I\u2019ve been asked why I write so much about the dysfunction of American churchianity, as if I\u2019m too negative, too narrow, and empty of constructive suggestions. If you think so, you haven\u2019t been reading carefully enough. If you review my \u2018church\u2019 articles in this site\u2019s Discipleship section, you\u2019ll see all kinds of specific and constructive suggestions for Christians to grow individually, to make use of their spiritual gifts, to encourage each other, to learn, and to reach out to the world around them with truth and compassion . . . even if I do say so myself.<\/p>\n
The reason a tennis coach keeps yelling out to his young charge to \u201cMove your feet!\u201d is because the player isn\u2019t moving his feet. Until he begins to move his feet and continues to do so \u2018religiously,\u2019 the coach is obligated to exhort him, or else the player doesn\u2019t improve. No footwork, no forehand. The reason Tevye asks his wife if she loves him (Fiddler on the Roof<\/em>) is because it\u2019s important to him that day \u2013 whatever she may have said 25 years before is not sufficient to coast on. Love is a daily work . . . unexpressed, it\u2019s no love at all. The reason a top-notch SEAL team continues to train, and train so intensively, is that skills will atrophy . . . the stakes are too high for complacency.<\/p>\n Do I expect that my awkward and rarely clicked on blogs will turn churches around? No. I just hope that somebody, somewhere, might catch an idea and do a bit better \u2013 this week \u2013 in leading his family or raising her children or encouraging a discouraged brother or sister in Christ. If you\u2019re in a typical evangelical (gelly) or fundamentalist (fundie) church, however, you\u2019re at a great disadvantage, because your system is designed to help so little.<\/p>\n Regarding the charge of \u2018narrowness,\u2019 I\u2019d encourage you to get into some of the other topics I\u2019ve explored on this site, including economics, teamwork in business and in warfare, educational theory and practice, the history of revivals, biographies of godly Christians, human consciousness, molecular biology, information theory and statistical physics, astronomy and cosmology, the fossil record, geology, philosophy, practical apologetics, fatherhood and husband-hood, textual criticism, and comparative religions . . . not to mention evangelism and the variety of topics my wife has added to the site.<\/p>\n But this blog is focused on Christian Ministry: Why aren\u2019t we doing it?<\/em>, the title of a new book by Gary Maske, available on amazon.com. The issue of how churches should operate so that they actually do ministry, do discipleship, should not merely be a debate about the relative merits of methods, but rather what God has ordained for His churches \u2013 they do belong to Him! And because He has ordained certain principles and practices for His churches, we should obey and follow, because God says so and because He is smarter than us and knows what works! The clever marketing and manipulative methods of modern gelly and fundie churches don\u2019t work because man\u2019s wisdom, apart from God, is foolishness . . . review 1 Corinthians Chapter 1 to note God\u2019s \u2018opinion\u2019 on this.<\/p>\n Gary\u2019s book ought to be on your shelf \u2013 after you read it carefully. He does the legwork for you on the Biblical principles and the history of function and dysfunction in church history. Let\u2019s survey some of the nuggets from the book. (I\u2019ll italicize direct quotes from the book.) For example:<\/p>\n \u201dAll ye are brethren,\u201d said Jesus. We are to call no man \u201cmaster\u201d (teacher) or \u201cfather.\u201d By what logic, then, are we free to call a man \u201cpastor\u201d or \u201creverend\u201d? <\/em> I note that the term \u201creverend,\u201d especially, is reserved for God, as in Psalm 111:9 . . . \u201choly and reverend is his name.\u201d<\/p>\n Gary distinguishes between speaking and serving gifts in Romans 12, a distinction made explicitly in 1 Peter 4:11. The speaking gifts (prophesying, teaching, exhorting, ruling) apply both in and out of the assembly, while the serving gifts (ministering, giving, mercy) find practice mostly out of the assembly.<\/p>\n The author asks whether our churches function in accord with the model of Romans 12. His answer is a resounding NO, not only for the present, but for most of the church age. We don\u2019t do church this way.<\/em> The exceptions, I believe, reside in the persecuted churches, especially in Asia, which cannot operate in any other way than the way God designed!<\/p>\n The work of the ministry, then, is done by all the perfected saints in order that the rest of the body of Christ is edified or perfected. These perfected or spiritually mature saints minister to the rest of the church \u2013 new converts, those weak in the faith . . . and the young children and adolescents (this latter being in particular a ministry of parents to their children) \u2013 and in doing so accomplish \u201cthe edifying of the body of Christ.\u201d <\/em> Gary is not suggesting sinless perfection, of course, but simply the Biblical principle that Christian perfection denotes completeness, maturity, and discernment, determinedly on the path to spiritual growth.<\/p>\n He makes the Scriptural case that the prophets and apostles exercised a foundational<\/em> ministry, that evangelists and teachers participate in occasional<\/em> ministry, but that the goals of the apostles, along with those of evangelists and teachers, is to equip the brethren for an ongoing mutual<\/em> ministry. The work to perfect the saints is to enable them to minister, so that they can<\/em> minister, and not so that they cannot<\/em> minister. What good perfected saints if they can never minister in the churches?<\/em><\/p>\n I have a good friend who was working to establish a house church in a midwestern city. He befriended a fifty-something couple who were discouraged with the lifelessness in their pulpit\/pew church. They wanted more substantive fellowship, some real discipleship . . . they wanted MORE. They had been members for many years and had been Christians since their youth. Yet the fellow couldn\u2019t muster the courage to step out and take responsibility to study, to learn, to minister apart from the warm cocoon of his \u201cchurch\u201d \u2013 in which he wasn\u2019t really studying, learning, or ministering. (That\u2019s the pastor\u2019s job, after all.) He professed he wasn\u2019t trained enough, educated enough to be part of a group of believers where they shared all the responsibilities. What he couldn\u2019t seem to understand was that if he wasn\u2019t equipped after so many decades within the system, his system was dysfunctional. (Not that my friend was making any demands on the guy whatsoever . . . the fellow simply anticipated that he couldn\u2019t just sit in such a group indefinitely without stepping up at some point.)<\/p>\n In the first churches all were ministers, and not just in theory . . . Church function, order, and polity subsequent to the demise of the apostles is nothing if not a contradiction of the plain and unvarnished teaching in 1 Peter 4. Not that the meaning of 1 Peter 4 was ever openly refuted in the churches, it was simply not believed or practiced. Instead, the prevailing notion in the churches has long been that the \u201cpastors and teachers\u201d are both speakers and ministers, to the exclusion<\/strong> of almost every other speaker or minister. What is this if not unbelief?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBut this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.\u201d (Rev 2:6) The meaning of the word \u201cNicolaitane,\u201d from its Greek roots, is \u201cto conquer the laity.\u201d \u201dThe church was divided in two by this conquering, and this has continued throughout church history to the present day. Nicolaitanism has come to be known by another name, \u201cclericalism,\u201d which is chiefly characterized by a division of the church into \u201cclergy\u201d and \u201claity.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Gary notes that Paul told Titus to ordain elders — plural — in every city in Crete.\u00a0 (Can you say, “Area-wide house church network”?)\u00a0 Titus was an evangelist, exhorted by Paul to do that work in 2 Tim 4:5.\u00a0 Acts 14:23 records that Paul and Barnabas ordained elders — plural — in every church.\u00a0 There is no level of authority and responsibility above that, except for the Lord Jesus Himself.\u00a0 If a “bishop” or a “senior pastor” acquires or accepts authority, interposing himself between the flock with its elders and the Great Shepherd, he does so in defiance of the New Testament.\u00a0 Yet the singular one-pastor \/ one-church model dominates in Catholicism, Protestantism, evangelicalism, and fundamentalism.<\/p>\n Non-Catholics pay lip service to the doctrine of the priesthood of believers, but don\u2019t actually believe it. John Calvin and the Reformation never changed church polity one iota, except it replaced the priesthood of Romanism with a quasi-priesthood called \u201cthe pastorate.\u201d<\/em> Protestants and gellies often cite \u201cthe church fathers,\u201d but these \u201cfathers\u201d were the establishers of Romanism and the papacy. When we venerate the \u201cchurch fathers,\u201d we heap contempt on the apostles.<\/em> Sadly, even the independent, persecuted churches of Europe during the Middle Ages (and later), the Waldenses, Albigenses, Anabaptists, Pilgrims, Puritans, and Baptists retained clericalism, all the while insisting that they were the Biblical remnant.<\/p>\n For many years my wife and I were part of fundie churches, buying into that insistence \u2013 that we were part of the only genuine New Testament churches around, despite the un- or extra-Biblical practices of pulpits, tithing, the man-of-God senior pastorate, scripted services, an altar (an altar!!), and absence of true discipleship via exercise of the spiritual gifts of the body. In order for us to find opportunities to minister \u2013 to encourage within the body in a variety of ways \u2013 we had to make time outside of the busy program, which included Sunday School, Sunday morning service, Sunday night, Wednesday night corporate prayer and Bible study, Thursday night visitation, and weekend bus ministry. We tried, but what little time we had to make the attempt, it seemed like everyone else had the impression that \u201cchurch life\u201d was 100% fulfilled within the already intensive program.<\/p>\n In modern gelly churches, the program is more diverse and much less intense, but the result is the same. The vast majority of gelly church members are tapped out with one weekly service, one occasional \u2018small group\u2019 meeting, and a once-per-quarter-perhaps \u2018outreach\u2019 activity . . . you know, food for the homeless, shoes for the orphans, boxing up goods for earthquake victims, etc.<\/p>\n Within the body, the sermon displaces the operation of the spiritual gifts in the church. In the sermon all teaching is vested in one man. The operation and the development of the speaking gifts in the churches are thus preempted. No exercise of the gifts, no development of the gifts. As a result the saints remain carnal, even babes in Christ, for we do not and cannot grow to maturity in Christ apart from the exercise of our spiritual gifts. Each grows in part due to the exercise of his own gift; but mostly we grow due to others ministering their gifts to us.<\/em><\/p>\n Want me to say something positive? OK, here it is: Get out of your anti-Biblical so-called \u201cchurch\u201d so that you can take a chance on growing, on exercising gifts, on encouraging other believers, on learning how to evangelize as opposed to hoping that you might get someone to visit your program so that the Gospel can somehow magically rub off on them. Do it. Do it positively, eagerly, hopefully, and obediently and you\u2019ll be amazed at how easy it is to leave behind the glue trap of clericalism.<\/p>\n The seminary only develops (perhaps) the speaking gift of one man and not the myriad saints of Romans 12.<\/em> As I\u2019ve noted many times before, have you not noticed that all of the epistles were written to all the saints in the local area city-wide house church networks at Corinth, Rome, Ephesus, etc.? New Testament teaching is for the saints to embrace. There is no instruction to find a seminary-trained man to do it all. The church is its own proving-ground for teachers. The seminary is an unauthorized proving-ground.<\/em><\/p>\n Gary asks, What if the man\u2019s sermons are always sound?<\/em> Well, they cannot be sound on church polity and, at best, even on Biblical subjects with sound doctrine, he is simply reinforcing the age-old tradition of a Christian pastorate that overthrows the ministry of the brethren found in Romans 12.<\/em><\/p>\n Is it possible to have both \u201csound teaching\u201d and an order in the churches contrary to Christ\u2019s design? By no means. It is a contradiction in terms.<\/em><\/p>\n Gary suggests that another name for clericalism is \u201cdisplacement theology,\u201d the effect being a displacement of Christian ministry. When men act as heads of the churches, Jesus Christ is deposed. It sounds outrageous. How could it be? But at the end of the age Jesus stands at the door of His church and knocks.<\/em> In Rev 3:20 Jesus appeals to individuals, not for salvation, but for fellowship with Him \u2013 no priest in between. During the Great Tribulation, Jesus pleads (Rev 18:4-5) with His people to come out of the false religious system that has taken over the world, the structure of which is already established in our day.<\/p>\n The author describes three major categories of errors under the umbrella of clericalism. In Scholasticism<\/em> schools are established as the arbiters of doctrine, usurping the local churches, which the Lord Jesus established as the pillar and ground of the truth. Clerics are qualified for leadership only by these schools. Seminaries and \u201cBible Institutes\u201d that are attached to one-man-pastor churches are part of the problem, not the solution.<\/p>\n In Gnosticism . . . the church is separated into \u201cthose who know\u201d and \u201cthose who really know.\u201d<\/em> Gnostics claim secret knowledge, manifested in today\u2019s pulpits by an alleged unique knowledge of \u201cwhat the Greek really says,\u201d and seminary curricula that incorporate much of man\u2019s self-puffed wisdom.<\/p>\n Thirdly, Sacerdotalism<\/em> divides the church into those who administer \u201csacraments\u201d and those who receive them. But Biblically there are no sacraments \u2013 God\u2019s grace comes by faith alone. I have been challenged by fundie pastors, who cannot imagine how I or any of my house church peers could dare to baptize someone or administer the Lord\u2019s supper. The first time I heard such a challenge I was shocked. I had labored under the false impression that fundies don\u2019t see themselves as holding to Roman Catholic doctrine.<\/p>\n It is God\u2019s plan and it is the Biblical pattern that a new convert should study the Word so that he is able to minister the Word to others. The Word of God is not rocket science. It is far higher than rocket science, but it is intelligible to a vast majority of us in a way that rocket science is not.<\/em><\/p>\n Gary\u2019s right. Speaking from the perspective of a research scientist I can attest that the Bible and its applications to life and its meaning are far richer than the discipline of science and its application to the mere analysis of particles, fields, and their interactions. Mind and spirit are more than matter; not just more, but more complex, more fascinating, and far more meaningful. The world idolizes scientists like Einstein or Feynman or Hawking \u2013 who develop equations to predict the effects of mere forces. The world writes biographies and makes movies of fellows like Henry Ford or Steve Jobs who design technology in cute, svelte packages.<\/p>\n In principle, physics and chemistry are simple, disciplines that can be reduced to mathematics which, in turn, can be solved by rote methods, despite the apparent difficulty of calculus, partial differential equations, and group theory to those who haven\u2019t pained themselves with the required \u2018advanced degrees.\u2019 Biology is tougher because it involves complex systems of machines and processes, hard to measure at the nanoscopic level, and harder still to reduce to tractable mathematics. Therefore, much of biological science tends to be descriptive rather than predictive \u2013 it\u2019s just too hard. But the mind of an individual and the dynamics of a society? Psychology and social \u2018science\u2019 are no sciences at all. Those practitioners consistently \u2018get it wrong\u2019 because they don\u2019t understand the underlying principles, which are spiritual . . . derived only within a Biblical worldview.<\/p>\n Thus, ironically, the \u2018plowman in the field,\u2019 the fellow that William Tyndale had in mind when he translated what would become the KJV in the following century, can know, understand, and exercise wisdom in his life and the lives of others in a manner far superior to that of the psychologist . . . or the physicist or medical doctor or lawyer or politician in their vaunted worldly wisdom.<\/p>\n The potential for wisdom in the plowman, and his potential for fruitful service, love, encouragement, and counsel into the lives of others \u2013 namely, things that matter for life and eternity \u2013 is unlimited, because the Bible is inexhaustible and the indwelling Holy Spirit is infinite in wisdom and eager to energize good works. Pray tell me . . . what is it about the conventional church program that even recognizes this? The \u2018program\u2019 certainly doesn\u2019t provoke it. But YOU can choose to grow. God is willing if you are.<\/p>\n Gary expands on the roles of the apostles and prophets who revealed<\/em> the Word, evangelists<\/em> who call unbelievers to repent and become part of a church, and pastors and teachers<\/em> who continue the work of perfecting the saints, bringing them to an adult understanding of truth via a working knowledge of Scripture. However, the churches operate as if the saints never grow up . . . the brethren hardly minister to one another, but they are ministered to, again and again, the basics of the Christian faith . . . short passages of Scripture for thirty minutes . . . reiterating the same Bible truths over and over.<\/em> He cites Hebrews 6:1-2.<\/p>\n I have observed the debilitating fruits in my visits to many churches. Even among the \u2018senior saints,\u2019 very very few actually know how to share the Gospel with a lost soul, and of those who do, hardly anyone has the guts to do it, despite professing belief that their lost sister, neighbor, or co-worker is headed for Hell. Is sharing the Gospel, exercising the Great Commission in your own life, an advanced topic? No, no, no! It\u2019s the most basic practice of all for the new believer.<\/p>\n Gary\u2019s chapter on house churches is worthwhile. Here\u2019s a poignant paragraph as a sample:<\/p>\n God does not intend for Christians to become settled in the world, spiritually speaking. We are pilgrims on a pilgrimage to a city with foundations. It is not that \u201cchurch\u201d buildings are proof of the apostasy but rather that they are a symptom of it. In parts of the world where Christians are persecuted, they still meet in houses, or cellars, or secret rooms. If they meet openly their buildings are often destroyed. It is only in the parts of the world where Christianity is respectable that it is harder to avoid the inclination to really settle here. And we build buildings. The great cathedrals of Europe readily come to mind, where Christianity is mostly dead and these buildings, awe-inspiring, are truly spiritual tombstones. But America has plenty of its own awe-inspiring cathedrals and edifices. <\/em><\/p>\n Christians are to be made perfect (mature) a day at a time, through life experience in business and family, through interactions with the world and with fellow believers, in everything applying God\u2019s word and praying for guidance from the Holy Spirit. Life in the church must include exercise of gifts, to offer advice and counsel, to exhort and encourage, to teach by example and by exegesis. The Christian in business who struggles needs counsel from a Christian with business experience. The sick need encouragement from those who have endured illness, and the persecuted from those who have persevered. The young mother needs counsel from older women who have raised children to maturity, and who have learned to love husbands who fall short of perfection. The single young man needs accountability from men who have entered into marriage having escaped the temptations of fornication, and from men who have succumbed but repented, and have cautionary tales to warn of the consequences.<\/p>\n The professional pastorate does not share \u201clife\u201d in the same way as the \u201claity.\u201d Clerics insist that qualification comes through seminary schooling, as if that is superior to the Christ life experiences of the entire body. But the Scriptural view of elders indicates qualification by experience demonstrated over many years, elders which remain a part of the body, not usurping the Head, who must be the Lord Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n Gary concludes with the hope that if the New Testament teachings on the church were believed, it would have a revival-like effect on the saved, and would convert many of the professors to genuine conversion. I know Christians who are praying for revival in the churches, or perhaps for revival in the nation, and none that I know is concerned with the way churches function. They hope and pray for a revival of spiritual fervor within the existing paradigm. But the existing paradigm is not conducive to spiritual fervor; it is in opposition to it.<\/em><\/p>\n Are \u201cseparatists\u201d \u2013 like those who start house churches \u2013 guilty of not loving the brethren? No, the reality in American Christendom is that gelly and fundie church members reserve some small measure of love only for those in their particular church. As Gary says, This is sectarianism.<\/em> I have experienced this countless times, offering friendship and partnership with Christians in various churches, to little effect. The irony is that if my wife and I actually committed to membership in such churches, the fellowship is superficial at best \u2013 it\u2019s just not part of the program. And partnership in evangelism? Virtually nonexistent, if by evangelism you actually mean telling lost people that they need to repent and trust Christ.<\/p>\n Gary offers advice that I also have given, to new Christians who are looking to grow, and don\u2019t have a Biblical house church environment to attach to. We have the Word, and the Spirit, and we retain the fellowship of the saints. Look for Christian fellowship wherever you find it. I don\u2019t necessarily mean \u201cfind a church\u201d (as \u201cfinding fellowship\u201d has come to mean), I mean look for fellowship wherever you find it. We can have fellowship with many Christians whose church we would not attend.<\/em> I agree that should be possible, but as I just wrote, it\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll close with some words at the end of Gary\u2019s work, which I endorse:<\/p>\n I offer these words of encouragement, not to those who are comfortable in the fellowship of their churches \u2013 for those do not require this encouragement \u2013 but to those of you searching for fellowship, any fellowship, in Christ. Especially I would encourage young believers who, in moving away from home, find themselves very much in the world, and yet aliens.<\/em><\/p>\n Of course all believers are aliens here. We are looking for a city with foundations. There are none of those here. We are on a pilgrimage through the valley of the shadow of death, and that means we have no continuing home. Some of us are more settled in this world than we ought to be. I do not write to these, for they will not receive it. I write to those not settled.<\/p>\n – drdave@truthreallymatters.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been asked why I write so much about the dysfunction of American churchianity, as if I\u2019m too negative, too narrow, and empty of constructive suggestions. If you think so, you haven\u2019t been reading carefully enough. If you review my \u2018church\u2019 articles in this site\u2019s Discipleship section, you\u2019ll see all kinds of specific and constructive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":56,"menu_order":380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2485","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2485"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3660,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2485\/revisions\/3660"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/56"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/truthreallymatters.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}