Reformed Baptists Not Doing a Good Job of Planting Churches
Posted by deangonzales on July 24, 2009
Are Reformed Baptist churches doing well at planting churches? Church planter and pastor, Matt Troupe, attempts to answer this question in a research paper entitled, “The State of Reformed Baptist Church Planting in North America.” After gathering data from 73 respondents who pastor churches that adhere to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, Matt concludes that Reformed Baptists “are not aggressively planting new congregations and that organizational structures are not functioning effectively to promote church planting.” In light of his findings, Matt suggests four areas of policy change:
(1) RB churches need to see the multiplication of new congregations as a core part of the purpose of their churches and associations.
(2) RB churches need to plant churches that are focused on making new disciples.
(3) RB churches need to target large cities in their church planting efforts.
(4) RB churches need to improve their cooperation in order to multiply worshipping congregations.
I would strongly encourage pastors and ministerial aspirants to peruse and ponder carefully Matt’s research and recommendations for this vital area of kingdom extension. Here is an area of church ministry where there’s considerable room for ongoing reformation. Indeed, here’s an area of ecclesiology where RB churches may do well to learn from others outside our circles who are, by God’s grace, following the biblical pattern more consistently and aggressively than we are.
Matt has made his research paper and a helpful table that collates the data available to the public on his blog in a post entitled, “Church Planting Research Paper.”
Bob Gonzales, Dean
Reformed Baptist Seminary
84 Responses to “Reformed Baptists Not Doing a Good Job of Planting Churches”
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July 24th, 2009 at 8:41 am
[...] would promote further reformation among our churches in this vital area of kingdom extension. Reformed Baptists Not Doing a Good Job of Planting Churches Your servant __________________ Bob Gonzales Jr., Dean Reformed Baptist Seminary Easley, South [...]
July 24th, 2009 at 9:16 am
Bob-
Thank you for posting this article. I have been thinking about many of the same things recently, and I share the desire for Reformed Baptists to step up their church-planting efforts.
One thought I had on this issue is that, clearly, Reformed Baptists are stricter than most anybody else when it comes to ordination. I’m not saying whether we are right or wrong, but only that our standards of who is qualified to plant are higher than most others.
Of course, Reformed Baptists take Paul’s qualification for eldership seriously, and this is a good thing. But what is your opinion? Could this be one reason why we don’t plant more churches? Should we reconsider just how strict we are in examining men for ministry? Obviously, the more men we have that are qualified, the more churches we can plant.
SDG,
Nathan
July 24th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Nathan,
Thanks for your input and question. It’s difficult to give a simple answer. In my limited pastoral experience (almost 13 years), I think I’ve seen instances of both extremes. In some cases, hands have been laid on a man too quickly. The results have been harmful to the man, his family, and the church. In other cases, though, I suspect that pastors and/or churches have (perhaps reacting to tendencies in broader evangelical circles) deferred ordaining men to ministry too long. Christ gave his disciples ministry stewardships when they were still immature. Of course, there’s a balance. As a general rule, the degree of stewardship should be commensurate with the degree of one’s gift and maturity. I’d be generally more inclined to bring a younger, less experienced man into a leadership position where there are already other seasoned leaders who can continue to mentor him along the way.
On the other hand, there’s often not a large leadership team in place in church planting situations. And younger men are often more flexible and able to take more (financial) risks than older men who have large families. So they may be better suited, in some ways, for “ground-zero” church planting work. Ideally, a two-by-two approach would work well, where there’s mutual accountability. And I think church planting should, in most cases, be a cooperative effort. Accordingly, the younger man would minister in a context of older and more mature leadership accountability.
Hope these thoughts are helpful.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
July 24th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Dear Bob,
A few years ago we were involved with some families in a church planting/starting effort. We had no experience, so we sought a church, somewhere, to give us oversight. We could find one church that was willing to step up to the plate. We didn’t ask for financial help; just the spiritual oversight of the leadership.
The need is certainly out there. However, often a church planter in the U.S. is expected to do whatever it takes to make it work, whether he gets outside help or not. We send missionaries overseas with full pay and benefits, but expect a man to work two jobs and plant a church with little oversight, support and often alone.
Perhaps it would be helpful if we had a vision for raising up men to plant churches. At the same time, we could be in contact with areas that would love to see a solid work rise up in their area. They could start a weekly Bible study and start looking over supplied doctrinal statements, confession, catechism, etc., and learning together as a unit. At the same time they could be starting up a kitty to help finance the effort.
When a group has shown some commitment (meeting regularly for a couple of years) and is able to commit to supporting a certain amount of a pastor’s salary (perhaps for 2 years) a church covenant could be written and a man sent to begin the work of planting a church. He has the support and oversight of his sending church while the local group burdens much of, or most of, the financial responsibility.
However, (getting more on track with your article) when we do these efforts we usually send the man we’ve trained. Instead, why don’t we send our most experienced man? The man that we’ve trained can step up and fill the void with the aid of mature and experienced elders in the church. The more experienced man will have a better chance of a successful church plant effort. But, how many “senior” pastors are willing to give up their position locally and go out and plant a church? When church plant efforts are made, are we doing all we can to assure it’s success? Or, are we throwing someone at it on a wing and a prayer?
For Jesus,
July 24th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I forgot to complete my thought. If such a vision is established, then the one trained is eventually brought full circle as he trains up the next man and goes out himself. It would take incredible vision on the part of the church, and a godly group of elders, but I have to wonder if this would be more healthy in the long run for the church planting effort as well as the local sending church.
July 24th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
It would help if we could engage our culture and try to reach the unchurched, instead of trying to convince other Christians about the superiority of RB distinctives.
Other problems include the common refusal to include modern hymns and other instruments besides the piano in worship, lack of flexibility about worship times and commitments, and failure to update our evangelism materials so we aren’t handing out tracks written in the 1800′s.
Just a few observations…
July 24th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Hi Bob,
Two days ago, I read these interesting stats on church plants…
“Fuller Seminary professor C. Peter Wagner says, ‘While back in 1945, Pentecostals/charismatics could count only 16 million members worldwide, by 1975 they had grown to 96 million and then ten years later in 1985 they numbered an astounding 247 million’” (Systematic Theology, Grudem, p. 1043).
I don’t know how accurate those stats are, but where I live Pent. churches are numerous. And, in some 3rd-world countries, Jesus’ Church seems to be largely (mostly?) Pent.
Which leads me to a question I’ve been wondering for years…Why does God choose to use one man/group more than others?
July 24th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Robert, thanks for posting the link to my research paper. I thought I would join the discussion here. I also welcome any more personal correspondance by email: metroupe@gmail.com.
@Nathan White- Your observation about the qualifications for church planters is worth considering. The main issue is understanding that the qualifications for a good church planter are not exactly the same as for a pastor of an established church. I think that the answer may not be that our standards are too high (though sometimes I think they are) but that they are the wrong ones. A church planter is a missionary who has to create something that does not exist. That is a tough row to hoe, and it is not for everyone.
@Keith Johnson- good observations. I believe that one major problem is that we have unwittingly accepted the idea that “missions” happens overseas, while something else happens on the domestic front. In my opinion, we need to kill that idea. It is unbiblical. I believe that each church needs to see it self as fundamentally a missionary organization-A group of people sent by God for his purpose (Acts 1:8) and a sending organization for subsequent efforts. Having looked at how we RB’s do church planting, I think that part of our problem is that we often try to gather like minded people rather than make and train disciples and raise up leaders. If you get a chance to read the paper you will see more of my comments on this. In any case, Jesus doesn’t command us to plant churches per se. He commands us to make disciples, who are then gathered into churches. If we separate part 1 from part 2 of the Great Commission we will end up with a truncated approach to church planting and evangelism. They must go together. What this means is that existing churches need to take this call seriously and send out men with support and backing to do this across the street, across town, across the country and across the world.
@Raja- good points on contextualization. That is at the heart of the missionary endeavor. We should not try to plant church “franchises” that all look the same, but rather churches that take the gospel seriously and apply it to their own culture individually. This means that each church should look different from others when it is in a different neighborhood, region, or people. I don’t think we will find substantial fruit in church planting until we learn to bring people to Christ instead of bringing them to our Christian culture.
July 25th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Greg,
Good observation and stimulating question. Part of the answer resides, I think, in the inscrutable providence of God. God can draw lines with crooked sticks. And perhaps he does so in order to humble the straighter sticks who busy themselves doting over their “straightness” while failing to aggressively and effectively reach out to the lost.
Blessings,
Bob Gonzales
July 25th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Concerning the qualifications necessary for being a church planter, Dr. Ed Stetzer, director of research for Lifeway, speaking at the 2008 Founder’s conference, noted that all candidates for church planting work within the SBC are given a physcological profile examination. A physological profile might seem ‘unspiritual’ to some but he pointed out that God equips otherwise theolgically sound, gifted and biblically qualified men with different personalities. In his opinion if you are given to melancholy and cannot take pretty constant rejection then you are not equiped to plant a church in a hostile area. Of course, if you want to go ‘shepard’ a like minded splinter group then you may be able to ‘plant’ a small RB church but you you will not invade the lost community with the gospel of free grace.
July 25th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Thanks for posting this article and I look forward to reading the research paper as time permits.
I see there is a lot of “parachurch” organizations like Acts 29, Sovereign Grace and others that are very successful with church planting. It’s been my observation that these organizations are closed handed on certain theological doctrines such as Scripture, supremacy of Christ, etc. But open handed in regards to things like Sabbath day observance, the spiritual gifts, etc.
Do you think that is part of their success and do you think that in order for the RBC to be effective church planters will they have to establish what is an open handed issue and what is close handed?
Also, I believe it is Biblical that those with a “church planter” mentality be “sent” by an established church as those in the NT were sent by other church leaders, not only with blessing but also accountability. In others words, it may not be healthiest for a new church plant to be done in a vacuum. What is your thought here? What comfort level would the RBC have with planters that tend toward the “New Calvinist” types that seem to be gaining prominence?
One final question, if I may: The RBC is not a formal denomination and qualifies themselves as only an association of like-minded believers (though there seems to be a very definitive set of qualifications to aptly call ones self a Reformed Baptist). Does this have an effect on church planting?
I hope these questions make sense as the thought of church planting has become of late a real interest to me.
I appreciate in advance your thoughts on these matters…
Dan Lane
July 25th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Having been in RBC churches for 35 years I have come to the conclusion expressed by Raja Dani. He hit the nail on the head. We “reformed baptists” are exact on every jot but miss the weightier compassion of Jesus Christ. There are many reformed seminary trained baptists doing secular jobs and sitting in reformed baptist congregations looking for the “perfect” situation for them. The “perfect” situation is the great commission which fails to mention the 1689 confession. Bring the non-churched to Christ and as you teach the whole counsel of God the true teachings of scripture will inevitably be incorporated.
July 25th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
@David: I agree, brother, that church planting is different than pastoring an already established church. And I think it takes a uniquely gifted man to do the work of church planting. We need more such men. It might also help if we revised our practical theology curriculum to provide training for this kind of work.
@Dan: First, I think 1689ers need to learn better to distinguish between that which is unchanging and that which may and, in some cases, should change. In particular and echoing the concerns of Raja above, we need to learn better how to adapt culturally in our evangelism and worship to the age and setting in which we live rather than trying to preserve the church-culture of bygone generations. Second, I’m not exactly sure how to answer your second question. I feel pretty comfortable with most Neo-Calvinists like Piper, Dever, and Mahanney. Indeed, I think we can and should learn about church planting from some of these men. Some RBers, on the other hand, appear quite uncomfortable and seem intent on making their discomfort known. Sad. Third, there is currently a debate on what really constitutes one a “Reformed Baptist.” This does have a bearing for some on whether or not there can be cooperative effort. For a helpful article on the subject from a pastor who affirms most but not all of the 1689, see Why I Call Myself a Reformed Baptist.
@Bob: I too agree with Raja. I also think we can unduly venerate our Confession of Faith as if it were nearly inspired. This is, in my opinion, a hindrance to teaching the unchurched and lost. Elsewhere on this blog, I’ve addressed The Danger of Reformed Traditionalism, Part I, and The Danger of Reformed Traditionalism, Part II. In the second part, I address the need to update and revise the 1689 so that we confess our faith to our 21st generation.
July 25th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Thanks for the response, I will be checking out those links.
In Sunday School, the teen class, we are re-writing the 1689 in modern English. I’ve finally settled on a format that I like where we start with: “God’s Word says…” and we list out each verse in full form and follow with “Therefore we believe…” and then we have the re-written portion of the 1689.
What I have found is that much that was under attack back in 1689 is not under attack in our day and doctrines that were treated rather quickly in 1689 are of great import today. This concerns me as the 1689 is a rigid document and, as they say, “the times they are a changing.” There are different doctrines that are under attack and are hardly treated in the Confession.
Could this reliance on a “static” confession be part of the trouble we have in reaching the lost? (I am not advocating for no confession but only one that makes sense to the unlearned such as myself).
But I do agree with the above that if we teach the Bible we eventually get to the heart of what was intended by the 1689ers.
Thanks again…
July 25th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Dan,
I’m very sympathetic with your concerns about a static “confessionalism” that remains content to stay in the past and neglects its responsibility to confess the faith to its own generation. Like the “1611 King James Only Movement,” I fear that the “1689 Confession Only Movement” may be hindering our witness to our 21st century generation. I address this danger and suggest areas where the 1689 needs to be updated in two posts: The Danger of Reformed Traditionalism, Part I, and The Danger of Reformed Traditionalism, Part II.
July 25th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Hi guys, I am glad you are thinking and praying to add more solid churches. I agree that church plants are not something distinct from missionary work. I think the title is not a good title. Can RB churches do more? Certainly. Are we doing a “good” job? Here’s where I respectfully disagree with Bob, Raj and Mr Gibson.
YES, we are! When we do it Gods way – “we” aren’t planting churches, God is.
This is where the main disagreement is between us. Many (and I belive from the sentiment of what I’ve read in the combox here, except for Nathan) believe the way Reformed churches plant churches is in error- in need of reformation – I believe the conclusions will be wrong because of a faulty premise. There is the group that want to change the 1689, lower the standards for a church to be a church ( degrade it by bringing in hip hop music etc)
To be honest I don’t care how many Pent / Benny Hinn / Calv Chapel / Sov Grace / Saddlebacks seem to be planted – since I don’t recognize many of them to be true churches anyway.
We will praise God with you if you plant true churches – God honoring ones
Praise God with us – our Pastor (missionary) who has been laboribg for years in France – talk about culture! Is going to plant… A new plant just was born recently in Illinois… I could go on, there has been a New work in Fresno — a brand New work has just begun in Casa Grande AZ…
The procedures you mention many of them… “why doesn’t somebody do this – mature church oversight etc”. IS being done
ARBCA Has had a church planting vision for many years now Also hoe to conf / seminars
God Bless, Pat Quick
member Sov Grace Bapt Church, Ontario Calif
obviously an ARBCA
grampaquick@yahoo. Com
July 25th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Pat,
Glad to have you join the conversation. It’s late here on the east coast, so I can’t talk long. But I’ll ask you a couple of questions to make sure we can have a profitable and productive discussion.
(1) Did you take the time to read Matt Troupe’s research paper and statistical research? Or are you simply responding to the summary and comments?
(2) You feel pretty certain that we are doing things “God’s way.” Does that mean all others are going it their “own way”? Does that mean we’re doing the right thing as diligent as we possibly can? Do you thing we’ve got the whole thing perfected and are in no need of improvement? Have you done the kind of research Matt has done to back up your answers?
(3) Some here, including myself, have suggested the need to update the 1689 (or at least supplement it with a modern confession of faith). Does the very idea of updating or supplementing a 17th century confession ipso facto “degrade the church”? How’s that so? And what’s unbiblical about the genre of hip-hop music? Is there something in the Gospel of Thomas about that?
(4) One of the preachers you listed preaches and promotes a false gospel (i.e., Benny Hinn). Do you think Calvary Churches are false churches? And what about Sovereign Grace churches? They preach the doctrines of grace. What would incline you to exclude them from the true visible church universal? That sounds a whole lot more narrow and sectarian than the Bible or our own Confession warrants.
(5) You seem to base you opinions on what you perceive ARBCA has accomplished. I have friends who are “high-ups” in ARBCA. I’m not so sure that they would all share your glowing optimism. Indeed, the guys I know are saying, “We need to do more and we need to do it better.”
(6) I suppose you know this, but I thought I’d point it out just in case you missed it: the guy who’s planting the new work in Fresno that you highlighted above is the same guy who wrote the paper linked on this blog suggesting that RB churches need to do a better job at church planting. I think that’s worth noting.
These caveats aside, I am glad for the work God is doing through both ARBCA and also NARBCA churches. May he enable us to do more and to continue to be teachable so that we might do it better!
July 26th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
It’s a good paper Matt. I like the quote “the barometer of the health of the man is not his church, but his wife. You don’t just want to coach the man, but coach his wife”. It certainly is a team effort!
If it’s alright with everyone, I’d like to play devil’s advocate (for lack of a better word!) on some issues.
Matt, Raja, there’s a fine line between engaging with culture and being consistent with God’s Word. The emergent church has gone down the road to engaging with culture. It’s not to say that RB will necessarily go down that road if we “engage a bit more with the culture” … I’d like to think that we’re more secure in our doctrines than to let it slide for the sake of engaging with the culture. But I must confess that to say that we should engage with the culture is a very vague statement. To what extent before we realize that we may be compromising God’s Word. I’m not sure what the statement means when you say “each church should look different from others when it is in a different neighborhood, region, or people”. I’m guessing you don’t mean to say that we should adopt the culture of this world … but if so, what could you mean by your statement.
In the OT God, God was adamant in keep Israel separate from the influence of the cultures surrounding them to prevent them from being misled to false worship. And at the same time Christ said:
I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
Would you say that Christ engaged in the culture during his ministry? I don’t know that he did. It’s not to say he didn’t engage in conversations with them concerning their false beliefs and didn’t come to their homes and dine with them to continue his teachings. But I’ve never seen Christ once accommodate the cultures of this world to get his message out (or did I overlook something?).
I’m all for better evangelism efforts in reaching for the lost, but I also hope that we would not adopt the culture of the world, where it clearly is self-centered and lacks reverence to a Holy God. I’m not saying that we should ban instruments in the worship … but we need to be careful in going down that road in cultivating the culture of this world into our churches. Again, I understand this is an ongoing debate among RB’s as to what that entails.
If you want to know where to really hit big on evangelism and planting churches, start with secular university campuses. It is there where most people begin their quest for truth! It amazes me how little local churches targets the local campuses. It’s not to say that the battle grounds are easier! But the harvest is definitely there to be reaped! I’ve worked with local church campus ministries and I have found that the effective method in reaping those God elected is in the un-compromised preaching of God’s Word and of course discipleship. It’s not found in the type of worship styles or gimmicks to attract people. Though many may be attracted by that, but we’re not seeking to attract the world … we are seeking for God’s elect and as Jesus has promised us, they will follow Him because they hear His voice (via the Word of God). Not because of the worship styles we have or how we’ve adopted to their culture.
I’m very double minded when our efforts are driven by statistics. It’s not to say that we shouldn’t step up our efforts. No one will dispute that these are grave times for churches. But at the same time God has made this known to us when Paul wrote, marking the last days:
But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.
And in another passage he states:
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Is it a wonder the success of churches getting planted and church membership are low? I’m not saying to give up. Paul calls us to arms …. not so much to adopt to the culture, but as in the last passage states that we must endure and fulfill our ministry. And what is that ministry? To proclaiming and being as witnesses to God’s Word! The success of our ministry should not be measured in numbers. Was Isaiah or Jeremiah successful? Maybe not by our standards. They saw very few converts. But they were successful in the eyes of the Lord because they were faithful in the preaching of His Word and endured great opposition even unto death. As Jesus said, few will enter that narrow gate. I personally would like to see many converts and churches growing in the States, but I also know what God’s Word has predicted. Even now, the current churches are just trying to survive. What would be interesting to see is how many sound churches have closed because of lack of support? Maybe we should look to helping the existing churches that holds to sound doctrine, keep the beacon alive rather than just starting from scratch. I don’t know if I necessarily agree that it’s just better to let the current barely surviving churches die and to start anew. “A bruise reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not snuff out”. They are still a body a believers that needs encouragement and a revival (e.g. maybe new leadership is needed). I just got back from a trip to the UK and there are many churches there that are seeking for equipped pastors but they cannot be found.
I don’t want to sound pessimistic about this … and maybe I am. It’s more of a concerning that we may be going down the same path as the emergent churches, in their motive to attract numbers. Well just sounding off some thoughts.
July 27th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Jade,
It’s hard to tell whether you’re playing the devil’s advocate or trying (seriously) to play God’s advocate. In any case, I’ll venture a brief response.
You’re main point seems to be that Christians should not be like the world. This is true enough when properly defined (1 John 2:15-17). But it is only half the truth. And it is at this point that many well-meaning Christians seem to be confused, in my opinion. According to Scripture, there is a way in which we are to be like the world in order to win the world. The apostle Paul highlights this in his own ministry when he writes,
Later Paul repeats the same principle:
According to these texts, Paul adapted himself to the non-sinful elements of the culture of his target audience for the purpose of removing any unnecessary hindrances so that the gospel might be more effective. Though Paul affirmed it was God who ultimately gives the increase, yet he also believed that one’s methodology had a bearing on the effectiveness of one’s witness. I think all agree, even Calvinists, that being too worldly in the negative sense (1 John 2:15-17) can have a detrimental affect on one’s gospel witnesses. But according to Paul, the opposite is also true. Failure to become like the lost to whom we witnesses in ways that are non-sinful can be detrimental to the effectiveness of our witnesses.
Accordingly, Paul sought to adapt to the non-sinful cultural norms of his target audience, and he claimed to be imitating Christ in this posture. The Son of God not only took on human flesh but became a Jew and participated in Jewish culture. Indeed, Jesus was sometimes criticized for being “worldly” because he feasted and drank wine with tax-collectors and sinners to win them (Matt. 11:19).
Moreover, Paul not only sought to imitate Christ in this way, but he also called upon his readers to imitate him as he imitated Christ (11:1). Of course, it often takes a great deal of wisdom sometimes to distinguish between sinful and non-sinful aspects of human culture. And some brothers have weak consciences that make it difficult for them to participate in what might be otherwise an appropriate activity. But there is a biblical doctrine of contextualization that we must affirm and seek, by God’s grace and the guidance of the Scripture, to apply to our practice of evangelism, church planting, and missions. May the Lord grant us wisdom to maintain the biblical balance and avoid the dangers to which you allude.
For a fuller defense of biblical contextualization from the passage I cited above, listen to Steve Hartland’s sermon, “Contextualization.”
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
July 27th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Bob wrote:
It’s hard to tell whether you’re playing the devil’s advocate or trying (seriously) to play God’s advocate.
Sorry about that Bob, I”m really not trying to cause any trouble (seriously). Just asking questions.
Bob wrote:
According to Scripture, there is a way in which we are to be like the world in order to win the world.
But we’re not trying to win the world, we’re trying to call the elect. Not that we’re selecting them ourselves, but calling them out by the power of the Word of God, since we know that those who belongs to Christ will hear His voice.
In the Scriptures you quoted, wouldn’t the emergent churches uses those same Scriptures to defend their reasons of why their church is the way it is? How would RB be any different if we were to walk down that same road of adapting the cultures of the world? Or are you suggesting that RB should become like the emergent churches?
Jade
July 27th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Pat Quick’s comments display a problem prevalent in the attitudes of some Reformed Baptist’s today. He said:
“To be honest I don’t care how many Pent / Benny Hinn / Calv Chapel / Sov Grace / Saddlebacks seem to be planted – since I don’t recognize many of them to be true churches anyway.”
Who are you that they have to care about your “recognition”, since they stand or fall before their own Master? If you count gathering a few families for 3 services on Sunday in mostly small towns a success in church planting, ARBCA and other RBs are doing wonderfully…
July 27th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Jade,
Bob quoted Scripture which you summarily force-fit into your high Calvinist theological system. The emergent church is trying to address a real problem which Reformed Baptists have largely ignored. I’m not saying the emergents are addressing it biblically as that movement has many problems, but they are attempting to reach people in our post-modern culture for Christ. What you need to take from that movement is not their theology, but the balance they bring to the table with regard to reaching our unchurched, indifferent, lost neighbors and families for Christ.
Christianity is not against culture–only those aspects of culture which are sinful. It’s ability to adapt to culture is what makes it a true world religion. I would recommend listening to that excellent sermon Pastor Gonzales linked to by the (unfortunately much maligned) Steve Hartland, as well as to the work of Tim Keller. Sadly, too many RB churches are so focused on their church policy and practice or the theological minutiae of the 1689, that they miss the forest because of the trees. This is sadly fostered by pastors who only encourage reading within RB approved circles (such as the Banner of Truth book list, excellent though it be). I have noticed this tends to make RBs myopic and ingrown, as if God’s kingdom primarily consists of Reformed Baptists. Don’t think that’s true? How many non-Reformed local churches does your church/pastors have relationships with? How often does your pastor refer to other Christians in a derogatory way? How much outreach do you have to your community besides the annual evagelistic dinner or meeting?
Think about it.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I’m amazed that such a useful and edifying post and document can degrade into such a negative “batter reformed baptists” chain of comments, as so many posts seem to these days.
A summary of much of the thread:
Reformed Baptists are Pharisaical (obsessed with detail)
Reformed Baptists lack compassion
We are arrogant and suffer from a superiority complex
We are not making any effort or are woefully failing to reach the un-churched
We are using 19th century tracts!
We are obviously wrong because we require commitment to worship services.
We are myopic and sectarian.
We are antiquarian in worship.
What a pleasant picture!
Friends, I believe we must learn from many different spheres of the Christian church, but I am becoming weary of this constant battering that faithful (though by no means faultless) men and churches are receiving in many places on the internet. It particularly concerns me that this battering appears to reach its highest zenith on Reformed Baptist blogs, the saying “with friends like these who needs enemies?” comes to mind. No doubt we need to evaluate constantly our service in the kingdom, but one would be forgiven in thinking at times, that if this commentary is accurate, that we are so woefully schismatic and inadequate that for the sake of Christ we should just close the doors because the Reformed Baptist “experiment” has failed and failed miserably.
Matt, thanks for your careful and helpful research, but as for much of the rest of the commentary it is so full of generalizations, and straw men that it has not, in any sense of the word, been edifying or helpful to me.
Paul
July 27th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Paul,
I qualified my comments so as to not generalize too broadly as there are some very good RB works out there. I mainly have in view those attitudes which characterize a certain rigidity that is unhealthy in RB circles and is hindering our effectiveness. If my comments are not true, please refute them. If they are true, then consider them the wounds of a friend.
If these things don’t change, we are going to slowly disintegrate into obscurity, instead of growing in our influence for Christ and the gospel in this world.
Consider what I say…
July 27th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
And with regard to 19th century tracts, why are we trying to reach out to a generation that no longer exists? The way the target audience was addressed is “out of time” with the average man off the street in our day. This should be obvious. It’s a good example of how we (unconsciously, to be sure) revere things from the past too highly.
I know they were well used in 1851, but we need a little updating…
July 28th, 2009 at 12:59 am
Hi Raja,
I don’t see how stating that God draws His own by the power of the Holy Spirit brands me a high calvinist. Is that not Scriptural? I’m merely pointing out that it’s not in the ingenuity of men that the elect are drawn to the Gospel but only by the power of God alone through the preaching of His Word. Just because this is true does not mean that we should neglect our responsibility in the great commission.
You have stated:
What you need to take from that movement is not their theology, but the balance they bring to the table with regard to reaching our unchurched, indifferent, lost neighbors and families for Christ.
What balance could you be referring to? There is no balance in these emergent churches. There is a lack of reverence in their worship. Their preaching and theology is man-centered and consistent to their worship. Let’s face it, the masses are going to these churches for the entertainment. Is this the balance you are referring to because I honestly don’t know what we could learn from the Emergent churches? No doubt, they’ve got numbers, but how many of the members of these emergent churches are truly saved?! We’re not in the business of getting our pews filled and getting money into our deposits. We’re in the business of preaching the Word of God and declaring His Truth. The world doesn’t always want to hear it (in fact Jesus said, they will hate you because they hated me first) and so our pews maybe empty at times, but that’s the mark of our times … not because we have not adapted the current culture into our churches. It’s not to say, let’s just all give up and go home. I’m saying, continue to preach! And continue to hold to sound doctrine, because the world will do everything in its power to strip that of the church. What is foremost important in the worship of the churches of God today? Would you not say that God’s Glory is the most important thing? When you say adapt the current culture … what is characteristic of our culture? Is it not man-centered? Is it not known to be the “I” generation? How should a sound church that supposedly preaches a God-centered message square with that?
Here’s what I find lacking in the paper. It’s shown statistically that the number of churches planted is low. But what I fail to see is that the RB churches are failing because we are not adapting to the current culture. How are we drawing to this conclusion? Are we just merely looking over to our neighboring emerging churches and thinking, “Gee, maybe we should do something like that? They are getting more numbers and they are multiplying and coming up with these mega churches.” But more importantly — how are we defining success? Are we defining it in numbers? Should we not be concern in quality rather than quanity? The fact that we’re being advised to look to the emergent churches as to how to worship so we could get the numbers up is alarming. Their methodology roots off from their theology which is unbiblical.
Bob, I didn’t mean to ignore the verses you quoted. Those are challenging verses … and also challenges what may be a man-made tradition. It takes courage to test our traditions against God’s word and I pray that as I ponder over this that God would empower me to see if I may be making that tradition my idol as I converse with you among others. But let us shed some light to those passages by reflecting on how Paul lived out his life. Wouldn’t you agree that Paul is the epitome of a church planter? It is recorded again and again that he engaged with people verbally, debating with them at places of gatherings. It has never been recorded that he had adapted the churches to the current culture to attract the unconverted. Instead Paul goes out there and challenges the Greeks and questions them on their “unknown God”. He acts as a salt to the earth, not vice versa.
The quote from 1 Cor 9:19-22 … was Paul setting the guidelines for church worship? No. He was speaking about his interactions with people as he shared the Gospel. The context of those two passages is the conscience of those he seeks to save. He doesn’t want his freedom to be an obstacle to the conscience of the one he seeks to evangelize. He wasn’t insisting that we should be all things to all men in our worship. That would be impossible — corporately! When it comes to corporate worship, it should not be about us nor the people we are trying to reach, it should be about God and all the attention should be drawn upon Him and His Word alone.
My observation why sound churches are not multiplying is because Christians are not go out there and engage with the people. What I mean by engage is not to live like the world or adapt to their culture but to engage with people verbally on the their false beliefs. How many street witnessing do Christians really do? Ideal places to do this is at the university campuses since you’d more likely find a crowd gathered there… though not the only place to do it. How many of us actually talk to our neighbors or colleagues in the work place? It’s just not the officers of the church that has this responsibility of preaching the Gospel. It’s the layperson that has the most exposure and impact to the world. Christians are not being bold in their living and reaching out to the lost. The problem lies NOT in our form of worship. We need to rally our people to go out there and challenge the world in its false beliefs. That’s what the great commission entails, not to accommodate the world but to challenge it.
Bob, Raja, Matt — my intentions is not to dampen your zeal for the lost. My concern here is that we should not compromise in building God-centered (not only in our theology, but in all matters) churches. Often times when we brain storm on our methodology, we have a tendency of putting God’s glory on the sidelines for the purpose of gaining attraction of the world. The world hated the Son, so why would they be attracted to a God-centered church? So should we change that because we fail to attract the world to come into our churches?! We’re not in the business of entertaining people or transforming our churches to accommodate the world’s comfort zone. We come to church to be challenged by the Word of God … and most of the time that’s not comfortable at all! Anyone who seeks for truth, is not going lose interest because the music is a drag. He/She will go there because they hunger for something different than what the world offers them.
I’ll try to find time to listen to the sermon referred to and comment on it further… but please understand that any concerns that I may have voiced is not motivated to debase anyone. I hope we can keep up a constructive conversation.
Because of Jesus,
Jade
July 28th, 2009 at 1:17 am
Raja wrote:
And with regard to 19th century tracts, why are we trying to reach out to a generation that no longer exists? The way the target audience was addressed is “out of time” with the average man off the street in our day. This should be obvious. It’s a good example of how we (unconsciously, to be sure) revere things from the past too highly.
I know they were well used in 1851, but we need a little updating…
I’ve been reading J.C. Ryle’s Holiness book written in the 19th century. He also further makes references of works written in the 16-17th century. God’s Word was written long before any of these. Have all of these works expired because they were written so long ago? Does it not still speak to us even now? The issues of spiritual things hasn’t changed Raja. We’re the same depraved sinful people since the days of Adam.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Jade said:
“I don’t see how stating that God draws His own by the power of the Holy Spirit brands me a high calvinist. Is that not Scriptural?”
Me:
It brands you a high Calvinist when you don’t temper this biblical truth with other portions of Scripture like 1 Cor. 9:19-22 and 1 Cor. 10:32-11:1.
Jade also said:
“I’m merely pointing out that it’s not in the ingenuity of men that the elect are drawn to the Gospel but only by the power of God alone through the preaching of His Word. Just because this is true does not mean that we should neglect our responsibility in the great commission.”
Me:
Who said that accomodating certain non-sinful or indifferent aspects of culture in our communication of the gospel is “the ingenuity of men”? The apostle Paul didn’t think so, why do you?
Jade asked:
“What balance could you be referring to?”
Me:
The balance I’m referring to is that we address the problems of reaching our unchurched neighbors and friends with the gospel in this postmodern age. Sinners aren’t just going to show up in our churches anymore, we don’t live in that era. We need not only to pray that God brings them in, we must go out and invite them in. We must go out and witness to them. This involves praying AND doing. Tell me, in your church, do you reach out to sinners as often as you pray for them to come in? This is an imbalance that I have found common among RB churches. Generally our mode of operation has been to pray the lost come to our church, then we’ll preach to them when they get there. Since we largely ignore cultural engagement, we continue to ignore this problem because we won’t recognize that it is a problem. This is what we can learn from the “missional” perspective of some emergent leaders. I’m not saying to embrace the emergent movement, I’m saying to take from it what is good.
I should also point out that much of what you say about the emergent movement I gather you have learned from Reformed writers or speakers, or have drawn these conclusions on your own without all the info. I would suggest that you should get your information from the source and read from the best of their advocates, such as (and he really has distanced himself from what the movement has become) Mark Driscoll. I would also recommend an excellent set of sermons preached by Gary Hendrix from Mebane, NC which deals graciously and wisely with this subject.
All the best,
July 28th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Jade,
I love JC Ryle too. I also love the Puritans. And that’s great for us Reformed Baptists. However, if your concern is for lost, unchurched, know-nothing-about-the-Bible sinners in our modern age, it doesn’t get you very far in your evangelism.
I never said the truth changes over time, I’m talking about how we relate to the people around us and how we communicate the gospel in the times we currently live in.
Think about it.
July 28th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Raja wrote:
I should also point out that much of what you say about the emergent movement I gather you have learned from Reformed writers or speakers, or have drawn these conclusions on your own without all the info.
No. I WAS IN IT. The first church I went to became emergent. So I know exactly what goes on in there. And for many years, I had no choice but to attend emergent churches because that’s all that I could find (I had no idea about reformed or sovereign grace churches then). At one point I almost gave up going to church all together because I was very trouble about what went on in the emergent churches and how inconsistent it was to the Word of God. It was lacking in the reverence of God in their worship as well as in their preaching. Praise God he finally led me to a tiny church that had the fear of God in their worship. I would exchange any day for a tiny church that fears God than a mega churches with all it’s whistle and blow!
I have been in the Emergent churches most of my Christian life, so I have seen both sides of the fence. You know Raja, you have really mis-characterized many good baptist churches (as well as you mis-characterized me). You really should repent from that. The good baptist churches has always been praying for the lost. But most Christians are not as bold in GOING OUT there to ENGAGE IN CONVERSATION with the unsaved. This is what is lacking. We just need to rally the people of God in being bold in their witnesses WITHOUT compromising the worship of God in the church! The church will only look appealing to those that God will call (which would be natural!); it not to say that we don’t preach the word of God to bring the message to those who would believe. But it’s a Scriptural fact that the world will HATE the church … because it’s also a Scriptural FACT that we are NOT OF THEM. The corporate worship of God should not be an entertainment. It should not be about us nor should it be about attracting the world… IT SHOULD BE ABOUT GOD!
I suggest you reread my comment on the two verses of 1Cor. Apparently you did not understand what I was saying.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Jade,
Being in an Emergent church doesn’t necessarily mean you are conversant in the polemics of emergent “doctrine”, and you may have been involved in churches that are not representative of that movement (there are plenty of those). However, where I have misrepresented you, I apologize.
I know Baptist churches quite well. I have been a member of a RB church for 2 decades, so I am very familiar with RB church life and practice. You are right, the WORLD does HATE the church, but sinners who need Christ should be attracted to it. They should be attracted to the Christ we preach. This is not about entertainment, may the Lord keep worldly entertainment out of our churches. This is about recognizing that good contemporary hymns are not a compromise of the truth. It is about recognizing that the Bible doesn’t condemn guitars or cellos or violins in worship. It’s about communicating with modern people in modern language they can understand. And all that can be done without sacrificing God-centered, God glorifying worship. A sinner doesn’t need to adopt some kind of RB subculture to be a disciple of Jesus Christ….
July 28th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Raja wrote:
sinners who need Christ should be attracted to it.
Yes and sinners in Christ, who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit is NOT going to be attracted by the culture of this world. They will desire for the things of God and not of this world.
Trust me, I’ve been in the emergent churches long enough to know what drives them and their theology as well as their methodology. I still even have friends in the emergent churches.
I’m curious Raja, what is your doctrine of Ordo Salutis? If any is really serious about what the right path is for our churches concerning evangelism, I think it’s really worth reviewing the order of salvation as layed out in the Scriptures and all that involves it. You will find that this is what separates us from the Emergent churches in our ways of reaching the lost.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Jade,
I would say that my Ordo Salutis falls in line with that of Dr. Sinclair Furgeson. Regeneration precedes faith, however, that is not relevant to our discussion. The ordo salutis doesn’t affect our preaching of the gospel.
So as not to speak past each other, keep in mind that I am not endorsing the emergent movement as a whole. I’m endorsing the removal of every unnecessary hinderance that keeps sinners from coming to our churches, and hence from hearing the gospel. We don’t need to be dogmatic where God has not been. Therefore, adding modern hymns to our hymnody because the music and style is more appealing to our modern culture is not a sin or compromise. When Isaac Watts wrote hymns that didn’t contain inspired Scripture as the words, there was a big uproar. However, today we sing the hymns he wrote without a second thought. Changing or enhancing the instrumentation to the hymns we sing to include instruments besides the piano because it appeals to our modern culture is not compromise or irreverent. Updating the language in our tracts and confessions is not wrong, but wise. Being flexible about our times of worship is not sinful. We need to examine these things and change where appropriate. We should love our traditions, but love the souls of men more…
July 28th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Anyway……..
So, here I sit in the rural county where I live. There’s one town in the county bigger than 1,000 people, and that has 6,000 in it. The county has two Arminian SBC churches and three fundamental Baptist churches. One liberal Presbyterian, one liberal Episcopal, one ELCA, one LCMS and zero Reformed churches. Then there’s the usual mix of others.
All the discussion about contextualization/emerging/relevance doesn’t matter to our family and the other 5 Calvinist friends we have. What do you tell people like us who have grown weary of hearing sermons that put man on the throne instead of the living God?
Would the apostles be welcomed as church planters? What if their psychological profile didn’t fit the grid? Would Timothy be approved as a pastor? Just how DID the early church grow without all our “knowledge” and “experience?”
July 28th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Jade,
Exactly, what do you mean by “culture of this world?” Culture is an inescapable reality. Jesus entered a particular Jewish culture, spoke the language, adopted customs (i.e. dress, food), involved common illustrations of the day (see all his parables). At the same time, he was not “worldly.” He did not adopt the values and belief systems of the domain of darkness.
Culture and world are not the same thing. The “world” if we define it as the world system under the control of Satan has no place in the church. Christ prays that we would be guarded from the evil one. However, we must have culture in the church. The question is: Which one? The culture that many churches use in the name of being “not worldly” can be just a culture from 200 years ago. This culture is no more worldly than any other culture. English is not more holy than Hebrew. Guitars are not more holy than harps (just examples).
I think it must also be taken into account that while Christ prayed in John 17 that we would be protected from the evil one and reminded us that we are not of the world, He also prayed that we would not leave the world (John 17:15, 18), that is, fail to engage the world. To do that, we adopt the culture (not the “world”), speak the language, genuinuely serve and love, be salt and light, and give the gospel.
It just seems a huge part of this discussion is centering on what we mean by “culture” and “world.” The latter we must reject, the former we cannot.
Blessings to you!
July 28th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
There has been a lot of good discussion here in my opinion. I am glad that my paper has generated some thinking and discussion. A few thoughts:
1. Not all concern about numbers is wrong/worldly/compromising. Numbers should be important to us because they represent people made in the image of God- people that will worship him forever, or suffer eternally. The book of Acts records the number of people that were added to the church for very important reasons. Jesus told us to make disciples. That means that we need to reach people who do not know the gospel, and give it to them and lead them to the truth. The result is that more people are added to the church. The danger is when we compromise the truth for the sake of numbers. But being indifferent to numbers is NOT a virtue. It is not like God (who stretches out his hands all day long to disobedient people Isa. 65:1-2). It is not like Jesus (who wept over Jerusalem); it is not like Paul who wrote in Romans 9:1-5, just before he spoke about the sovereignty of God, that he had continual grief over the lost Jews. Anyway, the point is this: God’s word calls us to a biblical concern over the lost in such a way that we should want more people to be saved, and grieve when they persist in their sin.
2. The role of contextualization in the place of missions is a topic that RB’s need to think about more deeply in my opinion. There is no such thing as a “non-contextualized” Christianity. At present we are doing lots of things in our churches that are not explicitly commanded by God, and that are not done even by other RB’s around the world. For instance, there is no explicit command to wear pants in the Bible. If we were in Scotland we might wear kilts, or in Saudi Arabia we might wear robes. Or in the area of music: There is no command to use 4 part harmony or the western approach to music theory, keys, and sheet music. Certainly Jesus and the disciples did NOT use the kind of music we now sing in churches because it had not yet been invented. If we demand that all churches follow our cultural practices (like wearing pants, using 4 part harmony, or you name the variety of other aspects of our culture) then we may become guilty of unwittingly syncretizing the gospel with our own culture. I know of a reformed pastor who tried to plant a church in Europe and told me (admitting the error) that for worship music they attempted to back translate the Trinity Hymnal from english into their language rather than using the rich musical tradition from that country. We need to be careful of trying to make the heathen abroad, or the unsaved in our own country into clean cut/middle class/civilized westerners who love democracy and tradition rather than making them disciples of Jesus. One of the ways this struck me at first was when I heard prayer letters from foreign missionaries, live reports at our church from traveling missionaries, and pastors who had visited other countries. I noticed that a lot of things were done overseas quite effectively in ways that were very different from our traditions.
3. Regarding Jesus and culture. This is a hot issue and answering the question “did Jesus engage culture” most certainly depends on how you define your terms. Did Jesus step out of the non-commanded social and religious aspects of Jewish culture and accommodate sinners in order to love and preach the gospel to them? Yes. This is the whole point of eating and drinking with sinners. When Jesus spoke to the woman at the well in John 4, he crossed all kinds of cultural lines that were a stumbling block to the jews and even his own disciples. How? 1- men do not talk to women. 2- Jews do not talk to Samaritans. 3- rabbis to not speak with immoral people. 4- jews definitely do not eat or drink with Samaritans, and yet Jesus offered to drink from the woman’s water pot and even stayed with the Samaritans for several days following the encounter. Why would he do this? He says that the “fields are ripe for harvest.” He did this in order to win the Samaritans to the gospel. In this situation Jesus was NOT SEPARATE from sinners. This is what offended the Pharisees. And Jesus said that the Pharisees had a faulty view of God. They believed that God wanted the sacrifice of being separate from sinners. Jesus said, “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” Matt 9:13. We should be morally separate from sinners, but in every other way we should be like salt and light on them. This requires that we spend time with them, eat with them, and share with them in as much as we can to win them.
4. The point of my paper was not to “bash” RB’s, and I think that it is probably best for us to talk about our own failures among ourselves before we attempt to pull the specks out of the eyes of others. I don’t know everyone’s heart, but overall I am encouraged that these issues are out on the table, and I trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us through his word. Back to the point: pointing out areas where we need continued repentance and reformation is a Biblical practice. In fact, I am willing to say that in one way or another this goes on every week in most RB churches. Part of our reformed heritage is expressed in the term “semper reformada”- always reforming. We must continue to ask where our lives and thinking are out of step with scripture. The point of the paper is not to suggest areas where we are falling behind other churches and movements, but to show areas where we are out of step with scripture and our reformed heritage. If we ever get so proud as to think that we have arrived at a point where we are beyond the correction of scripture then we should write “forsaken” over the door. What gives me encouragement is the great number of folks that have emailed me and are encouraged by this discussion. In many ways, this paper is an act of repentance for me. There is not one failure in the paper that I have not committed and lead others to commit. I am thankful for God’s continued work in my life and have hope for continued growth in grace for myself and others.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Dean Gonzales, Very worthwhile subject to be discussing.
As a former teaching elder in a now disbanded RBC, I agree with the conclusions of Raja Dani. Also the fact that we are all spending so much time and effort commenting on the problem at hand is, to me a part of the problem. This happened in our small RBC up here in Homer. Endless droning during our elder’s meetings and very little action. Bottom line, Reformed Baptists are doing a poor job planting churches. Lets start planting churches so that by this time next year we can say Reformed Baptists are doing a great job planting churches. It’s not rocket science, but it is work. Having said that, I think it is of the utmost importance to count the cost before planting any new churches. This is the reason we no longer have one here in Homer. The leadership failed to count the cost of lifelong commitment to the task at hand. When things got difficult, our pastor moved back to California. This is not a game, it is serious. My prayer is that the Lord will raise a few men like William Carey-like attitudes within our ranks.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:42 am
“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish……
July 29th, 2009 at 10:09 am
Jeff,
“What do you tell people like us who have grown weary of hearing sermons that put man on the throne instead of the living God?”
The same thing I tell anyone else. Look for a good church. What does engaging our culture have to do with putting man on the throne?
“All the discussion about contextualization/emerging/relevance doesn’t matter to our family and the other 5 Calvinist friends we have.”
I see, so it doesn’t matter to you and your 5 friends. I guess it shouldn’t matter to anyone else either?
“Would the apostles be welcomed as church planters? What if their psychological profile didn’t fit the grid? Would Timothy be approved as a pastor? Just how DID the early church grow without all our “knowledge” and “experience?”
Of course the apostles would be welcomed as church planters. I’m not sure what your point is. Timothy wasn’t a pastor, but I’m sure he would be approved as one. The early church grew because of it’s inspired knowledge and experience. They also didn’t sing out of the Trinity Hymnal, use piano, meet at 9:00am and 6:00pm on Sunday, have Sunday School, or wear a coat and tie to church. Somehow, those requirements have worked their way into RB canon…
July 29th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
I will read with great interest the study article on the status of RB Church Planting endeavors. Having grown up in a fundamentalist baptist church and remembering their efforts and outreach to the Latino community, I certainly note a great difference with RB (in my region) desire to reach out to the same degree. Language barriers seem to be a reason that limits RB efforts here (ironically, language not a barrier when it comes to sending out families to other countries to serve as missionaries). Whether this paper is a confirmation of the myopia I sensed being under a RB ministry for a number of years, it is a great tragedy more people from different languages and cultures, already here in the U.S., aren’t being reached by RBs.
July 30th, 2009 at 8:06 am
[...] http://blog.rbseminary.org/2009/07/reformed-baptists-not-doing-a-good-job-of-planting-churches/ [...]
July 30th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Raja Dani:
What if there isn’t a “good church” around?(which is my point)
I, fortunately, have found a church in the next county (in our county, I live 30 minutes from the county seat) to the east in an unincorporated area which does embrace the Reformation as being a good thing. My question/concern is really for those we left behind at our old church – there truly isn’t a church in the entire county – to our knowledge – that will preach the “old truth.”
My comments are trying to address real life. When you are in a sea of Pelagian/Semi-Pelagian churches, what does one do? The problem is even worse to our north in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Is there anyone in our area who would qualify as a “church planter?” Probably not. So what is the solution when one may not be able to jump in one’s vehicle and find a solution within a 45 minute drive, which is the situation my friends are in?
July 30th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Jeff,
There is actually someone who lives right by you trying to plant a Reformed church but he is a paedobaptist.
July 30th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Jeff Peterson, thanks for your question and genuine concern for the truth. I sympathize for people in those situations. I think there are really three options. One, continue to live there and accept the consequences of choosing to live in a place without a good church. Two, work and pray for the establishment of a church in your area that will be a gospel witness. Three, move to an area with a good church.
I think that one thing is important and may sound calloused at first. But, that the mission of existing churches is not primarily to provide “sound” churches for people who don’t already have one. It is to fulfill the Great Commission. If people in a town want to fellowship at a “good church” they should be willing to make the sacrifice to move. At present in North America the bulk of RB church planting has been focused around helping groups of people like you. Not all of that is bad at all, but sadly the spirit of passion for the lost is missing in our efforts in my opinion.
In my paper I argued that our missions efforts should mainly (though not entirely) be focused on cities and towns with lots of people. This is in keeping with the apostolic model and common sense. The average church plant receives $170K in support over its life, not to mention the human expense. That is a lot, but less than the cost to move to a place that already has a church you could accept.
One key principle is that wherever you find yourself, you should not wait to work out the implications of being salt and light in your neighborhood through acts of love, caring relationships, and speaking the truth to people in your sphere of influence. If there is not a church that you consider sound in your town, plant yourself in the best one that you can and love and support the people and the gospel with all your heart until God provides something better.
My 2 cents.
July 31st, 2009 at 8:37 am
Jeff,
I’m with Matt…
August 1st, 2009 at 3:48 am
I’d like to take issue with Dr Gonzales when he quoted 1Cor 9:19ff and then wrote:
In order to find out what Paul means by being ‘All things to all men’ I think it’s helpful to look at the inspired record in Acts. What he didn’t do in, say, Corinth, was to hold Greek dancing classes or basouki concerts to make the Gentiles feel at home. “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
If you look at Paul’s preaching as recorded in Acts, you can see that when he was preaching in the symagogues, he was able to quote from the O.T. and assume that his hearers woud have a knowledge of Jewish history (eg. Acts 13:15ff). When he was speaking to a wholly Gentile audience he assumed no such knowledge. He engaged with Greek culture just so far as to use Greek poets to illustrate his arguments (Acts 17:28).
We will do well to follow Paul’s example. In evangelistic preaching we should avoid Christian buzz words and we should certainly be suficiently knowledgeable of the culture to be able to critique popular secular writings. But we should never pander to people’s woldly tastes.
When Dr Lloyd-Jones came to his first Pastorate in South Wales the first thing he did was to shut down the Male Voice Choir, the debating society and anything else going on in the church that wasn’t directly associated with the Gospel. People thought he was daft, but God honoured that decision and he experienced tremendous growth.
The most successful Reformed Baptist Church in Britain today is the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, yet it sings nothing but old hymns and uses the KJV. It is much more conservaive than I am, but many churches have been planted by its members using the same format. What is needed in order to grow a church is true compassion for the lost, much prayer and a willingness to work extremely hard.
I strongly suggest that the RBS could do a whole lot worse than to study the methods of the Met Tab and interview its Pastor, Dr Masters.
August 1st, 2009 at 9:12 am
Martin,
You and I had a conversation on another blog about the subject of appropriate forms of music genre for worship. You failed to address my arguments there. Are you trying to resurrect them here?
In any case, I don’t have time to address every remark you made above. But I’ll make a few brief responses in the hopes that you’ll think more carefully about what I and others (see especially the comments above by Raja, Mark, and Matt) have said and what we have not said.
(1) Argument against Greek dancing and basouki concerts.
The main problem with this argument is you’re attempting to universalize and make absolute the major premise. There were certainly many other things Paul did while in Corinth both inside and outside the church. He most certainly ate, drank, socialized, slept, and used the bathroom. He may have spent some time reading the Greek poets as you suggest above. I know very little about Greek dancing and basouki (a bazouki is a Greek stringed instrument) concerts. But I don’t see how we can conclude dogmatically from your interpretation of the major premise above that Paul never would have attended a concert or performance in an attempt to become more acquainted with Greek culture and to establish relationships with Greeks whom Paul would seek to win to Christ. Of course, if Greek dancing were equivalent to a modern day strip tease and the basouki concerts the equivalent of some punk rock group spewing out lewdness with a lot of raucous, then I can see why we might question whether Paul would have, in good conscience, attended such social events. But that Paul only went to church and never participated in any civic or social event outside the church is a non sequitur from your line of reasoning.
Let’s see how your argument works with Christ.
Of course, I’m assuming you don’t agree with this syllogism because the conclusion is clearly contradicted by Scripture (Matt. 11:19). The major premise is true but not in a restricted sense. The minor premise is true when the major premise is interpreted more narrowly. If the major premise is interpreted very broadly to include every aspect of Christ’s life that was geared to winning souls, then the minor premise would be false.
My simple point is that Paul’s and Jesus’ commitment to and activity of proclaiming the good news of the gospel does not ipso fact preclude them from participating in all the social and cultural events of that society in which they ministered.
(2) Argument against anything not associated with the gospel in the church.
It’s a little challenging for me to deal with this argument since (1) it’s based on something Martyn Llord-Jones did rather than upon biblical precedent, which means its normative value for us today is only to the degree it agrees with Scripture, and (2) it mixes activities, some that may be and others that may not be directly associated with the Gospel. In other words, I don’t know what the Male Voice Choirs or debate clubs in the church were singing or debating about. If they were singing or debating about the gospel, then that would seem to contradict your (or Lloyd-Jones’s) characterization of them as not being “directly associated with the Gospel.”
Most church choirs today that I’ve heard in churches sing about the gospel. Moreover, it’s also possible to debate or dialogue about the gospel. See Paul’s example in Acts 17:2-4. Accordingly, I do believe there’s warrant for solos, duets, chorale praise, etc., in the church (1 Cor. 14:26; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). This is also Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America’s (ARBCA) take on what the RPW warrants, which they express in their official position paper on the subject:
I should add the ARBCA’s position paper on the RPW also affirms the appropriateness of the use of instrumental accompaniment in worship:
So if the Male Choirs were singing nothing but secular love ballads or national anthems and if the debate clubs were simply discussing politics, then I might understand why Lloyd Jones found them a distraction to what the church is mainly about. Even so, I wouldn’t think it wrong for a church to sponsor community activities or events not directly associated with preaching the gospel. One Reformed Baptist Church I know of recently held a “Free Sale” in which the church members donated clothing, household furniture and appliances, food, etc., and invited their community to come to a huge yard sale where they gave it all away free as an act of kindness to the poor in their community. Many benevolent ministries would fall under this category, which I think appropriate. Moreover, I also believe there’s a place for a form of teaching that incorporates dialogue, not just monologue.
(3) RBS should study the methods of the Met. Tab and Peter Masters.
I’m sure there are many things Dr. Masters and the Metropolitan Tabernacle are doing that are commendable and worthy of imitation. Compassion for the lost, prayer, and a willingness to work hard are among them. But limiting the church to singing old hymns and using an outdated English Bible version are certainly not worthy of imitation in my opinion. The Bible and our own 1689 Confession are very clear about the vital importance of communicating God’s word in the common language of the people we’re trying to reach or minister to (Deut. 30:14; 1 Cor. 14; LBCF 1.8). So in light of Scripture and our own Confession, I believe RB churches should update the language of their Bibles, hymnody, and Confession. Failure to do so will hinder the effectiveness of reaching the lost (1 Cor. 9:19-22) though we still may be able to build a large church by attracting other believers who are mainly interested in a ministry that does everything the traditional way.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
August 1st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Hi Dr. Gonzales,
You wrote:
But limiting the church to singing old hymns and using an outdated English Bible version are certainly not worthy of imitation in my opinion. The Bible and our own 1689 Confession are very clear about the vital importance of communicating God’s word in the common language of the people we’re trying to reach or minister to (Deut. 30:14; 1 Cor. 14; LBCF 1.8). So in light of Scripture and our own Confession, I believe RB churches should update the language of their Bibles, hymnody, and Confession. Failure to do so will hinder the effectiveness of reaching the lost (1 Cor. 9:19-22) though we still may be able to build a large church by attracting other believers who are mainly interested in a ministry that does everything the traditional way.
I can sympathize in reaching the lost in the common language of the people (and I don’t see that RB churches that are NOT KJVonlist are NOT doing that), but bringing in worship styles that are driven by an attitude that is man-centered into the worship of God is beyond reason.
You are right to state that it’s (may I add, purely of) your opinion. How do you know that it has limited the Met. Tab. in their effective outreach? They seemed to have grown from close extinction and continues to grow. Would this not be an example of what RB churches should do today? Has it not shown that it’s not in the appealing tastes of the world today that draws men to Christ (which btw Scriptures has again and again states that it is the Triune God who draws all men to his Son and not because of the ingenuity of man). I’ve visited that church and the majority of members there are sound believers … as opposed to what I have seen several years in the emergent churches.
There’s nothing in the paper that proves that churches are failing because the worship is not appealing to people’s taste of today. I hardly think that Paul was stating 1 Cor 9:19-22 to govern what our worship should be. He was speaking about the conscience of the one he sought to evangelize when he stated to “become all things to all men”. It’s one thing to be offensive and it’s another thing to not appeal to one’s taste. Paul was not suggesting to appeal to one’s taste. Paul was appealing to not offend to as much as the Gospel allows (since the bottom line is the Gospel is offensive to the world, in stating the state of their sinfulness!). How does having a traditional worship become offensive to an unbeliever?! It may not be of their taste, but it’s certainly not going to offend their conscious (apart from repenting of one’s sin!). But having a man-centered worship which is what drives our culture today, not only offend believers who strongly guards that God be the center of their worship, but God Himself. It’s worrisome how some can interpret the statement to “become all things to all men” in the context of worship. If you interpret the range of that verse as wide as you do, you might as well start bringing in a crucifix into the churches so that the Catholics who may enter those doors have something to pray to.
Here’s a question that might touch on the reason for attacking worship in the context of RB growth:
Do you believe the corporate worship of God is horizontal, that is, should it be driven by evangelistic outreach? Or should not our worship be vertical, that is, it must not be driven by evangelistic concerns? Now it’s not to say that our corporate worship would be completely lacking of any kind of outreach (if it was not driven by evangelistic outreach) since evangelism happens in consequence to the preaching of God’s Word.
Dr. Gonzales, I want to have a clear understanding of where you stand here because much has been said by many other people on this post … but is it your belief that RB churches should go emergent?
A fellow believer in Christ,
Jade
August 1st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Hi Dr. Gonzales,
One more thing I wanted to mention is that I asked you that last question because I also want to know if your views represent the views of this seminary. If not, as Dean of this seminary, do you plan to take this seminary to a different direction? It’s my impression that RB’s tend to hold to a more traditional form of worship.
Thanks again,
Jade
August 1st, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Jade,
Here are some brief responses to questions you raise in the comments above:
Jade writes:
As Dean of this seminary, do you plan to take this seminary to a different direction? It’s my impression that RB’s tend to hold to a more traditional form of worship.
Bob replies:
As I’m sure you’re aware, the 1689 LBCF does not require church to use only traditional forms of worship. In fact, an argument can be made that the confession anticipates the need for changes in worship form or style depending a church’s geographical, historical, and cultural location (see LBCF 1.6). Not surprisingly, the churches of the seminary overseers, faculty, and student body of RBS represent a broad spectrum of variation in terms of worship forms or styles. And our commitment to the autonomy of the local church prohibits us from trying to impose one monolithic form or style of worship on other churches (that’s what the Church of England tried to do to the Puritans). Each local church must ascertain that particular worship style that is edifying to its members (young and old, education and uneducated, black and white, etc.) as well as intelligible to the community they are trying to reach.
Jade writes:
Bringing in worship styles that are driven by an attitude that is man-centered into the worship of God is beyond reason.
Bob replies:
Jade, what do YOU mean by worship styles that are driven by an attitude that is man-centered? “Attitude” refers to a heart disposition. What kind of man-centered heart dispositions are you speaking of? And what kind of music do you believe produces those heart dispositions? Do you believe said music automatically, by its very nature produces the attitude? Are you thinking of the lyrics or the tunes or the kind of instruments used? I really need answers to these questions before I attempt a response to you.
Jade writes:
How do you know that it has limited the Met. Tab. in their effective outreach? They seemed to have grown from close extinction and continues to grow. Would this not be an example of what RB churches should do today? Has it not shown that it’s not in the appealing tastes of the world today that draws men to Christ (which btw Scriptures has again and again states that it is the Triune God who draws all men to his Son and not because of the ingenuity of man). I’ve visited that church and the majority of members there are sound believers … as opposed to what I have seen several years in the emergent churches.
Bob replies:
Jade, I’m not sure I follow your reasoning:
(1) In my post above (# 47), to which you’re responding, I commended the Metropolitan Tabernacle for its “compassion for the lost, prayer, and a willingness to work hard.” These we should imitate whether or not they produce church growth. On the other hand, I think churches should avoid using outdated language in its communication of God’s word since that contradicts the biblical and confessional demands of intelligibility (Deut. 30:14; 1 Cor. 14; LBCF 1.8). The driving factor here is fidelity to God’s word not merely the desire to increase in numbers, though the latter motivation is not wrong per se as Matt Troupe correctly noted (see post #36).
(2) The mere fact that the Metropolitan Tabernacle has grown does not in itself mean we ought to imitate their style of worship. Mars Hill Church in Seattle has grown proportionately faster and larger than the Met. Tab. Does that mean every church in America and around the world should imitate their worship styles and forms? I don’t promote that. I believe each church should seek to find ways to adapt to the context in which God has placed it in a way that enables it to connect with and communicate to its own particular missionfield in ways that are intelligible and effective without compromising the message of the gospel. In my opinion, very few people–even in England–still speak Elizabethan English. Consequently, I think the King James Version is a poor choice. Moreover, I would be in favor of a hymnbook like the newer Trinity Hymnbook that, where possible, updates the language without affecting the rhyme or meter.
(3) When you speak negatively of “appealing to the tastes of men,” are you suggesting that we should purposely choose forms of worship that are unappealing? Is there a connection between unappealing worship styles and godliness? I suspect that you would find a traditional 4-part harmony rendition of “Amazing Grace” appealing. Am I correct? Or, if you’re an exclusive psalmodist, you may prefer an a capella rendition of Psalm 1. Would that appeal to your tastes? If so, does that make it wrong? And is it wrong for some of us to sing Chris Tomlin’s “How Great is Our God” simply because we find it both edifying and also appealing?
(4) When you assert that “it is the Triune God who draws all men to his Son and not because of the ingenuity of man,” are you suggesting that human means and methods are wrong or inconsequential? No self-respecting Calvinist denies that it is ultimately God who draws men to Christ. But most Calvinists I know affirm that God has chosen to use human means. Indeed, God has chosen to save sinners through the proclamation of the gospel and the very way in which that gospel is communicated does in fact matter! In Acts 14:1 we read, “Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed” (emphasis added). Note that it was not merely the fact of preaching but the manner of preaching that God used to convert sinners. That is, btw, one reason why RBS offers a Homiletics course. :- ) And, as I’ve already noted above, intelligibility is an important factor not only for the edification of the saints but also for the conversion of sinners (1 Cor. 14:24-25).
Jade writes:
Having a man-centered worship which is what drives our culture today, not only offend believers who strongly guards that God be the center of their worship, but God Himself. It’s worrisome how some can interpret the statement to “become all things to all men” in the context of worship. If you interpret the range of that verse as wide as you do, you might as well start bringing in a crucifix into the churches so that the Catholics who may enter those doors have something to pray to.
Bob replies:
Once again, I need you to identify precisely what constitutes a form or style of worship “man-centered” before we can have a reasonable discussion here. I agree that contextualization can morph into syncretism, which I do not endorse. But I also believe there’s a danger of hyper-traditionalism. This is what characterized the Pharisees, who invested certain traditional forms or methods of doing things with the Scriptural authority.
Before getting into a lengthy discussion over how to and how not to apply 1 Corinthians 9:19-11:1 to the context of worship as a way of life and worship corporately, I suggest that you listen to the following:
Donald Carson: “That By All Means I Might Win Some”: Faithfulness and Flexibility in Gospel Preaching
Steve Hartland: “Contextualization.”
These men endeavor to specify ways in which the church should and ways in which the church should not contextualize. I’m in basic agreement with the views of these speakers and by listening to them you should arrive at a more informed view of my own position.
Jade writes:
Do you believe the corporate worship of God is horizontal, that is, should it be driven by evangelistic outreach? Or should not our worship be vertical, that is, it must not be driven by evangelistic concerns?
Bob replies:
The answer is very simple: BOTH. Everyone agrees that worship should include praise and prayer and preaching that magnifies God’s name. But that kind of vertical element in worship does not preclude the horizontal element of public worship. If we love God, we should be concerned about edifying the brothers in our midst as well as communicating effectively the gospel to the lost in our midst (see 1 Cor. 14; Eph. 5:19-20; Col. 3:16). Take the time to read through the Psalms or the Trinity Hymnbook and note how many times it is the church or the sinner being addressed. To sum it up, we should strive to fulfill both the first and the second greatest commandments in corporate worship and in worship as a way of life.
Hope my remarks help to clarify my position as well as that of the seminary.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
August 1st, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Bob, thanks for your time and effort on this.
I think some of this discussion shows the need for discernment…being able to separate the baby from the bath water. In some of the comments above I notice that things are being connected which are not necessarily connected. For instance the comment about “going emergent” almost seems random. Nothing in any of this conversation has had anything to do with going emergent. The evil of the emergent church (as I understand it) is a denial of absolute truth and a diminishing of the importance of doctrine. Though some in the EC may also advocate modernizing worship forms, those are not the same thing at all! One is compromising the truth, the other (in my intentions) is upholding the truth and trying exercise it the way missionaries in other countries have been doing it for centuries. The best way to fight against people who are denying the truth is not to encrust it with a bunch of tradition.
The confusion that comes from the lack of the ability to draw fine scriptural lines in these kinds of discussions is frustrating. So often the question shifts from “what does the Bible say” to “Where will this lead us?” or “this is the same argument used by…..” or “where do you draw the line?” The answer is simple we draw the line where God does and keep silent on the rest. Of all people, reformed folks should insist on the sufficiency of scripture rather than trying to define ourselves in terms of other folks. The Bible is sufficient in all it says, and in ALL IT DOESN’T SAY. Where God has not been explicit, let’s not set up some new kind of pope in our hearts or churches.
By the way, I think underwear is worldly.
August 1st, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Dr. G…
Thanks for your last comment. I think that you have a very balanced view of what is and what it can be. Be encouraged that this blog has been of great encouragement to some. As someone who is re-writing the 1689 in modern English for a teen Sunday school class, I really appreciate your viewpoint as one that probably has a better view on these matters than most.
I have a question, if you wouldn’t mind. I have been very impressed with the “Marrow of Theology” program that is, for the most part, used to train men in foreign areas for ministry. These are essentially men that are “church planters” but lack education. RBS does small modules to instruct men with a mini-seminary style training. Would something like this be possible to kind of fine tune into a domestic training program for potential “church planters”?
Thanks again for your time and commitment to Christ.
Dan Lane
August 1st, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Matt wrote:
Nothing in any of this conversation has had anything to do with going emergent. The evil of the emergent church (as I understand it) is a denial of absolute truth and a diminishing of the importance of doctrine. Though some in the EC may also advocate modernizing worship forms, those are not the same thing at all! One is compromising the truth, the other (in my intentions) is upholding the truth and trying exercise it the way missionaries in other countries have been doing it for centuries.
I have noted the emergent church only because it was mentioned about “engaging in culture” and modernizing our worship and is one of the reasons why our RB churches are failing in their expansion. As you know the emergent church claims that and I just threw the emergent church sample as to what folks might be suggesting when speaking of modernizing our worship for the purpose of evangelizing. But then those that seem to push for the modernization of our worship seem to be a defend for the way the Emergent church does their worship when Raja wrote:
The emergent church is trying to address a real problem which Reformed Baptists have largely ignored. I’m not saying the emergents are addressing it biblically as that movement has many problems, but they are attempting to reach people in our post-modern culture for Christ. What you need to take from that movement is not their theology, but the balance they bring to the table with regard to reaching our unchurched, indifferent, lost neighbors and families for Christ.
But what is the balance they are bringing? I’ve attended an emergent church for years and their worship is a rock concert. It’s so loud that I can’t even hear the words being sung. It’s not to say that I don’t like rock music but there’s a time and place for that and worship is not the place for it. Rock concerts and entertainment is what appeals to our modern age today (the entertainment business is a huge business!) and so this is what the worship of the emergent church is motivated by. It’s no longer a worship of God, it’s entertainment wrapped with Christian labels. This is what I mean by a man-centered worship — it’s largely driven by what’s appealing to man. I’m not sure if any can be learned by the emergent movement because their methodology is driven by their man-centered theology .
Should one judge that because one does not appeal to the tastes of our culture in the corporate worship of God that one is therefore not evangelistic and unconcerned with the souls of the unsaved as some seem to suggest? I don’t see that to be the case with those that might hold to what is called a traditional approach to worship. It has been my experience that they emphasize more so to the preaching of the Word of God alone to drawing the unsaved than emphasizing the appealing to the senses and emotions of men. Paul didn’t hold plays and musical concerts (or to whatever might have been “hip” and entertaining during those days) to draw the unsaved … he held debates at where the unsaved gathered.
But thank you for clearly stating this that you are not promoting an “emergent approach” to worship. It’s removes some of my concerns….
Dr. Gonzales, I don’t mean to ignore your thought provoking questions. I need to think a bit more of your questions before I can reply appropriately.
) And thank you for taking the time to respond as you are probably preparing for tomorrow’s service.
August 2nd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Dr Gonzales,
First of all, I have answered your post on the ‘other forum’ and am waiting to hear your reply.
Secondly, I have read Mr Troup’s paper and there is a lot of very good stuff in it, but being British, I don’t know enough about the American RB scene to comment helpfully on much of it.
What caught my eye was the comment by Raja Dani:-
‘It would help if we could engage our culture and try to reach the unchurched, instead of trying to convince other Christians about the superiority of RB distinctives.’
And your supportive comments; in particular where you said.
‘ According to Scripture, there is a way in which we are to be like the world in order to win the world.’ and went on to site 1Cor 9.
I believe that this is a wrong and dangerous interpretation of 1Cor 9:19. We are NEVER to be like the world, even the ‘non-sinful’ parts of it. If people don’t see something different in us when they meet us, why on earth should they listen to anything we say?
However, we are to engage the world in order to win it. We should be aiming, as Mr Troupe says, to win unbelievers to Christ, as well as (not instead of) encouraging members of unbiblical churches to join us.
When we do that we must, as Paul did, speak in language that unchurched people can understand, without the jargon that we can all so easily fall into. but we must never try to entice worldly people into church with worldly entertainments; in the House of God, we must distinguish between the holy and the profane.
I am not a big fan of syllogisms, but if you want to use them would you please apply them to yourself and not impute them to me.
You wrote:-
(1) Argument against Greek dancing and basouki concerts.
Major premise: Paul was determined to do nothing in Corinth but to preach Christ crucified.
Minor premise: Greek dancing classes or basouki concerts have nothing to do with preaching Christ.
Conclusion: Paul did not hold Greek dancing classes or basouki concerts.
The main problem with this argument is you’re attempting to universalize and make absolute the major premise.
Excuse me! I’m not attempting to do anything. YOU have made up the syllogism, not me! What I am saying is that you must establish the meaning of 1Cor 9:19 by comparing Scripture with Scripture and interpret what Paul says here with what he does in Acts. And you cannot imagine that he did something different if the Scripture doesn’t tell you so.
Do RB churches use ‘small group evangelism’ in America? I mean inviting unchurched people to come to a series of Bible studies held in someone’s home, often accompanied by a meal or refreshments of some sort. You may have heard of the ‘Alpha Course,’ but that is deeply flawed and I don’t recommend it at all. ‘Christianity Explored’ is much better; google it up if you don’t know it. My little church has used it with some modest success- four people brought to the Lord this year, and others still seeking. Needless to say, you can make up your own course if you want.
I mentioned the Met Tab and Dr Masters purely to show that you don’t have to kow-tow to the culture in order to grow your church. I personally would not follow Dr Masters in using the KJV and I have no objection to good modern hymns. However, if you look at the Met Tab website http://www.metropolitantabernacle.org you will see how that church reaches out to deaf people, to the Chinese and other ethnic communities in London, to students and especially to children. The whole church is built around evangelism and outreach, and the Lord has blessed it as a result.
I might add that members of the Met Tab have started several church plants in various parts of Britain; some of these are growing and have made church plants of their own. In addition to that, the church has its own seminary which has trained many foreign pastors and sent them back to their own countries to plant churches, so that now there are RB churches in Mali, Nigeria, Ghana, Zimbabwe, India, Sri Lanka, St. Lucia and Nepal, all sponsored by the Met Tab. Of course, your own seminary may be doing much more than this- I don’t know. But if not, perhaps you won’t be too proud to look at some of their methods after all.
To sum up; RBs should engage with the culture of the world, but not embrase it. It is possible to grow churches and make converts without pandering to the tastes of the unconverted.
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Martin said: “We are NEVER to be like the world, even the ‘non-sinful’ parts of it.”
Wow…the irony is staggering.
I hate to break the news to you Martin, but in your last post you were like the world in all kinds of ways. Your use of English is not distinctly christian. You probably used a computer that was not developed by Christians, purchased electricity from lost people, and used an internet connection which is also used by others to download porn and commit a variety of other sins. You employed the internet (developed by totally depraved computer engineers) to communicate your thoughts, which the world does all the time…and you followed rules of grammar not established by the Bible or Christians. You are also probably wearing underwear, which is worldly. In short you ARE like the world in all kinds of ways, it is inescapable…And I don’t fault you for it. It is based on the fact that we share all kinds of things with other people just by the virtue of our humanity. They are not sinful just because worldly people use them. Christ owns them and we may use them to God’s glory. It is called christian liberty, and Reformed confessions are full of this doctrine.
We need to recognize the fall and sinfulness of every culture, including our own western culture. And we need to recognize the common grace of God in every culture, including the lost people around us.
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:35 am
I have not been able to catch up on this entire thread of comments or on the research paper yet. But I wanted to say that I am someone who has actually planted a RB church. (It seems that none of the commenters are speaking from real experience.)
From my vantage point and experience, it seems that major obstacles to successful RB church planting are the doctrinal/teaching content and ministry priorities. Most people, including many professing Christians, are repulsed by: doctrinal teaching, exegetical Bible preaching, the doctrines of grace, and true worship, etc. But a godly pastor does not have a choice; he must teach these things. By far and wide, most of our visitors who did not stay left because of these issues. It does not matter if you “contextualize” or adjust or accomodate other things, such as music styles, to suit the needs or preferences or habits of others. For example, if you teach unconditional election–and you must–or if you teach mandatory obedience to God’s law–and you must–then such people will leave. And be glad they are honest enough to leave. The real trouble is the ones who do not leave, but infiltrate in order to turn the church away from sound doctrine.
And yet it is not necessarily all that hard to plant a RB church. What we need are more men–godly, educated, sound-thinking men who will persevere, who will support themselves if and when necessary, and who will do the work. There tragically few such men. (I am aware of this from a pastoral search I was involved in.) If the leader is there, a decent church can exist, because that man can do the basic work necessary to build up at least a small congregation–which still has an important witness. And so, BTW, this is one reason the RBS work is important too.
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:05 am
Well if you will adopt that rather silly view of what I mean by not being like the world, then you are quite right.
However, why don’t you spend some time contemplating Rom 12:2; Col 3:2; 2Tim 4:10; Titus 2:12 and James 4:4; 5:5 and you might understand what I really mean.
August 3rd, 2009 at 8:32 am
Scobie,
Matt Troupe, the brother who wrote the research paper and who’s made several contributions to the discussion, is a church planter and has successfully planted a church in Fresno, California. But it’s certainly helpful to have the perspective of other church planters added to the discussion.
I agree (and believe Matt does too) that we must follow Paul and preach “the whole counsel of God.” There are aspects of this message that will offend the natural man. If that is what offends men, then we may, as Jesus, lament the hardness of their heart, but we shouldn’t feel guilty or constrained to water down the message.
I also agree that contextualization in-and-of-itself is not adequate to overcome the natural man’s aversion to God and his truth. Ultimately, it is the Holy Spirit who must regenerate the heart, removing the enmity and “resetting” the affections in a Godward direction. We shouldn’t depend merely on a state-of-the-art website, friendly greeters, comfortable pews, music styles that connect, messages with great illustrations and up-to-date relevant applications, etc., to do the Spirit’s work. Nevertheless, RBS offers a homiletics course because we believe God has chosen to use not merely the proclamation of truth but the effective proclamation of truth as a means to convert sinners (Acts 14:1). Indeed, one of the qualifications for elders (and I would add, church-planters) is aptness to teach (1 Tim. ). So method and style, not just content, are important factors in our endeavors to win souls and build up saints. What is more, though we may debate the precise nature of Paul’s contextualization in 1 Corinthians 9:19-22 and 10:31-11:1, we should all agree that Paul’s was compelled with the drive of an athlete to remove by way of contextualization all and every unnecessary obstacle that might hinder the effectiveness of his gospel communication to his target audience in order that more sinners might be won. He says, “I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:33-11:1).
Finally, I agree that we need more men–and the right kind of men. I think Matt brings this out in his research paper.
Once again, I really appreciate the input from another brother who successfully planted a church. Can you remind me where that church is located? Was it someplace in Washington state? Perhaps you could give us a brief history of when and how the church was planted.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:24 am
Martin,
I think Matt and I have (at least to some degree) contemplated the passages you’ve cited. We both affirm that the Bible prohibits Christians from being conformed to the world. What is essentially, however, in discussions like this is to make sure we’re on the same page in defining worldliness. In my present understanding, the Bible defines worldliness in terms of sinful attitudes and actions (1 John 2:15-17). Accordingly, it’s possible to be a football fan in a worldly way or in a non-worldly way. In the case of the former, football becomes something of an idol that obscures the glory of God. In the case of the latter, football is seen and enjoyed in its proper place, moderately and as a gift of God. Similarly, it’s possible to be religiously zealous in a worldly way or in a non-worldly way. The Pharisees, for example, were some of the most worldly people who ever lived. They were, in many ways, “separate from the world.” As we say here in the U.S., they didn’t “dance, drink, chew [tobacco] or run with those who do.” Nevertheless, they’re hearts were governed by “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). Though they had an outward “form of godliness,” they were devoid of a real heart for God and, therefore, did not conform to God’s revealed will (1 John 2:17).
With this understanding of “worldliness” in view, I’m still trying to understand why people label certain styles of music intrinsically “worldly” in the negative biblical sense. First, music styles, unlike people, don’t have attitudes. Of course, the people who play the music do have attitudes and those attitudes may very well be worldly. But in that case, it’s the composers or the artists who have the problem, not necessarily the music. Mozart and Tchaikovsky, for example, were, by accounts I’ve read, worldly men. But I still listen to their music. Second, I remain unconvinced that the Bible identifies certain styles of music that are “Christian” and other styles that are “worldly.” This is why I challenged you on the other site to assess three Christians songs employing the genres of rock and hip-hop (to which I posted links) and to identify what precisely it is about such genres that made them sinful or incompatible with the biblically sound lyrics they accompanied. You have not yet taken me up on that challenge.
I do acknowledge–and perhaps this is where you’re coming from–that various music styles are capable of prompting various emotional moods in the hearers. Accordingly, the choice of music styles to accompany the lyrics of our psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs is not a matter of pure indifference. In the Psalms and in other descriptions of worship in the Bible, one encounters all sorts of worship moods: profound lament, exuberant joy, humble awe, devout resolve, etc. We should, therefore, endeavor to select tunes and musical styles that correspond to the moods that the lyrics address or convey. Of course, there are variables here. A tune that creates a certain mood in one culture in general or one person in particular may not convey that mood as effectively in other cultures or persons. I suspect that this may account, at least partly, for the strong differences of opinion among Christians as to what is and what is not appropriate music for worship. But it is here that we need a good dose of humility and discernment. Discernment (including aesthetic taste) is needed when we attempt to find the right music to fit with a given set of biblical lyrics. Principles of propriety and order (1 Cor. 14:40), as well as aesthetic quality (Phil. 4:8) will certainly play a part. But we must also exercise a great deal of humble deference. A particular style of music may not produce within me the same kind of exuberant joy it does in the brother standing next to me. But that’s okay. If I have the mind of Christ, who came to serve and not to be served, then I’ll take seriously Paul’s exhortation: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others” (Phil. 2:4). As a pastor or church-planter, I will try to aim, therefore, for the maximum intelligibility and edification of everyone to whom I minister. In some settings, attaining that goal may entail the use of certain genres more frequently than others. And vice versa. But this brings us back to the issue of wisely and lovingly applying the principle of contextualization.
Brother, I hope the remarks above help to provide further clarification.
Sincerely yours,
Bob Gonzales
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:42 am
Dan,
Thanks for your comments. We do offer a 32-credit Marrow of Theology program, which is available for laymen, pastors already engaged in ministry, or men whose aspirations to full-time ministry may be tentative in their minds or the minds of their pastor(s). The courses in this program are the same as those offered in the divinity program and may be taken in distance-learning or modular format. There has been some talk about offering a whole program to men in the states entirely in modular format over, say, a three-year period, as we’re doing in Latin America. This would require, however, lots of human and financial resource. Moreover, it would require a core group of students travel four-times a year to a central location for a week-long session of instruction. Another alternative model that we’re presently looking into is building a virtual classroom. From this virtual classroom, live instruction could be broadcasted to churches and students all over the nation. With the right equipment and software, students and teachers could interact.
You mention the specific target of “church planters.” It is here I think we need to work on augmenting our present curriculum. Reading Matt’s paper and discussing this with other RB pastors involved in church planting has made me think that we need to add some instruction from men who have done the kind of “ground-zero” church planting Matt speaks of in his paper (as opposed to merely finding groups of Christians who want to start a particular kind of church). Perhaps this will require us to borrow the brains and insights from some gifted, godly, and successful church planters outside our own 1689 circles. Whatever the case, I think Matt’s paper has revealed an area where the RBS practical theology curriculum needs a little reformation or supplementation.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:30 pm
I am very encouraged by Dr G’s (along with Dan, Matt, Raja, etc) willingness to “borrow the brains and insights from some gifted, godly, and successful church planters outside our own 1689 circles.” It demonstrates humility to acknowledge our weaknesses and learn from others. We don’t just need to work harder, we need to work smarter. The Proverbs say “He who wins souls is wise,” and it seems to me we can use some wisdom if we are going to successfully initiate a movement of “ground-zero” RB church planting churches.
I think part of the difficulty in adopting church planting best practices from those outside our circle is that the RB movement is at least partly a reaction to the excesses of the broader evangelical church. This is why our churches are composed more of believers from other churches than from converted lost people, as Matt shows in his paper. It is difficult to be polemic about the evangelical church, and then be willing to learn from them.
I don’t think stepping up church planting efforts alone is enough. I believe one of the key difficulties is accessibility. We must labour to make the gospel accessible to the target audience (which is contextualization). If we speak a ‘foreign language’ to those around us, it goes over peoples’ heads, we may be edified, but those around us are not. In this case we are poor missionaries. The prohibition against speaking in tongues (1 Cor 14) applies. As Ed Stetzer makes this point in “Breaking the Missional Code”: are we really “Preaching the Word” if our target audience doesn’t understand what we’re saying?
Along these lines, I also found the book “The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World” edited by Piper and Taylor helpful.
Jesus Christ promises, “I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” And so I have confidence that we labour with the the exulted Christ who has all authority and will build his church. But we must also labour like the incarnate Christ. I believe this discussion is pivotal in the life of the RB movement. Matt boldly issues a needful call to repentance in his paper. The degree to which churches respond to this could determine the longevity of the RB movement.
Jeff
August 3rd, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Dr Gonzales,
Worldliness is a matter of the heart. This is what our Lord is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ There are secular activties that are not in themselves sinful, but if the heart is full of them, then they lead us away from the Lord.
It actually makes no difference to me whether heavy rock or Mozart is played in church; neither has any place in the worship of God. We do not come to church to listen to a performance, but to worship God (Col 3:1-3), and we can only do that in the manner that His word prescribes (Mark 7:6-8).
We know that people will leave one charismatic church for another just because the guitarist or the drummer is better in the other church. The world has come into the church and people follow their worldly inclinations. We now have the situation in many churches, not just charismatic ones, where they have a ‘time of worship’ where the band plays 3 or 4 songs and the people sing along. But there are guitar breaks, saxophone solos etc and church becomes indistinguishable from a rock concert. Afterwards, the people leave talking about the band, and ‘what a great song that was’ instead of talking about our precious Lord.
If there is to be music in a church (and Spurgeon didn’t need it), then it must be the servant of the hymn, there to keep us in time and tune.
BTW, contrary to what ARBCA appear to say, even in the Temple, there were restrictions on which instruments could be used. These were prescribed by the Holy Spirit through David (1Chron 25:6) and neither Hezekiah (2Chron 29:25) nor Nehemiah (Neh 12:36) saw fit to change things. Now OT worship has disappeared with the Temple and we should look to the NT for our instructions, but even the OT tells us that we can’t please ourselves.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Tim Keller has said that the issue of how the Christians relate to their culture is THE biggest issue facing the church today. This is because people with the exact same confession cannot get together with one another because of their differences on these points. I tend to think he is correct because it seems to me that lately almost every discussion boils down to this. Here we are talking about church planting, and we have moved on once again to speaking about church music.
I think this is potentially a pretty easy victory for the devil. Some people will not move forward with aggressive missions work, because of fear of, or confusion on these issues. There is a potential that we may be more afraid displeasing God by worldliness than by hiding our light under a bushel. Both of those are extremes are sin.
Just for the record, the research paper did not talk much about this issue except for a few incidental points. At present all of us who call ourselves RB’s are not doing enough to reach the lost in America in my opinion. I think that this issue is one of the reasons why. We really don’t understand and can’t agree on how we should relate to unbelievers. I think that research and teaching on this issue is one of the most important issues facing us, dividing us, and hindering us. I would like to see some of this at an upcoming conference.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Martin writes:
Worldliness is a matter of the heart. This is what our Lord is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ There are secular activities that are not in themselves sinful, but if the heart is full of them, then they lead us away from the Lord.
Bob replies:
I agree with you, brother.
Martin writes:
It actually makes no difference to me whether heavy rock or Mozart is played in church; neither has any place in the worship of God. We do not come to church to listen to a performance, but to worship God (Col 3:1-3), and we can only do that in the manner that His word prescribes (Mark 7:6-8).
Bob replies:
Mozart doesn’t have any place in the church? Who says? Apparently, the editors of the Orthodox Presbyterian Trinity Hymnbook didn’t agree. Three of the hymns from this very conservative and traditional hymnal employ tunes that are adaptations of Mozart’s music (see “O Could I Speak the Matchless Worth,” #126; “Fight the Good Fight,” #484; “Hark! The Voice of Jesus Crying,” #691). The second edition of the Trinity Hymnal adds “Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken,” #707, the tune of which is also attributed to Mozart. Do you object to these tunes? If so, why? If not, why not? And if you cannot marshal any clear and cogent arguments against the inclusion of tunes in our more traditional hymnbooks from a worldling like Mozart, then what arguments do you have to offer against a song like, “Let Your Kingdom Come,” which clearly employs a rock genre of music but which has been composed by a genuine believer? Martin, I agree with you that we should worship God only in those ways prescribed. But the passage you reference, Mark 7:6-8, gives us Jesus’ warning against mere formalism and traditionalism:
How does this text have any bearing on what genre of music is or is not appropriate in the house of God?
Martin writes:
We know that people will leave one charismatic church for another just because the guitarist or the drummer is better in the other church. The world has come into the church and people follow their worldly inclinations…. Afterwards, the people leave talking about the band, and ‘what a great song that was’ instead of talking about our precious Lord.
Bob replies:
Martin, I lament along with you the scenario you describe. But worldliness in the church is not just a problem for Charismatics. I am a Reformed Baptist, and I still have plenty of worldliness residing in my heart, as do my fellow Reformed Baptist brothers and sisters. And part of “walking in the light” is regularly acknowledging that worldliness and confessing it as sin. But the sin is not necessarily the kind of instrument played or the genre of music employed. It is, as John describes, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” And such attitudes may be accompany the singing of psalms a capella (as it did among the religious leaders of Jesus’ day as they sang the psalter in the synagogue) just as much as it may accompany the singing of worship songs with guitars and drums. The solution is not to put a ban on musical instruments or modern genres of music any more than the solution to drunkenness is to put a ban on alcohol. The solution is to draw near to God with the heart and not just the lips–as you say, to focus on the Lord and not on the band. This is the worshipers responsibility. And it is the responsibility of those who lead in worship to focus the congregation’s attention upon the gospel message and to stir the congregation’s affections with respect to the theme of the gospel message.
Martin writes:
If there is to be music in a church (and Spurgeon didn’t need it), then it must be the servant of the hymn, there [sic] to keep us in time and tune.
Bob replies:
Well, I agree in part. Musical accompaniment certainly does help to keep us in time and in tune. But music also stirs the affections. And when heart stirring music is wed together with gospel themes, then music does more than merely keep our voice in tune–it helps to put our heart in tune with the beauties of the Lord (Ps. 27:4). I am sorry that Spurgeon and many of the Puritans adopted such a restricted view of God’s gift of music. I’m sure they think otherwise now.
Martin writes:
BTW, contrary to what ARBCA appear to say, even in the Temple, there were restrictions on which instruments could be used. These were prescribed by the Holy Spirit through David (1Chron 25:6) and neither Hezekiah (2Chron 29:25) nor Nehemiah (Neh 12:36) saw fit to change things. Now OT worship has disappeared with the Temple and we should look to the NT for our instructions, but even the OT tells us that we can’t please ourselves.
Bob replies:
I’m not exactly sure what point you’re making here. Are you trying to argue that the use of musical instruments passed away with the Temple, Priesthood, and Sacrifices? If you follow that position literally, then it would seem you’d have to condemn churches that use any musical accompaniment of violating the second commandment. After all, where is the NT warrant for a piano or organ or even a pitch pipe? That’s certainly a narrow position and, I believe, quite unwarranted. In reality, the NT only identifies the Temple, Priesthood, and Sacrifices as shadows that have passed away. I’ve read nothing in the NT about musical instruments passing away. Indeed, instrumental accompaniment of corporate praise predated the tabernacle and temple (Exod. 15:20). And if it pleases God that his NC church still sing the OT psalms, then I find no good reason why the NC church cannot sing those psalms with the kind of instrumental accompaniment with which those same psalms were originally designed to be adorned.
Martin, I hope I’m not coming across unteachable or unkind. Honestly, I have to admit that I once held to a position very similar to yours. I was challenged, however, by sincere and godly Christians who insisted that I base my convictions on the Scriptures alone and not on man-made traditions–however esteemed those traditions may be. When I finally realized that many of my convictions about what is and what is not appropriate for public worship were in reality based on things like (1) personal preference, (2) ecclesiastical traditions, and (3) fallacious arguments, I had to admit I was wrong and desist from imposing my own personal perspectives or preferences on other Christians or churches. The Bible is sufficient, Martin. We don’t need to add our own fences to protect God’s word.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
August 4th, 2009 at 12:42 am
@Smith- thanks for your comments and your experience in this regard. I hope that the research paper will be helpful as you continue to think through these issues. BTW, where is the church plant that you worked with and can you tell us a little about it?
I would like to challenge your thinking a little bit. You said that you believed that our doctrine was one of the biggest obstacles to church planting. And I think that you probably mean that people don’t like it and won’t stick around. I don’t want to misrepresent you. But that sounds to me like a problem with us, rather than the world. That shouldn’t keep us from planting churches! Perhaps this is what you were saying. But if we are not planting churches because it is hard, then I think we may have some deeper problems. We already know what Jesus said- that we would not received a warm handed welcome from the world. A servant is not above his master. I think that this is to be expected and should remind us that the missionary endeavor is ultimately a supernatural one. We need the miraculous power of Christ to win the lost, and we need to die to ourselves and our sense of control and security.
I think something for us to consider is that hatred and opposition is not the only response that we should expect from the world. Scripture teaches us that there are times when the world will also respect and love certain aspects of our lives . This happened with the church in Acts (Acts 5:13), which at times had favor with all the people. It also happened in the life of Jesus. His whole deportment was attractive to tax collectors and sinners. I think we need to let that sink in. People are not only totally depraved they are also “bruised and broken by the fall.” And every day they are looking around for some false savior to fix their pain and cover their guilt. When they see the real remedy in our lives, and all of the love, mercy and forgiveness that comes with it, it will eventually turn heads.
I think that when we preach the whole counsel of God we will certainly preach hard doctrines that offend. But we should also preach and live in such a way that is attractive. That is full of hope and joy. I have been encouraging our people to live out their ordinary lives with a gospel intent- to live in such a way that demands and answer. We have had shocking incidents of late where unbelievers are responding with questions like, “why are you doing this? why are you being so kind?” and of course we get to reply by describing the love and mercy of God and his work of redemption in our lives. Our focus has not been to make people Calvinists or reformed, but to make them followers of Jesus and of His word. With this emphasis I believe it is very easy and natural to teach people the importance of our doctrines as the truth of Christ rather than part of a set of sectarian distinctives that separate us from other believers. I am not suggesting anything about your methods, just offering a different perspective from what I have sometimes seen and heard.
We have not experienced huge growth or revival in Fresno as of yet. But we have focused on the glory and excellence of Jesus and that has actually been inviting to many around us. I believe that any successful church planting work should intentionally aim to adorn the gospel in these kinds of ways. Not by trimming down the truth but by putting on display all the richness of a savior who was a friend of sinners, who came to seek and save the lost. 2 times this week I have heard of unbelievers saying things like, “I don’t have a problem with Jesus, it is all the christians I cannot stand.” Now obviously they don’t know much about the real Jesus, but these kinds of statements should give us pause. It is possible that unbelievers can be offended by us rather than the gospel and it is our job to remove every possible offense except the offense of the cross. If we haven’t done the hard work of sweetening our approach by the constraining love of Christ we shouldn’t blame the offense on the gospel. Paul said, “Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.” (I Cor. 10:32-33) One pastor has suggested that at times skeptics should remark after seeing our hope filled lives: “I don’t believe in Christianity, but I wish it were true.”
Anyway, I don’t know much about how you all are ministering, and you may be doing a wonderful job at what I have described. I just know that I have not always done well on this account and I thought I would share some of those lessons.
August 4th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Matt wrote:
Not all concern about numbers is wrong/worldly/compromising. Numbers should be important to us because they represent people made in the image of God- people that will worship him forever, or suffer eternally. The book of Acts records the number of people that were added to the church for very important reasons. Jesus told us to make disciples. That means that we need to reach people who do not know the gospel, and give it to them and lead them to the truth. The result is that more people are added to the church. The danger is when we compromise the truth for the sake of numbers. But being indifferent to numbers is NOT a virtue.
Matt, NO ONE is disputing that there are people out there that needs to hear the Gospel. But brother I do find it troubling the obsession with numbers. We ultimately do not have control of that but God alone and yet we speak as if we do! God forgive us. God has never asked us to fret over the numbers. He has again and again stated all through out history that He is the ONLY author of those numbers. Recall what happened when David obsessed over the numbers (1Chron 21)? Again and again, the Lord has shown that it will not be by the strength or numbers of men (Judges 7), nor the ingenuity of men that brings about His elect. We can come up with all kinds of schemes to sharing the Gospel but none of that is going to save anyone until it pleases the Lord to give that person a new heart and enable him/her to believe and repent.
Now before someone calls me again a hyper-calvinist, this does NOT mean that we become passive to our responsibilities. Why is it when we speak of the sovereignty and of the power of God to bring about His will (as oppose to ours!), that people immediately assumes that one is promoting to relinquish the responsibility to share the Gospel?! All I’m saying here is that we need to get our Scriptural facts straight on WHO DOES WHAT.
Numbers should NOT be the motivating reason we evangelize and plant churches. The ONLY reason we should be doing this is because God COMMANDED US. Every time we go beyond what He has asked of us, we screw it up! Remember Saul? God is not looking for improvements upon what He has asked us, He’s looking for obedience.
Never once has God given us the responsibility over the numbers. That’s God’s job. Not ours. Our job is to be FAITHFUL to what He has commanded us — to share the Gospel without compromise — even if the numbers are looking low! No where in Scriptures has He ever handed that responsibility to us and commanded us to make sure the numbers are up to par! I mean here we are, folks frantically pushing the panic button and saying that if we don’t revolutionize x, y and z we’re going to be extinct! Get a hold of ourselves! We are so caught up with the lack of numbers that we are forgetting the God that we serve! We act like we are serving some idol made of wood and we act like it is within our power to manage those numbers.
It’s not to say I don’t praise the work that you have done for the Lord. I thank the Lord for raising men like you that has the heart for the lost. But let’s get our focus right. Is it the fear and panic of extinction that drives us? Or is it because God commanded us to share the Gospel no matter what the numbers may come to? There’s nothing wrong with rallying the people of God to go OUT THERE and share the Gospel, but let’s quit obsessing over the numbers. Leave that to God.
August 4th, 2009 at 2:25 am
Jade, I think I actually agree with most of what you said, so I am not sure that we should be at odds. No on is advocating obsessing over numbers, panicking, or hiring Ringling Brothers to bring in the numbers. To my knowledge no one is advocating a “new-and-improved” gospel. We should be willing to serve even if no one gets saved. There are numerous missionaries who have served faithfully with very little fruit. I realize that God can be glorified in our efforts by closing doors as well as opening them.
Where we do disagree is on the role that numbers should play in our heart for the lost. Samuel Zwemer preached the gospel for 40 years to Muslim countries with only a few dozen converts, and several of them were promptly martyred. But he wasn’t indifferent to the fact that people were rejecting the gospel! the lack of conversions broke his heart and drove him to labor with more diligence. You can watch a brief video on his life here: http://matttroupe.blogspot.com/2009/04/short-video-on-samuel-zwemer-missionary.html He was moved to go to the mission field by hearing that every second another muslim was dying without access to the good news of Jesus. William Carey was moved by the huge number of unreached people and in his famous paper the “Enquiry” he actually lists the populations of various nations- the number of people that had no access to the gospel.
I am not suggesting that we forget the God we serve, however I am suggesting that if we are indifferent to the large number of sinners perishing around us then our heart is not like the God we say we serve, and we need to improve the way we are serving him. Remember Jesus was moved with compassion when he saw the large multitudes. There is no need to create false connection here: if you are concerned with numbers you are advocating compromise and ignoring the sovereignty of God.
Think of this command from Paul, “Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you” (I Thess 3:1). We should want lots of people to get saved and pray to that end. Also Jesus said, “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” (John 4). Jesus has given us a reason to pray for the harvest and that reason is couched in numerical terms.
Also, Isa 49:6 “‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’” Right now the number of people that are worshiping Jesus is too small. I want more sinners to praise his name, and this is out of concern for his glory. I suppose we will have to disagree on this because I believe that this is a Biblical response to God’s majesty.
If you are trying to make a point that we should be faithful to an uncompromising gospel, and trust God for the results I agree with you. But if you are trying to say that numbers have no place at all in our discussion of the advancement of the kingdom of God, I believe you are outside of the teaching of scripture and the reformed tradition.
August 4th, 2009 at 2:39 am
BTW, for anyone who would like to see William Carey’s work you can find it at this page:
” An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens; in which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings,
are Considered.”
His charts begin on p. 38.
http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/enquiry/enquiry.html
August 4th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Matt wrote:
I am not suggesting that we forget the God we serve, however I am suggesting that if we are indifferent to the large number of sinners perishing around us then our heart is not like the God we say we serve, and we need to improve the way we are serving him. Remember Jesus was moved with compassion when he saw the large multitudes. There is no need to create false connection here: if you are concerned with numbers you are advocating compromise and ignoring the sovereignty of God.
It wasn’t so much the number of the multitudes that drove Christ to compassion. As he notes in the parable of the lost sheep, that even if one is lost, he sought to find it. Hypothetically if Adam and Eve were the only ones here on earth and for whatever reason they didn’t multiply in numbers, do you think that God would not send Christ to the cross because there’s only the two of them? Knowing the God of the Bible, He still would.
I’m not at all suggesting that there isn’t room for improvement; there always is. But I sure hope we’re not compromising doctrine because we’re so driven by numbers. I’ve seen so many churches do this and to damning results.
Matt wrote:
Think of this command from Paul, “Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you” (I Thess 3:1). We should want lots of people to get saved and pray to that end. Also Jesus said, “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” (John 4). Jesus has given us a reason to pray for the harvest and that reason is couched in numerical terms.
In that passage, Jesus didn’t give us reason to pray for the harvest, he gave us reason to pray for the workers and it’s not John 4, but Matthew 9. It states,
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
The harvest being plentiful is a given, but the laborers is what is lacking. And guess what Jesus is the Lord of that harvest! The field is apparently already ripe for harvest. It is there for our taking. But we need to GO OUT there. We don’t need to succumb to gimmicks or candy coat the Gospel to lure the unsaved to attend church. Those God elected, has already been prepared to receive the Gospel, savingly. We just need to share the Gospel from where the unsaved are at and those God elected will come irresistibly come when they hear the voice of the Shepherd in the words we speak.
Also the quote from Paul you noted states to “pray for us”. Again the focus wasn’t on the unsaved but to the workers.
Matt wrote:
Also, Isa 49:6 “‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’” Right now the number of people that are worshiping Jesus is too small.
Too small based on what? God’s opinion or yours? Let me remind you what God’s opinion is concerning the numbers that will be saved:
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
What was Jesus thinking in sharing this?! This is NOT what an evangelist wants to hear! This is heart wrenching when you yourself have seen how many are currently hell bound. This is not your ideal motivational talk that you want to give to your disciples and YET the Lord Jesus said these things. He told us because He wants us to know the facts before we hit the field. Like a good general, he’s not going to lie to his soldiers of what they will face out there. He told us this, NOT to dissuade us (though it might dissuade those who have a false intuition of what they may face), but to understand that there’s great hardship ahead that requires perseverance. You’re not always going to see those numbers even if you’ve tried every possible trick in the book; that what we may define “success” should not be driven by results in numbers. God called us to faithfulness in the sharing of the Gospel. It’s not to say that the numbers of the lost should have no affect on us; certainly it does. But the PRIMARY reason that we go out there is BECAUSE WE LOVE CHRIST. This IS what should DRIVE us. Our love for Christ should compel us whether the numbers are high or low and in good times as well as bad times. If we’re NOT actively sharing the Gospel, then we need to seriously ask ourselves if we truly love Christ! God is most glorified when we are FAITHFUL to the things He commanded us to do.
I’m not trying to discourage the workers of Christ. We should ALL have a burden for the lost. What I fear to see is that in our burden to see the lost saved, we would compromised sound doctrine and as a result compromise the bride of Christ. There’s a reason why Christ called it the narrow gate. We don’t want to reap merely for quantities but quality. This is where the crux of the challenge will be for the churches… and as you can see the tactics can become a heated debate.
Matt wrote:
But if you are trying to say that numbers have no place at all in our discussion of the advancement of the kingdom of God, I believe you are outside of the teaching of scripture and the reformed tradition.
What I’m trying to say is that numbers should not be a gauge of defining what a “success” or “failure” is. Because if I were to take that gauge, then Isaiah and Jeremiah would have been considered failures, as well as many others that God called. Men like that would have been kicked out of such a program in recruiting church planters, when they are the very type of men that you really need to build a QUALITY church.
Here’s what troubles me about this paper. You wrote:
According to the NAMB study “The most critical factor for the success of a
church plant is the church planter or planters”
(Stetzer, 2007, p. 4). If a qualified planter is the linchpin for success, the next question is where to find them. Gary Rohrmayer (quoted in Brown, S., 2007) is constantly scouting for potential church planters. He looks for people with four characteristics: A burden for the community, passion for evangelism, entrepreneurial spirit, and the ability to gather people (p. 11).
In another place you wrote:
Many of the resources necessary to plant these ten churches are already available but remain unused or poorly coordinated. For instance, there are several ministerial training programs functioning in RB churches or in cooperative ventures. However, these training programs do not seem to have a clear focus on recruiting or training pastors with the unique role of church planter (entrepreneur/missionary) for those with such a call.
I would beg to differ with the last statements, particularly the statement of “entrepreneur”. Those specifications above would rule out many of God’s servants in the Bible! Most of them were not of an entrepreneurial spirit and many of them were hated by those they had to preach to. The man you need to plant churches, is a man who fears God, loves His Word (and because he loves this Word will follow it and go out there to preach the Gospel to the lost), obedient, and has the ability to persevere even in the worst of situations. Basically what you need is a hopeless optimist who is completely sold out to Jesus and well grounded in the faith. It’s not to say that you send folks that are clueless … but this is where the training comes in. If you want to know the characteristics of a man that God prefers to plant His churches, look at the type of men that Scriptures recorded. They were recorded for this very purpose, as an example to all of us.
I have friends who are in ministry though they are in emergent / post modern churches (most of my friends are not reformed, except the friends I make in my own church). I hear the things that go on in these “business meetings”. It’s more conducted like a fortune 500 company than a church. God is just not in the equation when these meetings go on and decisions are made, that you’d have to wonder who they really believe is at the helm. They are driven by numbers. I’ve seen many good men who became casualties of these “results driven” churches, only because “their performance” were down. And sure enough, when they had left, the churches were growing in numbers but they were all shallow churches. There are people that are coming but most of them never developed to any evidence of “saving faith”. This isn’t the type of church we want to build and some of the tactics spoken of here for the sake of numbers really worries me.
Overall the paper was good (not that my opinion really matters on these things). There were some very good advices in the conclusions and worth the read for those who have not read it yet. I’m just concern that this becomes more of like a business rather than a calling. So many churches are run like corporation these days….
August 4th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Jeff wrote
I am very encouraged by Dr G’s (along with Dan, Matt, Raja, etc) willingness to “borrow the brains and insights from some gifted, godly, and successful church planters outside our own 1689 circles.” It demonstrates humility to acknowledge our weaknesses and learn from others. We don’t just need to work harder, we need to work smarter. The Proverbs say “He who wins souls is wise,” and it seems to me we can use some wisdom if we are going to successfully initiate a movement of “ground-zero” RB church planting churches.
It all depends Jeff if the people we are borrowing ideas from are of a sound doctrine. Again, many of these methodologies are rooted from their theology, so it’s very important the soundness of those we seek advice from! Should we borrow ideas from Rick Warren because of the successes churches following his advice? I sure hope not!
Where we should be looking at is in Scriptures. Do we not believe in the sufficiency of Scriptures in these matters?!
August 5th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Jade,
you said, “It wasn’t so much the number of the multitudes that drove Christ to compassion.”
That might sound clever but it is not what the text says,
Mark 6:34 “And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd.” The text says he saw a great multitude, not that he saw a single lost sheep, and that moved him to compassion.
I suppose I could respond to the points you have made, but I don’t think it would make a difference to you. And I think that I have tried that a few times already if anyone is still reading this blog, they probably would not be edified by more of this kind of discussion. You have your mind made up, and so far you have shown throughout your posts that you just want to argue.
August 8th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Great points Matt! I am excited to read your paper, thanks for all of the labor that you put into it.
Here are some points that come to my mind when thinking about the topic.
1) As a gentleman alluded to earlier in the responses, we need a new confession. There are too many discrepancies between Reformed Baptist Churches, such as the Sabbath day, sign gifts, prophetic gifts, well I’ll just stop here. The time between 1689 and 2009 is too large for no updates or changes in our faith as Christ reforms His people. Most of the “1689” churches out there are just that, 1689 churches. I am not saying be like Mark Driscoll, in fact, I can’t stand him and many of those preachers who seek attention for themselves, well I’ll just stop here before I make everyone mad on this post… it’s 2009, we have a better biblical understanding on a lot of issues because of the laborers who have went before us, new issues and false doctrines have risen, the 1689 confession is lacking in “MANY” areas, enough already, make a new confession with some of the few Godly pastors that are left out there!
2) Be doers of the Word in equality with our study of it. Too much studying/personal development and not enough laboring. Most of these churches just sit around all Sunday (and the rest of the week), talk about worldly things, and wonder why the neighbors don’t come and visit? I fall short in this area, but it is time for us to collectively get off the computers, pray, be mature people of God, and make disciples.
3) Updated Biblical Music – The Trinity Hymnal is great, and I love it, but once again, it is not 1689. Now I am not saying that we should start playing K-love or that false gospel popular music, but isn’t there someone out there with a Guitar or something who can write biblical, God honoring, God exalting worship music?
4) We don’t pray earnestly enough for the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest – Matthew 9:38
5) Most pastors who throw around the 1689 confession on their church’s website first do not know or understand the confession (the Bible that is), and secondly, they have no business bearing the office of Elder.
Just some quick random thoughts?
In Christ,
Benjamin
August 10th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
(I would download the paper, but it blocks me unless I sign up for scribd, give my email address, etc. It would be nice if you could just post it at your site.)
My comments were intended just as testimony from one man’s experience. We made the teachings clear and attractive. We tried to be winsome. I think we were loving. Several people joined and loved the teaching. But what then caused those visitors who left to leave? The biggest factor by far was that we held to and actually taught the doctrines of grace. No complaints there about love, friendliness, Christian deportment, etc. Rather, it was this: “I believe in free will.” A few did not stay because they wanted more programs for the kids, or they thought singing hymns was too dull, or they thought we studied the Bible too much (!). All these people are going to leave. When planting a church, you have to be prepared for this and plan for it. Know that they will go. But they are not the reason you are planting the church. There are others.
You said, regarding the idea that our doctrines are an obstacle: “But that sounds to me like a problem with us, rather than the world.” You are greatly mistaken there. Our doctrines are not our own invention. I was talking about simply presenting certain doctrines accurately, fairly, and properly, such as unconditional election—included among all the other rich content of sound Bible teaching that we present. In the end, there is no way to revise such doctrines to avoid the parts that offend—without being unfaithful to God. It is not merely poor expression that offends the unbeliever. The doctrinal content itself (even expressed perfectly and with maximal possible appeal) offends the natural man. Most teachers who have much experience have witnessed this phenomenon first hand. The non-elect will not ever accept the gospel, no matter how you dress it up. Overall, the world’s rejection is not adequately explained by failings and imperfections on our part. Only sometimes can we say that sin by Christians causes unbelievers to blaspheme or speak evil of the way.
I certainly agree that we should adorn the gospel by conducting ourselves in a godly and loving manner. But you then shift to this point: “Our focus has not been to make people Calvinists or reformed, but to make them followers of Jesus and of His word.” I find this turn of thought strange; it suggests that you do not understand Calvinism. “Calvinism” is just a shorthand label for a set of doctrines that are in God’s Word—doctrines that highlight God’s grace in salvation. If you think teaching unconditional election is about “making people Calvinists”, i.e., just getting them to adopt a label, then you are confused. The point of teaching the doctrines of grace is to clarify the gospel—that salvation is entirely of grace. This offends the natural man, because it undermines his sinful pride. If you do NOT focus on this, you are actually avoiding making grace clear to people. This is in effect cloaking the Cross. We do not have the option as preachers of God’s Word to choose to avoid teaching such points as unconditional election: it is our DUTY to God—just as Paul taught this in Romans, in the same letter where he introduces them to the *basics* of sin, justification, and the gospel. Moreover, to turn from these doctrines to emphasizing that people should be “followers of Jesus” sounds like a grave mistake to me. The gospel is NOT: “follow Jesus”. To follow Jesus is to do what he commands, follow his teachings and example, etc. The gospel is: “believe in Jesus” (in short). That is, there is a critical distinction between “follow” and “believe in”. I hear the old mistake of liberalism, turning the gospel into an ethic (cf. Machen, What Is Faith). Of course, we should teach *believers* to follow Jesus, but the context here was attracting unbelievers—they need the gospel.
I was not saying we should not try to plant (RB) churches. On the contrary, we should try harder and harder. We need more qualified men who can teach well, who will be willing to do the work. There are people who have ears to hear, and they will appreciate and love the truth. Others will come for the “free food” (so to speak; cf. John 6), but leave later when they hear something they do not want to hear (as in John 6).
Planting a church involves a lot more than turning heads and getting some visitors. The emphasis here seems to be on attracting new people to visit. Well, that is always an obvious necessity, if one has any interest at all in winning people to Christ and growing the church. I suppose there probably are many churches that lose sight of this. But the bigger danger in our age seems to be increasing unfaithfulness among those who call themselves evangelical Christians. We need men who can discern sound teaching from falsehood, who will do the work, even imperfectly, and teach people assiduously, even one-by-one, to help them understand the truth.
August 10th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Sorry, my reply was specifically to Matt Troupe, but I forget to insert “@Matt”.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
@Smith
Thanks for your thoughtful remarks. A couple of things.
First, I added another way to download the paper from my site that you can use without using scribed. There are not requirements to submit information. you can find it here:
http://matttroupe.blogspot.com/2009/07/another-way-to-access-research-paper.html
Regarding the doctrines of grace and the world’s offense, I think you misunderstood me. What I was trying to communicate was this: if preaching the truth is hard and results in resistance from the world and difficulty in planting churches and we respond by decreasing our efforts at planting or give up, then the problem is with us. We should always expect darkness from the world. The world is wrong for hating the savior, but we are wrong if we run from the battle because of that.
I think I see the point that you are trying to make about the doctrines of grace. The gospel is a gospel of grace, and rightly understood these glorious doctrines enhance our understanding of the truth and comfort through Christ. But I do not believe that “the five points of Calvinism” is the gospel, per se. You can believe the five points and have no love or faith in God, and you can have saving faith in Jesus and be ignorant of the reformed faith. We must first bring people to faith in Christ by making them disciples. Any teaching that we bring to new disciples has its real value as we fulfill part 2 of the Great Commission. New disciples are messy. Their lives are full of the effects of brokenness and sin. And their growth in grace and knowledge is often slow, just like it has been in our lives. If people have an attachment to the person of Jesus as their risen Lord then all of the other things take their rightful place growing out of that. If they are not first of all amazed by the glory of Jesus, then learning doctrine will just make them proud and ingrown.
I am not recommending “turning” from any biblical doctrine, just making sure that we do not make an advanced understanding of theology synonymous with the gospel. The pages of scripture are full of ignorant and unlearned people who became sincere followers of Jesus. I know a lot of people who can articulate the sovereignty of God who do not live according to the light they have, they are not doing a good job living as Christians. I know that no one is celebrating that, I am just suggesting that there is something more important than understanding the doctrine, it is loving God first as a result of an experience of His grace..
It concerns me greatly to think that you would have a problem with using the Biblical language of the great commission when discussing the implementation of that command. Perhaps you are simply concerned with others who are hiding behind that language to avoid the rest of scripture. However, we are called to make disciples who will be followers of Jesus. And though I agree with you about “the spirit of the age” and the dangers of compromise, I think that our dangers as RB’s is not compromise but over-reaction. I don’t (personally) know of one “reformed” church that is compromising the truth. I know lots of them that have buried the candle under the lampstand, and then try to justify it theologically. It sounds like you have a different sort of heart, and I am thankful for that. I think we face a great danger if we allow our fear of compromise to lead us to soften the demands of Jesus regarding the Great Commission.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:36 am
@Matt:
Brother, thank you for trying to clarify things. Thank you also for making the paper more easily available. Bob G. also got a copy to me, and I am reading it. My reply here, though, will focus just on your last post. To aid clarity, I will enumerate.
1. I agree completely that we should not give up trying, even if many people depart or oppose us on account of the doctrines of grace or any other Biblical truth. That was also, in a way, my original point. We need more men who will *stick* to the work, even supporting themselves when necessary. My experience has shown me that the perseverance of the planter-pastor can be determinative of the long-term success of the undertaking.
2. It appears, though, that we disagree on something profoundly important: the role of doctrine with respect to the gospel and salvation. I hold that doctrine is not merely something that enhances the understanding of Christians: it is a necessary part of the gospel. In fact, the gospel is a doctrine. Until a person believes in the truth affirmed in the doctrine, the person is not saved. Growth in Christian life follows belief according to the doctrine. Doctrine is unto holiness (as Hodge would say).
I stress this because of some of your expressions, which seem backwards:
a) “We must first bring people to faith in Christ by making them disciples.” No, it’s the other way around: we make people disciples by bringing them to faith. It is impossible to make a person a disciple unless the person comes to faith in Christ according to the true doctrine of the gospel.
b) “If people have an attachment to the person of Jesus as their risen Lord then all of the other things take their rightful place growing out of that.” No, attachment to Jesus follows after a person has saving faith according to the doctrine of the gospel. “Attachment” is another way of referring to a kind of love. True love for Christ is impossible until a person has saving faith in Christ as his Lord and Savior, according to the doctrine.
c) “If they are not first of all amazed by the glory of Jesus, then learning doctrine will just make them proud and ingrown.” No, apart from learning the doctrine, it is impossible for someone to be amazed by the glory of Jesus. And the more doctrine, the greater the amazement. Of course, a person must *sincerely* believe in the truths of the doctrine. The thing you seem to fear is the hypocrisy of an insincere claim to believe, when a person is merely cognizant of the doctrine and declines to apply it to himself. I agree with you against that—but that is a matter of sincerity. It is not the right solution to reverse the place of doctrine.
d) “I know a lot of people who can articulate the sovereignty of God who do not live according to the light they have….” Right, they can *articulate* the doctrine, but are they actually believing in it with the heart? Obviously not, at least at that time. The problem is not with the doctrine—or “too much doctrine”. The problem is not enough doctrine, not clear enough exposition of it, not enough application of it, etc.
e) “I am just suggesting that there is something more important than understanding the doctrine, it is loving God first as a result of an experience of His grace.” No, there is no experience of his saving grace without first understanding doctrine. There is no loving God without knowing his grace, through understanding and believing according to the doctrine. More doctrine will help stimulate and grow love for God.
Permit me to recommend reading J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? (Banner of Truth), as well as Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism. Every Christian should read these books at least once every year (so said my pastor). I am basically rehearsing ideas Machen explains in greater depth and clarity.
3. All of this also relates to the doctrines of grace. For example, I have known certain people to claim to be Christians, love Jesus, and be zealous for the kingdom, who nevertheless hold that a saved person can lose his salvation. In these particular cases, the people, when asked about it, expressed such a confidence in their own ability, their own worthiness, and their own works to keep them saved, i.e., to get them into heaven, that it was pretty clear that they did not understand salvation by grace. Their trust, as well as one can discern such things, was in themselves rather than Christ, specifically with regard to attaining heaven. Now, is the fifth point of TULIP irrelevant? Are they “disciples”, only not yet saved? (!) Would it help to teach them to “follow Jesus”? (That’s what they were telling us!)
Similarly, it is not uncommon from someone to agree that “everyone is a sinner”, without acknowledging the true depth of his own sinfulness. In other words, the person holds back some claim to partial goodness. It is *impossible* for such a person to believe in Christ savingly, because he cannot understand the Cross aright. Or, using labels, he denies the T in TULIP, at least in its essential core.
And what of L in TULIP? Can a person be saved who does not have some faith in Christ as the atoning Lamb of God, whose blood *actually propitiated* his sins, as his substitute *personally and individually*? If he believes that Christ’s death merely makes it possible, in a general way, for him to save himself by his free will, in what is he really trusting?
It is not that we preach TULIP as such, as the gospel. But the doctrines of grace—and other doctrines—inform the preaching and teaching of the gospel, giving us discernment to apply the appropriate antidote to self-trust. Of course, getting people to recite the doctrines without believing and applying them is useless or worse. It is axiomatic that all divinely given doctrine must be taught so as to be believed sincerely from the heart. (Cf. Walter Chantry, The Gospel: Authentic or Synthetic?)
4. All right, I grant you that saying “the gospel is not ‘follow Jesus’” may sound wrong if you take it out of the context in which I am speaking. I would say that different expressions highlight different aspects of the gospel. The Great Commission says we are to “make disciples” (not exactly synonymous with “follow Jesus”). The first step to becoming a disciple is faith in Christ. And *repentance* from a life of sin is inseparable from saving faith, and that involves an inner turning from self toward obedience to Christ. We should call the lost to repent in this way. In that sense, “follow Him.” Yet, the practical, moral injunctions that comprise “following Jesus” are addressed to Christians, i.e., are intended for those who have saving faith in Christ. We should not give unbelievers the impression that they are following Jesus or can do so, unless they repent and believe.
I apologize for the length of this. I will stop here. I did not mean to make a debate of it.
Thanks.
Scobie
August 13th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Scobie,
thanks for the discussion and the ability to interact on some of these things. Your comments have given me an opportunity to think more deeply on some of these questions and I hope that we can edify one another. I do think that all truth is a form of “doctrine,” and as such the gospel is a kind of “doctrine.” So no one can be saved apart from doctrine in that sense. It is the truth that sets us free. All truth is important, and we should preach it. However, I am really speaking about a fully developed understanding of doctrine. A person does not have to have a complete understanding of the truth to be saved, and it sounds like you would put a greater requirement on that account than I believe the scripture does.
For instance you said, “the person holds back some claim to partial goodness. It is *impossible* for such a person to believe in Christ savingly, because he cannot understand the Cross aright.” I would disagree. People are saved by simple faith in Christ-which involves some understanding of truth, and some sense of their sinfulness and need. But it can be a very basic understanding like the woman at the well, or the Philippian Jailer, or Zaccheus, the woman caught in adultery, or the blind man in John 9. I don’t think any new believer is completely stripped of a sense of their own goodness before they are saved, or that understanding all the Christ did on the cross is prerequisite to salvation. I believe that God is still continuing to strip me of a sense of my pride and self-righteousness day by day, and I have been saved for almost 20 years. That is part of Christian maturity, and it is not a precondition for salvation.
We should preach the doctrine of sin, and the cross and explain it as fully as we can. But the gospel is not, “believe that you are totally depraved, and then believe in a full understanding of the atonement and you shall be saved.” The classic explanation of the gospel in I Corinthians 15:1-3 is “threadbare” by the kind of standard you seem to be proposing. Perhaps there may even be a bit of pride in our own hearts when we estimate just how much we think we know. Remember how long it has taken us to arrive at our current position, and how much further we have to go.
There are numerous examples of people who had very little understanding the truth and yet were saved. A few simple words of scripture can be the means of saving a soul. Around the world, there are very few Christians with access to the kind of well-developed theology that you are speaking about. Many of them cannot read or spell atonement let alone give a full explanation of it. Some do not have any Bible’s at all. And yet they do know a little about Christ and they love and serve him, and often suffer more than you or I ever will. It is their faith, love and attachment to Jesus that makes them willing to show a labor of love and work for the gospel. I do think that an artificially inflated understanding of what it takes to make a person a Christian can be a hindrance to evangelism. Because instead of believing that a person with as much truth as the thief on the cross can be saved, we may be presenting some expanded understanding of truth that keeps us from explaining the gospel in the simplest of terms. And I can speak from experience. In the past I have been guilty of trying to get people to believe in election, or limited atonement before they were even Christians.
August 13th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
BTW, I would like to mention that I am not arguing against doctrine, or for a “least common denominator” christianity. I am suggesting that we don’t try to give birth to teenagers. We should aim to give birth to infants that will later grow in grace.
August 14th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Matt said, “I am suggesting that we don’t try to give birth to teenagers.”
Amen. You can’t feed a baby a steak!
August 14th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Matt, I appreciate your comments very much and rejoice that some RB pastors are starting to grasp these things.
I used to think that unless you embraced Calvinism, you could not be saved. I was a very rigid, immature RB for several years until God graciously opened my heart. We must ever keep at the forefront of our thinking that *Jesus* saves sinners–not the correct belief in a certain number of propositional truths.
There are a few problems we face as far as I see it:
1.) In some cases, we act as if coming to Christ and coming to RB distinctives is one and the same thing. They are not.
2.) We do not focus enough on reaching the communities our churches are in. Furthermore, we do not engage in many good works that we can do in those communities to adorn the gospel. As one brother told me long ago, “the church isn’t a soup kitchen.” That’s true, it’s not, but the church ought to serve those in need–physical needs as well as spiritual. Remember, Jesus fed the 5,000 as well as preached to them.
3.) We spend more time trying to convince other Christians to come to our churches than we do trying to persuade the lost to come to Christ.
4.) We are rigid and dogmatic about matters in which there is room for Christians to disagree (e.g. we must have an evening service, we must sing this kind of hymn, we must wear shirt and tie, etc.)
5.) We are not very well read outside of RB circles. We don’t properly understand the positions of other Christians on various matters, and therefore we are ungracious toward them (even questioning whether or not they are Christians). In some cases we have become myopic and ingrown and judge all of Christianity from within the walls of our particular church. That is why many RB churches have no relationship whatsoever with any other non-reformed local church.
6.) We are just plain old prideful about our grasp of doctrine. We should be humble about what we believe and not think that we have it all figured out. We can learn a lot from other Christians.
7.) We should remove unnecessary hinderances or obstacles that may keep some people from coming to our churches. Many times, we don’t get a hearing because our sermons are too long for modern sensibilities (for example). However, we will refuse to shorten them to 40 minutes or so (which I think is a more acceptable time frame in our culture. Spurgeon agrees, by the way, and that was in the 19th C) because, well, we preach for an hour around here!
8.) Our pastors need to stop referring to RBs as “real” or “serious” Christians and speaking of other Christians in derogatory ways. This is bad grass for the sheep to eat, especially the young ones. As Tim Keller once said while quoting one of his seminary professors, “You can be thoroughly orthodox and gracious at the same time”
Thanks for your labors and insights. Keep at it, brother! May God bless you…
August 14th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Raja, thanks for your encouragements. I would love to communicate with you further. Can you please email me some time. metroupe@gmail.com
thanks
August 14th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Brother Raja
I believe you have outlined very accurately the kind of things that we as RB’s need to understand and address in our ranks if we would be truly faithful to the Lord and usueful too. It never ceases to amaze me how threatened some of us get when we bring these things up…..brothers let us humble ourselves and consider what God wants us to learn in these opportune days for gospel endeavor.
March 11th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
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June 24th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Dear Bob and so many others!
I have been a missionary and church planter since 1993 and have always seen my responsibility in God’s work as being to glorify Him in this world by proclaiming His glory to lost sinners and then secondly to glorify Christ in His church by preaching God’s word and encouraging obedience. The second has been the most frustrating of the two.
As a Christian passionate for God’s glory among the nations, I have cried and prayed for many years to see God’s church standing up to the challenge of church planting! As we are called to disciple and not only to evangelize, I am more than ever convinced that church planting is essential to any church’s endeavour to obey Christ’s commands regarding our mission.
Up until very recently Reformed Baptists have been very slow to respond to this need, as you have mentioned in the article. There might be several reasons for this, but I think one reason might be the fact that there are thousands of little RB groups scattered all over the world who do not see the possibility to plant churches because maybe they do not have the resources, the finances, the men, the know-how and maybe even not the faith to do so!
I would so much like to see Reformed Baptist pastors coming together with this one purpose: ‘How are we going to make this happen?’
‘Here we are God, send us?!’
I would love to make contact with some of you on this issue. I am currently involved in planting a church in Germany.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Andre