Re_churching church step 1

This will be an extension to my previous post on re-churching church. First I should preface by saying that I have become more and more in love with the writing of the Puritans. My latest gem in discovery is Thomas Watson. I recently purchased “Glorifying God” it’s a yearlong devotional collection of his writings. I first read an entry on sin. It blew me away, but that’s a different post. Now, continuing on with re-churching church.

Today’s entry was titled “Settled in the Faith”. Colossians 1.23 says, “Continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel…” to apply this verse, Watson used as an illustration of celestial bodies. He said that 1 Peter 5.10 (look it up) means that “we might not be meteors [wandering] in the air, but fixed stars. Aristotle says of meteors, “They do leap up and down, and wander, into several parts of the heaven; and being but dry exhalations, not made of pure celestial matter as the fixed stars are, they often fall to the earth.”

Basically he is saying that Christians who are not rooted and settled in their faith will float around from one opinion to another, and can be deceived very easily. (i.e. the Prosperity Gospel) Kind of like the old adage, If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything.

Before I give my attempted take on all of this I will give you an excerpt from the end of the devo. “Just as feathers will be blown easily everywhere, so will feathery Christian. Therefore such are compared to children: that “We be no more children, tossed to and fro” (Ephesians 4.14). Children are fickle, sometimes of one mind, sometimes of another; nothing pleases them long. So unsettles Christians are childish; the truths they embrace at one time, they reject at another.

Now it’s my turn. I’m not going to try and unpack this verse. I’m not even going to deal with this topic directly. It is, however, at the bedrock of my thinking as to begin re-churching church.

First, I think we are not teaching enough doctrine in the church today. (I am using church in general terminology. I am not trying to point out specific flaws within a single church) This is one of the reasons why I use the Word of Life Curriculum for Engage’s material. I feel the church has taken on too much of a seeker/come and see mindset. I have been in too many churches where they hold a meeting to discuss “what can we do to bring more people into the church?” Let’s talk about topics that can enhance our standard of living and make up feel bubbly inside has replaced I want to understand the Bible and tenants of my Faith. 

I also feel that we are lacking in knowledge of Church history. I'm sure you have heard the saying, "if we don't learn from history we are destined to repeat it."? This is for the church as well. Because we have become anemic with our teaching, false and heretical doctrines have been sneaking in, the latest of which is the prosperity gospel and Rob Bell's latest kindling stack. Had Christians have known church history, we could have seen these heresies on the horizon and Barney Fifed them. (nipped em in the bud)

We need substance in our churches. I believe the way that will happen is to have pastors do what they are called and hired to do. Lead and exhort the flock. For him to be able to do this he had to be able to have deep study and have the time to do so. It has become the norm of churches today to expect the pastor to clean, visit, mow, be a buffer, and do any number of odd jobs instead of adhering to what his purpose is and that is to teach the Word of God. It is the deacons and deaconess' responsibility to do these other things. Thier purpose is to serve. Sadly, people refuse to see this. I will explain more on this later. For re churching church to work we will almost have to start a new church, in order for there to be a smooth transition.

At my church we are attempting to do this WHAT ABOUT BOB style (baby steps). Not without opposition, but still a whole lot smoother than I first anticipated. We have decided to break tradition at Crestwood and in lieu of sunday evening service, we are offering many different opportunities to grow spiritually, grow in unity with one another, have outreach to the community and other places, also some sundays people can take just to rest. Holding to a dispensationalist hermeneutic, I do not believe that we are bound to a sabbath let alone a"Christian sabbath" (another soapbox for another post) however, we were created to work six days and rest one. It doesn't matter what day we rest just so we do.

There will always be something going on at Crestwood on sunday nights but sometimes I may just want to stay home and rest.Other weeks throughout the months we will be having various outreach opportunities, deep study modules, or small groups where we learn how to apply the awesome teaching pastor gives us to our lives and live the lesson. What pastor wouldn't want an extra hour for application time at the end of a sermon.

I am very excited about the direction we are taking in rechurching church. As I said earlier there will be some opposition, but that should be expected, and be ready to be dealt with. I.e. the weeks heading up to our vote to discontinue sunday evening services, I had someone approach me and ask what I thought. (you would think people would learn not to ask me that. Its my favorite question, and I WILL tell you what I think.) After I gave my fact, the person clearly agitated with my response curtly said what does he need sunday night off for all he had to do is peach three times a week. (wrong statement to say to me) so I politely explained exactly how much pastor does and that not only is it draining to peach a sermon, but not many people know how much sweat, tears, and prayers go into a sermon. So I explained that with this, it could make a great pastor that much better because it will give him more time to do his calling.

I know it has been a long time since my last post. I have been really busy with school and church. But this is the first of many steps I believe will improve church and begin to revive America's churches and resuscitate a dying religion. It is only by Christ and closening (my word) our relationship to Him, that we will return to a Church that actually serves and fulfills its purpose.