Welcome back to Christian leaders Institute. I'm John Kenny. And today we're going to be diving into some more underlying causes that bringing about decline in churches and ministries and our previous lecture, we just wrapped up and we were talking about how the love of God can grow cold. And really, how that can just really dry up everything in a very lifeless experience. So, today, in this lecture, we're gonna hit two more, and boy are these common? Well, a lot of churches are gonna, a lot of people, you're gonna watch this and say, Boy is this us. And so, let's pray. And let's jump right into this and see what God has for us today. Lord Jesus, we turn to you for wisdom and direction. Lord, I pray also for a humble spirit. That as we hear these words, Lord, you might identify in us places in our own hearts where we have succumb to these things. And, Lord, help us to see where they are in and willing to Lord, to do something about it. We pray this in Your name, amen. Okay, so let's talk about a couple more underlying causes for church decline. The first one we'll talk about today is, traditionalism. I don't know if you've ever seen the stories on the news where there will be like a massive hurricane coming into like Florida, or something, you know, a gulf coast area or along the Carolina coast, and somebody like has a house, right on the beach, or, you know, right in right where the hurricane is gonna hit. And everybody is forced to evacuate because of this pending, you know, huge storm is gonna wipe everything out. And there's always like a few people who refuse to move, they refuse to get out of the way. And it doesn't matter that there's a, you know, 40 foot wall of water, and 150 mile an hour winds coming, they refuse to move, and they just stay there. And unfortunately, sadly, some of those people, they they don't survive, because they were just, they were unwilling to move from where they were. There's a similar thing that happened back in 1980, when there was a huge volcanic eruption here in the United States, mountain St. Helens, and there was a person who lived not far from the base of the mountains, and was told to get out, you have to move out, the volcano's gonna blow and the person just absolutely just refused to move. And sure enough, Mount St. Helens blew, and the person was killed really needlessly. All they had to do was get in their car and drive away to a safe spot. Well, the reason I share that those illustrations is because today when we talk about traditionalism, we're talking about churches that refuse to move churches that are like, so dug in, it's like, I don't care what's happening. I don't care, like we are not doing anything we are here to, you know, stay input. Now, the problem with that, now, certainly if we have those, that steadfastness in our in our beliefs about who God is, and then the gospel and the truth of God's word, like that's a very good thing. But when it's about how we do church, it's deadly. I'm going to be referencing throughout this lecture and a wonderful book done by Thom Rainer called autopsy of a deceased church and, and he, in this book, he outlines a number of things that are common underlying causes. And for for Thom Rainer, who studies this, you know, night and day for him. Traditional traditionalism is the number one killer of churches, and you would define traditionalism is this, a church that is firmly committed to living in the past. Now, I'm not talking about tradition, like a traditional style of worship or traditions at a church has but a mentality that really wants to kind of go back in the past, and their solution is is to, is to return to the way something was that all the answers can be found in the past. So, in my church, as you know, I've struggled greatly my first few years there and the church was half the size less than half the size, it was, you know, just 10 years previous, but it was even far smaller than that, and where the church was in the 1950s, and the 1960s, and even early 1970s. And so I had an older member of the congregation who had been there during the 50s, and 60s. And they came up to me, and they knew that I was trying to do revitalization, and they knew I was trying to, you know, bring some things back. And they were just agreeing with the way I was going about it. And they said, I know just what we need to do. And at that point, I was like, I'll take any suggestion, any idea. And the person said, what we need to do is, say the Apostle's Creed every Sunday during worship, because back in the 1950s, and 60s, when this place was kind of standing room only, we used to say the Apostle's Creed, every Sunday in worship. And so in that person's mind, that was like the thing. And if we would just do that, if we would just say the Apostle's Creed, you know, we'd have to, you know, make the doors wider because everybody would be be piling in. Now, obviously, I had to remind them that things were not that easy. If they were every church in the world would be saying the Apostle's Creed, each week in worship, and that I tried to get them to think that perhaps that wasn't the reason perhaps there were other things at play at why the Apostle's Creed in of itself was not the reason. It'd be like saying, you know, when the colonies won the Revolutionary War, they used muskets, and they had cannons drawn around by horses. So the next time the United States gets in a war, we should use muskets, and we should get horses and to drag around cannons. Things that fit, you know, tiny, tiny things change, things change. And it's not as simple as let's kind of make a time machine. Let's travel back and reclaim something it doesn't work that way. In his book, The autopsy of a deceased church, Thom Rainer writes about this widespread devastating impact that people have about traditionalism of like we are staying put in the past. And what we see here, let me just read this quote for you. The most pervasive and common thread of our autopsies was that the deceased churches lived for a long time with the past, as a hero, they held on more tightly with each progressive year, they often clung to things of the past, with desperation, and fear. And when any internal or external force tried to change the past, they responded with anger and resolution, we will die before we change. And they did. So, traditionalism this holding on to the past really, it's motivated by desperation, fear and anger. And I really, I think, Rainer hits the nail on the head with that is my experience in my church and in other churches, that it's fear, we have to go back into this cocoon and, and we're angry at the world and angry at anybody who's trying to make any changes. Now, ironically, in an attempt to hang on what once gave life to the church, the congregation engages in a process that leads to inevitable death by trying to cling to the thing that once gave life, you are almost guaranteeing a certain death. You know, everything that we do in churches now, no matter how old the tradition is, no matter how old the practices. It was once a new thing. You know, like an organ was once a new thing and was actually highly contested. Because it was they thought it was too worldly, saying, you know, Creed's or starting a ministry. You know, some ministry that's been around forever. That's just like, hanging on by a by a thread. You know, one time that got started and was vibrant. But by trying to hang on to these things, you know, we're really ensuring that we will never move into the future. So the real problem here is with traditionalism is an unwillingness, this is a stubborn unwillingness to address current issues and make necessary changes. And that's so important because the church you have now is not the church that was on his mind that was there in 1965. Our town is different, our country is different. The members of our church are different. We have a few people leftover, but we have different gifts. We have different abilities, we have different needs. We're a different size, we have different resources, and but trying to go back and say, but this is what we need to be. We can say, in all honesty. We're not that church anymore. We're not that people anymore. We don't live in that world anymore. So the difficulty here is people are just so resistant to making different kinds of changes. So a few years ago, somebody asked me, a fellow pastor asked me to write my testimony about going through revitalization. And what we had done and the the impact it had, because he was trying to get his church to go through a somewhat similar process. So I wrote it, it was just like a page and a half or two pages. And I gave it to him. And a week later, he sent it back. And he said, Would you be willing to rewrite it? And I thought, Well, like I was like, I'm not sure like, what what do you mean, what do you want me to rewrite it? And he said that within the page and a half, maybe like five or six times, I had used the word change. And that word in itself, he said, nobody's going to the first time you say the word change, he's like, My people are gonna stop listening. So he's like, is there a way you can rewrite all of this, and not use the word change. So I ended up having to, like, get out of thesaurus. And try to figure out other ways that I could say change without saying the word change. I mean, that's how that is how stuck in the mud stuck in the past this church was that, even if they read the word change, it was like, you know, the wall went up. And we don't want to have anything to do with this. So let me say like, I'm not the kind of person who likes change just for the sake of change. So where I live, the big store in town where we do all our grocery shopping, and pharmacy and pickup odds and ends and stuff like that the big store in our town, they're doing this massive remodel. And everything in the store is like now like in a different area, and it's all switched around. And I've been in that store probably four or five times a week for the last 12 years. I knew where absolutely everything in that store is, well, the last month or so when I go in, I don't know where anything is. And I'm just wandering around in circles. And I get frustrated, because it's like, I could have been in and out of here in five minutes. Now it's taking me 20 minutes, because I can't find anything. And it's like, why did they have to change? You know, it was perfectly good the way it was for the last 12 years. And I'm sure that the church or the store, they had their reasons, maybe they could get more items on the shelves, or maybe they just wanted the store to look nicer, or it was a faster way that they could stock things and need less labor. And I don't know, I'm sure they had their reasons, because they're spending an awful lot of money on making these changes. So like I get it like I don't like change just for the sake of change. But But change is necessary. It is I mean, this is an old expression, the only thing that is constant is change. And the world is changing the way that people think is changing. We live in a digital age. We live in a world where images are our primary way of communicating rather than even words. The way people feel is changing. The way we communicate is changing. The things we value are changing. The way we spend our time is changing the way we spend our money is changing. We have to be aware of all of these things and, and what worked yesterday or a decade ago or 30 years ago, is not necessarily going to work today. In our church, we're in a downtown location. And for many, many years, I mean, like 40 or 50 years, our church had a community, Good Friday service. And there was a couple of Catholic churches in town that would have a Good Friday service, but our church, we were the only Protestant church in town that had a Good Friday service. Excuse me. So what we did was invite different pastors and different singers and soloists to come to the Good Friday service. And in our downtown area, all the businesses shut down for an hour over lunch, so all the business people and their employees could come to the church service. Well, as time went on, more and more Protestant churches began to have their own services. And so involvement became less than less. And as time went on, the community, the downtown businesses, they stayed open. And they didn't close down for an hour or an hour and a half, on Good Friday. And this went on and on and on. until like, every church in town had a Good Friday service. And we could just, we could never find any other pastors to help out. We couldn't find any other singers or worship people to help out with it. Because they were already busy with their own stuff. And then people were less and less inclined to come because they couldn't get off of work and all that stuff. Because was in the middle of that it was at noon, it was over lunch. And then finally, we got to a point where like, we just stopped doing it, because things had changed so much. So hardly anybody was coming. And we, we couldn't get it. What, what, and when it started back in the 50s, or 60s, it was great. There was a need for it. Everybody was involved, and it fit perfectly. Well. By the time we got to 2015, the world had changed so much, and so did the churches that in some ways, it kind of became like irrelevant to try to do a community kind of service like that. And we just decided we're not going to do this anymore. We'll try something else that is going to fit into what, what the world and where our church is right now. Instead of saying, No, this is the way we've done it, we have to keep doing it. We can't pull the plug on this, because we've been doing this for for so long. But let's think about this. What does the Scripture say? What does scripture say? Hebrews 11:13-16. This is the writer of Hebrews talking about the people of the Old Testament, and how they went and they lived by faith kind of always looking ahead to like the promises of God. They themselves didn't receive it. But they were always had that in mind. And the writer of Hebrews says, All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised, they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on Earth. People who say such things, show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they'd been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had an opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. So what does this passage in Hebrews teach? If you're a pastor or an elder or deacon in your church, I would share this with some people. This is, I think, just a foundational passage for us. It says that the humans of our faiths have always been people who look forward. They were they were looking forward to the promise of God, what God was going to do, they were always in that position of leaning into what was what was coming next. And it said, you know, they were not thinking about the country that they had been in. They were thinking about the country, God was calling them to heroes of the faith look forward. I mean, we can even think of the Israelites when they got out of Egypt. You know, there were a couple people who said, Oh, God Got this promised land, let's go. Let's embrace it, let's move into that. But a lot of the people were saying, let's go back to Egypt, even though it was the land of slavery, they were like, Whoa, let's go back there. We know that we're, we're familiar with that we're, we're comfortable with that. And people like, No, God has called you to something so much better. We got to just keep going, you know, let's forge a new path. Let's, let's just follow God wherever He leads. Heroes of faith look forward. Now, does that mean we throw out the past? We disregard it, we, we nullify it, we minimize it? No, of course not. That's why earlier on I had you do or I encourage you to do study of your history, to learn about it to, to find things to celebrate, to point towards, that you can share and you can learn from it. My friend, Pastor mentor, Harry Reeder, who I've mentioned already, in these lectures, has just a wonderful quote from his embassy of flame ministry. And Harry says, we learn from the past, in order to live in the present, so that the church can change the future. I love that, quote, I'm gonna say it again, it's so good. It's worth saying twice. Harry says, learn from the past, in order to live in the present, so that the church can change the future. I really, really embrace this, this teaching, we don't want to forget that what's done before us. And we don't want to pretend like we're the first Christians who've ever walked around here. And the churches have been waiting for our generation to show to do something. Now we have this glorious, rich history that through that precedes us. And that really helps us to understand how to do ministry today and go into the, into the future. So my church is nearly 170 years old. And what we do is we look at key strategic parts in the history of our church, where they went out on faith and they did something new. Well, that new thing they did is now like 100 years old, but the thinking behind it, the faith behind it that's the thing that we want to grab onto, because 100 years ago, they were leading into the future. And in the same way, that's really what we need to be not necessarily follow exactly the thing they did, but but the heart behind it, the trust and the faith in the Lord that went into that decision. And not just get stuck on the form of what it particularly was. Okay, so, traditionalism, man is that a big one that is huge. And really, that is a sin that needs to get deep roots, and we have got to deal with that and just head on, I don't know any other way. I don't think we dance around traditionalism. Now the next one we talked about, again, the love of God going cold, we talked about traditionalism. Now the next one is a kind of a close cousin to traditionalism. And it is called preference driven. And what I want to do is just kind of define that for you and define the difference between personal preferences and biblical absolutes. And this is a distinction that was taught to me by a wonderful pastor, Bob Bouwer, who is in Indiana, at Faith Reformed Church. And he led his church through a tremendous revitalization really a miraculous kind of turnaround. And he has a book called U turn. That's excellent. And one of the chapters in it. Bob and his co author, Kevin Harney. Talk about personal preferences and biblical absolutes. And personal preference is something that you like it, just as it describes, it's something you prefer something you want something that you desire. And the biblical absolute is something that the Bible teaches like, This is it. There's no other way. And so Bob talks a lot about that as you're negotiating this process of revitalization with your church and with your leaders to really distinguish between what is it that we have that's a personal preference and what is a biblical absolute. For example, time of worship. Maybe your church has met forever at 9am And we now live in a day in an age where people are saying, you know, people like to sleep in later. And I think maybe we should move our church back to 10 or 10:30. Because that might be something that works better for for people outside the church. Okay. Does the Bible say what time church should be on Sunday morning? No. And so, if people are like, no, it's nine o'clock, it's always been nine o'clock, we're gonna stick to nine o'clock, I like nine o'clock because I can go to church and I can still, you know, tee off by noon or something like that. That's personal preference. So somebody's really pushing for that. Another would be style of music. Man, is this been ever an issue in the church, especially in the American church, between, you know, more traditional hymn, organ led versus praise bands and more modern kinds of music? Does the Bible have a clear word on that? An absolute word on this is the way to worship? What kind of music? No, it doesn't. It really doesn't. I mean, I've joked around with some people in our church, you know that. You can look up in your concordance, the word drum, or you can look up the word organ. And I'll tell you one of those two words, is in the Bible. And one isn't, guess which one is not in the Bible? Yep, you got it, organ. That's not in the Bible. So when people say, Well, this is really the only way to worship or this is the right way to worship. Is that a personal preference? Or is that a biblical absolute? that's totally a personal preference. What is this biblical absolute? Well, that we worship the Lord Jesus Christ in spirit, and in truth, right, and that our worship is guided by the work of Christ on the cross, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, his reign in heaven, his return. Those are the kinds of things that guide and direct our worship, and we do it with sincere glad hearts. Right? So personal preference, biblical absolutes. Another one, I'll say, and these are kind of I'm giving you just worship examples. But it certainly goes beyond that would be, what is acceptable dress to come to church in? Is it a coat and tie? Is it a suit? Is it flip flops and sandals and a T shirt? And what about the people up front? What about the people in the pews? Should the pastor wear a robe or not? And these are all personal preferences. The Bible doesn't say that you have to wear a coat and a tie, to worship. But it also doesn't say you have to be super casual, either. These are just all personal preferences. When it comes to worship, as I just said, like, the Bible is far more concerned with the state of the heart than all these outward things. And all these outward things. If it's a personal preference, like it's got to be negotiable, right? I mean, because if I'm in a church of 100 people, well, I have my personal preference. Well, that means there's 99 others, right? I mean, why do I get my way? You know, why is my does my opinion count more than anybody else's? And why does my opinion, you know, what value to my preferences even has, in the end? How does that even have anything to do with the work of the Kingdom of God? It's something that I like. But what right do I have to now impose that on everybody else? And say, and this is the way it needs to be. This is how it has to be done. So as you think about what are the things that are going on in your church, either things that are divisive, or things that you see as holding you back? I think it's important to sit down with a group of people and to say, are the issues we wrestle with are these personal preferences? And are they biblical absolutes, you know, to really kind of your Bob tells a story that they got a big board, and they wrote down on one side, personal preferences on the other biblical absolutes. And then they said, list all the things that people are troubled by. And they did. And every single one of them there was like, 20, or something. Every single one of them was a personal preference. And he said, that just really changed everybody's heart when they saw gosh, we're not even wrestling, or are fighting against anything biblical. Like it's all about just what we want. And it was just kind of a time of repentance and humbling for that church and God did great things through that. So good question is, is this a personal preference? I'm clinging to or the church is clinging to? Or is this a biblical absolute, and I'm not just putting the finger on the congregation of the people around you. I mean, Pastor, elder deacons ministry leader, is the church built around your personal preferences are perhaps it's your personal preferences that needs to be dealt with. Why this is important. Jesus says this and speaking to the Pharisees, this is Mark 7:8, tells them you have let go of the commands of God, and are holding on to the traditions of men. See, they're holding on to their traditionalism, and they're holding on to their preferences again, traditionalism and preference driven are very, very close. So Jesus says, You've left all the commands of God and you're holding on to instead of the commands of God, you let go of the commands of God. And now you're you're clinging to you're holding on to the traditions of men. Here's the problem, preferences have become idols. Idols, these become idols because we have, we have let go of the things of God in order to embrace the things of Man, that sounds exactly like idol worship. And here's the problem is now Christ is no longer the comfort of my soul. Christ is no longer the object of my worship. But what is my predictable routines, my preferences, the things that I like, those are the things that make me happy. Those are the things that matter, most. I had an experience a few years ago, in our church that really highlighted this and in our sanctuary off to the side, we have an American flag, and it had gotten moved for another event, and that we use it in another room or something, and it hadn't gotten moved back into the sanctuary. And when the following week, we had a little card that was put in our offering, and somebody said, they were so upset, where was the American flag today? And they said, I couldn't worship today, because there was no American flag in here. Okay, is that is preference driven? And it's like, if I can't worship if the flag isn't in here, well, what's really the most important thing? Is that Christ or is the flag. for them. It's the flag. I mean, it's, it's crazy. I mean, all these things and kind of get in the way of, and then we wonder why when the people in churches or feel this way, we say, Boy, I wonder why we're in decline? Well, they love the flag more than they love Jesus. The other thing we have to not only do they become idols, preferences, always exclamation point, underlined, boldface, always, preferences will always drift towards an inward focus. My preferences will always address the needs of me and my family. First, what I like what I want, what I need is going to take precedence over everything else. And we just have to be honest, like I think we're really, really hitting some, some key things that are, are really slowing the church down. I mean, I'm passionate about this, you can I think you can hear it in my voice is the foolishness of this. And an honor is just like the frustration like how did we get to this place where all these other things became more important than the Lord. Now when talking about traditionalism, and preference, preference driven and all this kind of stuff, please hear this, and I don't want you to hear something. I'm not saying listen, I am not saying get rid of everything. I am not saying that. I am not saying pander to the culture, to do whatever it takes. You know, I'm not saying to create a consumer kind of culture in your church. Because you'll be no better off than you are now. I mean, you're just going to exchange one preference driven culture for a another preference driven culture. All you're doing is changing the preferences, but you're not really changing anything else. And that's obviously a waste of time. And I'm certainly not saying do whatever you need to do to drive the numbers up. There is nothing even close to scripture that says anything even remotely like that. All right. What I am saying though, is that you must be willing, as leaders, and then the church to lay down some sacred cows, on the altar of sacrifice, because those sacred cows could very well be inhibiting what the Lord is calling you to do. And those sacred cows have become your idols, they have become your Golden Calves. And until those are dealt with, I don't have much hope for you or me or anyone else, seeking revitalization. And that is why I know we're spending a ton of time we're, after the lecture after this will have already spent the first quarter of this class and we're still on the underlying causes and diagnosing and assessments and figuring things out. Because you have to get this right, you have to figure out what is going on. And you have to, as a leader, help the people in your ministry context, understand it as well and to embrace it, and to own it. And then to, you know, because until then they're never going to do anything about it. It's just going to be you know, lip service or kind of passive non compliance like, well, you can do that I'll shake my head, but I'm not gonna do it, you can do it. But, you know, we want to get beyond that. So when we talk about traditionalism, and preference driven churches, there really is. Our key word for us here in Scripture, and it's just the most fundamental character of the church is that it belongs to Jesus Christ, exclusively, the church belongs to Jesus Christ. And I've had to, at times have more direct conversations with people about this. Think about Jesus Christ, he purchased the church with his blood, he gave his life for it, he is the Bridegroom of it. He is the Lord over it, he rules over it. He is the head of it, he empowers it with His Holy Spirit, He gives it its mission, he is the one who is bringing it to glory. You and I, and everybody else. We do not have one share in the ownership of the Church of Jesus Christ. He is the exclusive ruler, head of the church, we, together we are all beggars, saved by His loving grace. And we have been brought now into His kingdom, to love him to serve him to enjoy him. Right. But when we hold on to personal preferences, all of a sudden this kingdom that we've been brought into by grace, we start to make it about ourselves. It's being like being invited to a birthday party. Okay, and wondering why this other person is getting all the presents, and you're not? How ridiculous about it, because it's not your party. It's, we're honoring, we're celebrating this other person, you know, there's been a few times. With different song choices, people would prefer one thing or another that we are not doing enough of. And my response has been, this is when we start singing about you we'll let you pick the songs. I mean, I mean, I say that jokingly and you know, kind of what a laugh but I think they get the point. We're not singing about you. We're not worshiping you. We're not here to you know, we serve you in brotherly love, but I serve you because primarily, I'm serving Jesus Christ first and foremost as my Lord and Savior. And it's not about us. It just isn't. And when we make that mistake with traditionalism and personal preference, we find ourselves just handcuffed to the past, handcuffed to idols and and we wonder why we're in decline. So I think it's self evident. Let me pray for you. This very direct, tough message I think for some of us to hear, but boy is it needed. So let me pray for you. Lord, thank You for my brothers and sisters watching this, who are in very difficult places, Lord, and they they are in places Lord where traditionalism and preferences are just have such a stronghold. God I pray that you would give them wisdom, how to lead their people through that God I pray that you would break those strongholds. Lord, that your love would triumph over all those things. God give us a heart for each other. Give us a heart for the world that does not know you. And let us be willing to bend, to be flexible, to serve to go, Lord, wherever it is you lead us in ministry, Lord, we just praise your name for your goodness and Your kindness. Amen. All right, well, we've got one more underlying cause we're going to address and I can't wait to dive into that with you. So come back, and we'll get right into that.

Остання зміна: вівторок 2 квітня 2024 07:20 AM