on the topic. Anything else gets in people personal space, and is perceived as none of anyone’s business. I agree that the amount or percentage of the gift to tithe is no ones business other between them and God, but if God is leading a preacher or congregation to have a healthy and proper teaching on the subject, and there would be no reason to teach a subject if there wasn’t a need t change attitudes and actions on a subject. Moving on before resolving an issue, borders on or is squarely in line with false teaching.

So there is incentive for preachers to not fully teach the word of God or to peach in such a way as to purposely not convict their congregation. People convicted, or feeling guilty, generally don’t accept this as an opportunity to change their ways, but become defensive and push back, accusing the preacher of singling them out or of following an outdated religious book. They don’t recognize that the conviction is likely coming from the Holy Spirit. But to deflect anger r accusations, to lesson the personal conviction will likely keep more people in the liking the preacher camp, this the preacher probably takes this approach.

It shouldn’t be to surprising that preachers have this mindset either. Most of the Christian schools have exchanged Biblical Authority for a more secular mindset, exchanging the clear Word of God for something more palatable the world. The seminaries have likewise been infected and are selling the preaching profession as one that resembles a CEO role and the successful church as one that is big in both numbers and floor space. If it isn’t outright emphasizing the safe and stability of the preaching position, it certainly is placing a subliminal message into the minds of the future preachers that today’s preachers spend some time writing a script for their Sunday morning performance and if they are a good preacher (what the school calls a charismatic preacher) people will join the church and building additions will be non stop. Apparently, the schools have convinced our new or potential preachers that they just sit our the church the rest of the week, maybe conducting a Bible study or two, and wait for retirement to come and then the ‘Well done my good and faithful servant’ greeting from Jesus when they die.

That may be what the schools teach and what the preacher wants. I’ll admit, it would be great if they were all good, charismatic performers (it would be better if they were good, charismatic preachers) and that just by having the doors open, people would come in, learn and give their lives to the Lord. It would be great if people were truly learning about God and maturing in Christ. It would be great if every congregation had to constantly worry about expanding their facility to house all the people giving their lives to the Lord and learning to be Disciples. But that isn’t the case.

Yes, a lot of preachers do get up and do their performance. Sunday after Sunday. And it is a performance, even if their heart is in the right place. When “people”, their flock, interfere with or are no good enough for the Sunday Morning service, it is and has become a performance. When the preacher doesn’t have the time to train people because of his other duties (even if the training would be for the benefit of their performance), when the preacher is more concerned about the exact placement of the pews or chairs in the Sanctuary (Performance Hall), to impress those that are in attendance of the performance, than he is with with filling those pews or chairs, then the preacher is not concerned about the message reaching the people, he is concerned with the how the people think about him.

This doesn’t mean that eh worship service should just be strung along all willy and by the seat of the pants. Certainly the people involved in the worship service should strive for perfection; it’s good practice, shows our reverence to our Lord and stymies havoc. But the achievement of those three things should not be the cost that others can not be part of the worship service. In most congregations, those that are involved in the Worship service are primarily volunteers. As volunteers, seldom are they ever formally trained outside the church and if trained inside the church, only nominally. And to not use volunteers to accomplish not just the Worship Service but other ministries, is to name but only one.

One church I attended for a while had used people in the service that were not formal speakers, but they were willing to learn. They seemed to be good Christians and did earnestly want to serve and do more for the Lord. As I mentioned he wasn’t a good speaker and somewhat nervous in front of the crowd. For two Sundays in a row, he had a moment of staggering and stuttering while giving the devotion to the Lord’s Supper. The preacher was angry because this interfered with the flow of the Sermon and he removed the individual from being able to give the devotion in the future. A couple of weeks later, another person had the same issue and the preacher then decided that from then on out no one but he would be on stage after the concert (some still call it the Praise Band but it has more the ear marks of a concert than the leading of Worship music).

Concerned about the way I was starting to see things in the congregation, I asked about this incident as I had other incidents and actions, and the response was essentially that they essentially weren’t good enough to be on stage because they weren’t comfortable enough to be public speakers. When I asked about training them the response was that he didn’t have time (of course an attitude also accompanied the response as did the prelude question). I was disappointing since these seemed to be clear cases of exacerbating Christians that want to serve. A few people were presumably hurting the Service and the presumably Word, because they stumbled a little when reading in front of a crowd, is justification enough to stop potentially others from serving on stage non Sunday Mornings. How does this fit in with correcting and teaching?

Preachers generally have, at least in their minds, a clear revelation as to how Worship service and other activities are to be carried out. In reality, the New Testament speaks very little as to how Sunday Morning service should be carried out. One note is that Sunday Morning service didn’t actually happen on Sunday Morning but rather it happened sometime on Saturday. There is actually lots about the rituals of our ‘Worship Service’ that aren’t Biblical, but that’s a different article. For now, the concern is that the preacher, whether given by the congregation/leadership or taken, commands or wields a lot of authority not backed up Biblically.

Biblical, there are no qualifications or job descriptions for Preachers other than not be a false preacher and to correct and teach. The actual running of the church is to be by the Elders or Overseers. Modernly. preachers are generally looked at as an extension of elder-ship. Look up the roles of a Elders and you will see that you would expect these qualifications in a preacher.

The Church isn’t left with a lot of rules, regulations or traditions to follow. I’m convinced that Christ did this on purpose, however, this is a double edged sword. I believe that Christ did this so that the local congregations could adjust itself in order to reach the community it is in. The other side of the sword is the abuse of that freedom to stifle the congregation opportunity to edify itself and to maximize it’s reach potential. The ability to adjust itself isn’t permission to to dilute or misrepresent the Gospel, nor is the ability for congregations to create rules or guidelines for itself a free hand to turn it into an Elder driven club.

Our modern preachers are highly educated persons. However, with the secularization of our Seminary schools, this education doesn’t necessarily translate into true Biblical teachers but churns out Biblically compromised individuals who try to meld God, by lowering the character of Him, and the Worldview, by projecting God qualities into society. The two can not meld; it’s God first and us interacting with a secular world. That’s unpalatable to the World and likely our communities, who believes that the Church should change it ways, thus transforming the Church, into a club, which many congregations have bought into.

As I mentioned earlier, there is no clear cut qualifications for a preacher, so a congregation and it’s Elders must make absolutely sure that the individual posing a a preacher really is a man following God, has the ability to teach and will correct the congregation to bring it back within Biblical guidelines. A congregation that doesn’t have Elders is already compromised, as the New Testament not only states that the Elders are the earthly head of the Church, but even gives some very clear minimal qualifications for Elders. Congregations also want preachers that are charismatic in the pulpit; that is clearly spoken, somewhat humorous and generally pleasing to the eye. These are not wrong but I feel that is often all the congregation wants.

Sometimes, a congregation will get these three things, and little more. I and many others feel that preachers look at a church as a field of dreams; build it and they will come or preach and they will come. Both attitudes involve little actual work. Preachers now days seem to seldom step out of the building and actually do any work. Maybe a better analogy is that they seldom step out of the office and do any real work. It is probably a misguided picture of service from the theological schools that a preachers life is easy and good (also backed up by the stereotype of the older generation of preaches that tended to be over weight) and that a cleaver, prepared and well performed sermon will cultivate into a large church.

I believe that Christ, with the infinite wisdom that He has a part of the Triune God, purposely declared Elders to be in charge of the Church and not preachers. Why? While preachers, especially now days, have a great knowledge of the Bible, new and/or young preachers lack wisdom. Not that older and more experienced preachers are immune from mistakes or bad judgment, those traits are much prevalent in the immature preachers, as also all youth. That is why I believe that they are Gods tool for correcting and teaching, not leading the church.

Elders and other leaders of a congregation tend to physically stay and live close to where they work. When they change jobs, it is still often close to the same geographical location as their last job; so close that often a change in work doesn’t necessitate a change in a living location. Preachers on the other hand, often uproot and move great distances to work in another congregation (hopefully, it is serve in another congregation and not just a new work position). So Elders are likely to stay, often even their own lives, in one location with one congregation, despite accepting new positions within a company or when switching to another employer. Contrast that with preachers who often have to move from a youth position at one church to a lead preaching or pasture position in another. Or a preacher is either vetted by another congregation or is actively looking himself for another place so that he can make more money to better provide for his family.

It often takes a new congregation to achieve the kind of change that a preacher is looking for to satisfy their own career aspirations and often times that congregation isn’t on the other side of town but a great distance away. I believe that God, and it doesn’t say this, as a way to keep stability in the Church, did not and does not intend for the preacher to be the head of the Church or a congregation.

My statement doesn’t mean that a Preacher isn’t worthy of the same respect as an Elder. Paul tells us ####. One thing to remember is that Preachers are as susceptible to the same sins everyone else is. If they do succumb to sin, depending on the sin, they should be granted the same level of forgiveness and opportunity to continue in their capacity as anyone else, though there are a few sins in which their Preacher ministry should be removed fro them

On the opposite side of the same coin, Preachers should be held to the same standards as everyone else. Condemning congregation members for an occasional word slip or a deemed inappropriate word in a class, while giving a Preacher a pass for using the same or similar words (“my damn hands” or “go to hell” for example) simply because they are more learned, so it must be OK, causes exacerbation and confusion in he congregation. Giving free reign to a Preacher is dangerous.

Often preachers are permitted a pass because they are the Preacher. Church members simply are afraid or lack confidence to question a member of the clergy. This also happens a lot with Elders and various other leaders of a congregation. If Preachers, or other leaders, perpetrate this belief, they not only risk alienating their congregation but also would easily fall into the realm where they start down he road to becoming a false-teacher, as no one would or will correct them if they do start teach something wrongly.

Case in point, I attended a church where the Preacher was going over the conquest of Canaan and God was OK with the capture of virgins to make sex slaves of them. First, I was disappointed that the preacher taught that God granted the Israelite's virgin girls to be their sex toys and secondly, I was maybe even more disappointed that when I spoke with an Elder about it, the Elder simply caved to “the fact” that the preacher much be right as he is more learned than us. I was wanting looking to ask the Elder to confront the Preacher with me, as at the time I wasn’t as strong or confident, that we would go and confront the Preacher about this. As it turned out, I went alone. When I asked the Preacher about it, he gave me a condescending reply, because who was I to question him, and that what he said was correct. I asked if rape and unmarried sex is is condoned by God today and he didn’t give a clear cut answer but I took it as no, he didn’t think God approved of rape and unmarriable sex. When I asked him to reconcile how God, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, the unchangeable, told the Israelite's that their little sex slaves were OK to have then is different than God doesn’t approve of rape and unmarried sex now. The Preacher simply stated that I didn’t understand and walked away.

But he was right; in his statement that I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand how he could promote that God was OK with rape and how God was OK unmarried sex. I didn’t, and don’t, understand how he could teach that that is how God was but now He’s this. I didn’t understand how he could just throw the only constant in the universe, the one thing that keeps everything else constant, throw it away. God doesn’t change; God doesn’t make mistakes; He doesn’t need forgiveness. To say that He does undercuts all of Biblical doctrine. This Preacher was above being corrected. He had convinced, whether directly or indirectly, that whole congregation that his word is on par with the Lord’s and that he was the leader of that church; the Elders and leadership were not leaders, but simply blind followers.

This charismatic, stage performing Preacher, did increase the numbers in that congregation, but it didn’t mature. Later, he split the church due to his control and over reach. This is probably one example or reason that Jesus setup the Church to be run or oversaw by a group of Elders and not one person. Checks and balances I guess.

I’m going to cut this article into multiple sections which is a deviation from others, which covered one topic per article. This article has been the most difficult so far on the “Failing church” because I know of the time, work, responsibility and love, that a good Preacher puts in. I don’t want to exacerbate those with those that should be in another profession.