No Interest in Success

“Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” (1st Corinthians 1:20)

There is nothing more detrimental to the Lord’s church than to bring into it the world’s thinking. In the first few chapters of 1st Corinthians, the Apostle Paul does what he can to kick carnal thinking, and secular philosophy to the curb; for such has no place inside the Lord’s assembly.

That being said, we have seen both the trend and the debate over the last decade or so pertaining to “worldliness” in the church. (Which really has been going on since the first century.) More particularly the lines of demarcation and discussion have had to do with the manners and practices of Sunday services! “We have to change to be relevant” on one side, and “we cannot change in order to be faithful” on the other. While we are tired of this same old discussion and debate the division has not gone away, and the deterioration of the church landscape is picking up steam.

In one corner of the ring we find those who cannot discern between truth and tradition, and so in the spirit of “preserving the faith,” and honest fear of error freeze their comfortable preferences in time. They then have the tendency to guard them with the dogs of war, until churches begin to close like pig farms in Israel.

In the other corner we find those who cannot discern between truth and tradition and so in the spirit of “staying up-to-date” and relevant, change every practice they can find older than last week. In so doing, we witness “churches” turning the worship service into an entertainment hour, and the music ministry into a professional competition to see who can be the most cutting edge, and the most “authentic, organic, intrinsic, forensic” to society. The philosophy has gone like this; “The more they like what they see, the more will come, and the more that come, will obviously be more people we can reach for Christ!”

The problem is the same on both sides of the issue. Neither one makes any effort to discern between truth and tradition. Furthermore, one side sees nobility in denigrating tradition, while the other side sees nobility in venerating tradition. Ultimately, no one has the same view of tradition, harpooned on one side, and frozen in time on the other. Both present themselves to be “loyal to the truth.” This is not my point, but contention will always exist until there is agreement on the lines of demarcation between truth and tradition. Which is not likely.

What’s even worse is when we somehow use the “size of our congregations” to justify both sides of the ministry. The “larger, obviously the more successful.” – The “smaller, obviously the more pure.” The larger, “we are obviously more evangelistic”; The smaller, “obviously we’re the more studious.” – and we could go on, and on, and on….

As I understand things, the entire discussion is nothing more than a snipe hunt that both distracts and divides. I don’t like to be distracted, and I prefer not to be divided. But there are several things I have learned in the 30 years of ministry the Lord has given me, and I wish I had learned them early.

I no longer care about being “successful.”

I’m not interested in what “works.”

I have no desire for our society to like our Sundays; or Wednesdays for that matter.

They are not my audience…….. and they are not the audience of the church.

The church that the Lord has let me pastor now for over 15 years, has ebbed and flowed, and ebbed and flowed. We have doubled, and shrunk, doubled and shrunk, and doubled and Covid. We have been through seasons where we were seeing salvations and baptisms weeks on end. We have been through seasons where we had to sweep the cobwebs out of the baptistry. We have the screens, technology, and “up-to-date” beautiful facilities. We have an ensemble of musicians on Sundays. (Guitars, drums, winds, piano, organ) We sing hymns, we sing contemporary. I wear suits and ties; and then I don’t. We have Sunday School. We meet Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights with different Bible studies, and discipleship classes meeting at various times in the week. We don’t even take up an offering anymore. The majority of our church is between 30 and 50, and the majority of the leftovers is in their 20s. We’re larger than we used to be, and smaller than we’d like to be, but the 200 barrier seems to be a real thing. (that’s something they used to tell us in days gone by.)

Having said all of that, I’ll say this, and our people, (young and old) will verify, we have no interest in whether or not people are “attracted” to our worship service. They are not our audience. The fact is that we have one objective on Sundays, and one only. To please the Lord.

Yes, I will preach the gospel, because the gospel is in the Bible, and I preach the Bible. The reality is, if I understand our Lord correctly; the majority of professions of faith are false. Therefore it is no coincidence that Paul told Timothy as he pastored to do the work of an evangelist. For it is a fact that many times we wind up needing to evangelize our own church members.

The object of our worship on Sundays is the Lord. The work of our church through the week is the lost. The summary statement of our ministry to help people keep our work focus – “To see Lost People saved and to see Saved people Serious!”

As I continue to grow in the ministry I find myself far less interested in outcomes, and far more interested in faithfulness. We don’t ask if something works, we ask is it right? The reality is that by man’s standards, what is right doesn’t always seem to “work.” We have to recognize that we have no idea what it means for something to work, because we cannot actually see what is truly being accomplished. No pastor has any idea about the size of his church; the very most he can do is tell the size of his congregation.

When things are as they should be, we do our work to bring the lost to Jesus during the week. Sometimes we’re good at it, sometimes we’re not. The majority of professions of faith that we see do not happen on Sunday, though some have. Our church has various “town-touching” ministries throughout the week that sometimes brings fruit, sometimes does not. However when we come to corporate worship on Sunday, I fully expect the lost to be very uncomfortable in the house of the Lord. For they will not know the comforts of Christ, until they know the uncomfortable conviction of His presence. If the Lord is not here on Sundays it doesn’t matter if the lost are. Christ never sinned to win anyone, and the first love of the church is always to be the Lord Himself.

I also fully expect the saved to be serious in their worship. There is nothing wrong with nice lighting, and appealing music. However it never makes the gospel more effective. If the Spirit is only in the “appealing ambiance” of the sanctuary, rest assured it isn’t the Holy Spirit.

Here is where rubber meets the road. When the Spirit of God and the Word of God meet together in the heart of man divine things happen. The genre of music, the ambiance of the sanctuary, the “relevance to society” cannot manufacture something that real or true. When God’s Spirit and Word meet together in a lost man, they don’t stay that way. When God’s Spirit and Word meet together in a saved man, they don’t stay the same. There is no substitute or improvement to such a plan.

The real work in these issues, is honestly discerning which changes are worthy to be making.