{"id":574,"date":"2010-06-23T12:04:58","date_gmt":"2010-06-23T17:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/?p=574"},"modified":"2010-06-23T12:06:42","modified_gmt":"2010-06-23T17:06:42","slug":"andy-stanley-is-mistaken-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/archives\/574","title":{"rendered":"Andy Stanley Is Mistaken, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

So now that I laid the groundwork for my disagreements in the last post<\/a>, I’ll get into the disagreements themselves.<\/p>\n

In summary, I believe the best way to fulfill the Great Commission isn’t by doing all you can to get the unchurched to show up at church, but rather to get the churched to go out to the unchurched.<\/p>\n

Andy Stanley says that if your church really is passionate about the Great Commission, everything at your church will be centered around making the unchurched feel at home, rather than making the churched feel at home. While I agree with him that church should not be about keeping churched people happy–and that this is what so many churches do–it is equally wrong to make everything about church for the unchurched.<\/p>\n

That would be like saying that we are trying to attract as many children into our home as possible who need adoption, but once they get here, we don’t care about them any longer, nor do we care if they feel at home or not. We’re just constantly looking for more children to adopt, so we’re going to make our family as appealing as we can to outside children who have yet to be adopted.<\/p>\n

This is the problem I see with churches like Andy Stanley’s at North Point or Bill Hybel’s at Willow Creek. In the end, you really can’t be like that. (And I’m guessing their churches in reality aren’t.) You’ve got to acknowledge that we’re not about attracting seekers to Christ, but making disciples of Christ. Part of this process is reaching the lost, obviously.<\/p>\n

Yet I question how much these “seekers” really are seeking after God, if it requires so much effort and money to get them into our doors. We have moved from trying to reach the lost into trying to attract the lost. What I mean is this: I’m afraid what “seekers” are really seeking after is solutions to the problems in their lives, not God himself. So these churches have determined that they will do all they can and spend all the money they can to convince people that they need to come to church to find the answers to their problems. As a result, coming to Jesus becomes a selfish thing.<\/p>\n

Now, let’s be honest. When anyone comes to Christ, it’s because of our need. And for sure, that’s not a wrong thing–it’s a good thing! But if I’m coming to Christ because I want to have a happier marriage or get my finances in order, there’s a problem. Because in real life, coming to Christ may mean we may be required to give away all of our money, or lose a spouse who refuses to believe in Christ and thinks we’ve lost our mind.<\/p>\n

As a result, I’m afraid that seeker-driven churches often present a false picture of the Christian life. Most of the time, these churches have attractive, affluent, super-happy, perfect family, American-dream people leading their services, who then tell the seekers that everything they’re looking for can be found in Christ. Technically, that’s correct, but the way the seeker is processing it in their minds…well, not so much.<\/p>\n

The message they hear is that because of sin, we’ve messed up our lives. Come to Jesus, and He’ll forgive you of your sin. If you live as a Christian should, your life will be straightened out again in time. Yet every example I see in Scripture, people who come to Jesus are just messed up from that point on. It’s as if they already had a decent life put together, but Jesus rocked their world and turned it upside-down. Now, they’re persecuted, destitute, sacrificing everything, living as if this life on earth doesn’t really matter to them at all–it’s all devoted to Christ and reconciling the world to Him. Now that’s<\/strong> a disciple.<\/p>\n

Now, if our church is simply devoted to getting seekers to accept Christ, and then we move on to find more seekers to accept Christ…how do we expect those who have accepted Christ to move to such a place? I believe this can only happen through intentional discipleship.<\/p>\n

Here’s a dream of mine: A church full of Christians who have willfully surrendered to Christ and His teachings so much that they are willing to obey Him by reaching out to their neighbors, co-workers, friends, and family. These people come together every week to be equipped, so that they can be sent out yet again. That church, rather than trying to amass as many people (even unchurched people) to attend and become a mega-church, instead is trying to pump out as many disciplers\/leaders as possible to start new ventures for Christ. They hope that more and more churches can be started in their area, and rather than keeping all the best people for themselves, they are sending out their best people. As a result, instead of one star-pastor preaching to 1,000 lost people every Sunday, there are thousands of disciple-makers preaching to 10’s of 1,000s of people every single day of the week. And there are thousands of churches reaching 100’s of 1,000s of people–and it exponentially grows.<\/p>\n

This can only happen when the church stops forcing everything to go through its own process in order to grow itself, and frees people to do what Christ commanded us to do out there. We can only be free to do so, if we have been encouraged and equipped by our leaders to do so.<\/p>\n

Right now, it seems as if you can only reach seekers if you’re super-savvy, hip, attractive, intelligent, and an extremely-gifted speaker. What about Jesus’ disciples who were fishermen? Couldn’t they share the gospel too? Why do we feel like we have to spend so much money to reach the lost? Why do we feel like we have to hire super-talented staff to reach the lost? Doesn’t this make the average guy feel inadequate for such tasks? We average folk learn that our job in the process is simply to invite people to church, and then let the professionals take over.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, I’m sure that plenty of churches would be happy with their congregations if all they did was give 10%\u00a0 and continually be bringing new people into their doors. That’s all we ask of people. Yet, are we really making them disciples? Is this what Jesus wants for them? Sure, as long as they give 10% we’ll always have the resources to expand our church. And if they keep inviting people, our church will continue to expand. And then we can tell everyone how much we are fulfilling the Great Commission by making so many disciples…except…what are we really doing?<\/p>\n

Are we just creating services that appeal to the lost, and honestly, to the average church-goer? I have to admit, as a life-time church-goer, I’d love it if my church had state-of-the-art equipment, comfortable seating, entertaining worship services, engaging sermons, the best music, drama, excellent children’s ministries, a brand-new facility, friendly greeters, etc etc etc. And I’d love it if all Jesus asked me to do was to give my money to my church, so that they can reach the lost, and I could enjoy these things for myself at the same time!<\/p>\n

It’s almost as if we are convinced that having the right talent, a streamlined process, a great facility, and a vision\/mission similar to a corporation…and we’ve got the recipe for success. The only thing left is to get people to buy into it, and then for them to invest in it. The question is…why are we trusting in these things so much? I’m afraid we start to lose trust in the Holy Spirit and the incredible power of people actually living out the Gospel. Don’t you think that would be appealing to seekers? Seeing Christians actually genuinely live out their faith with unlimited love?<\/p>\n

A.W. Tozer said something to this effect: If the Holy Spirit were removed from our churches today, 95% of what we do would continue to go on as if nothing happened, and no one would notice the difference.<\/p>\n

Wow. And then he said: If the Holy Spirit would have been removed from the New Testament church, 95% of what they did would have fallen apart, and everyone would have noticed the difference.<\/p>\n

For me, church shouldn’t be about attracting unchurched people. It also shouldn’t be about keeping churched people. It should simply be about honoring and exalting Christ, and making disciples. If you do that, you probably won’t keep everyone who’s already in your church. You’ll lose some. But those who are eager to be disciples will be reaching the unchurched, and together we will be doing it all for the glory of God. Not for our own church.<\/p>\n

I could say a lot more, but you know that already. I’m sure I’ll follow up on future posts. But to conclude:<\/p>\n

It makes more sense to me that church is about infusing disciples who are determined to reach other people for Christ. Rather than feeling like reaching the lost means to do and spend everything to get them within the four walls of our church, why don’t we start pushing people who already attend to take it out there? Why don’t we stop making that an option, and mandate it like Jesus did? Why don’t we make that<\/strong> everything our church is about? Then we’ll see how many of the thousands of people we feel we’ve already reached “for Christ” (cuz they’re sitting in our seats every Sunday) are really serious about this Jesus thing. Are these people we’ve “reached” really worthy of calling our ministry a success?<\/p>\n

It’s time church leaders stop making their local church the center of everything. Stop trying to grow a mega-church that has the applause of your peers. Start investing into the lives of those eager to be Christ’s disciples. You might only have 3 in your congregation of 50, or 20 in your congregation of 500. If that’s the case, quit feeling like you need to grow your church of 500 to 1,000. Instead, realize that you’ve got 480 people who are already coming to your church that don’t get it. I believe that if you invest in the 20 who do, and keep spreading the seed for others who will be shaken up by the Holy Spirit, who knows all that can happen for the kingdom of God??<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So now that I laid the groundwork for my disagreements in the last post, I’ll get into the disagreements themselves. In summary, I believe the best way to fulfill the Great Commission isn’t by doing all you can to get the unchurched to show up at church, but rather to get the churched to go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-our-culture","category-the-church-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":579,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timfalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}