Abilene, TX
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| Mercy Street Church of Christ Abilene, TX |
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ARE OUR METHODS BECOMING THE MESSAGE? by Leroy Garrett To illustrate what I mean by this consider these comments about churches which might be heard in most any populous community. They are drawn from actual situations. Oh, you have in mind the big church out on the Interstate. Wow, are they big! They have almost as many on their staff as our church has members. I read about it it the paper, this community church was having a Yo-Yo whiz, who could Yo-Yo over his head, behind his back and between his legs and quote Bible verses at the same time. I couldn’t miss that! So I went, my first visit to that church. He was amazing. People in the audience called out chapter and verse, and he would quote the verse while Yo-Yoing! Yes, it is sort of several churches in one. They have their Central Campus, then several sort of satellite congregations that they call “multi-sites.” While each campus has its own staff, the super preacher at Central does most or all the preaching, by way of a large screen at each site. The sermon is somehow piped in by TV or satellite. All the sites, maybe 20,000 people in all, hear the big preacher at the same time, with multiple services on the weekend. They are really high-tech! As fate would have it, and while I was writing this — you may not believe this! — I received an e-mail from my own church here in Denton, Texas that we are having an “End of Summer Celebration” tonight. The program includes a talent show followed by a ventriloquist. Because we no longer drive at night Ouida and I have not been attending the Wednesday evening service. But a ventriloquist! How can we miss that? So we can add to the comments above, coming from the neighborhood. Yeah, I saw that advertised on the Internet. I’ve never heard of a ventriloquist at a church before. Would that be like speaking in tongues? Gosh, I sure hate to miss that one, but I have to work. You see what I mean — the methods become the message. And where and what is the message? We are so immersed in pragmatism and “church growth.” and the “success” of big preachers and big churches that we may forget that we are to be followers of him who said, “If anyone would be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Then there was Paul the apostle who learned the cost of discipleship the hard way, who said, “God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). If the church is to be the body of Christ in the world — Spirit-filled and cross-shaped — it must stay “on message,” and that’s the message, the cross of Christ. Satan is successful when he deceives us into being “men-pleasers,” catering to the world and its methods in order to be accepted by the world. The church by its nature is sub-culture, called out from the world to be a holy people, different from the world. It is also anti-culture, at odds with the world, its values and its methods. Malcolm Muggeridge, that old British cynic turned Christian, who resolved to take Christ seriously, insisted that if Jesus were on earth today he would not use TV. His methods would be ever so simple, as they were before, while the power would be in his message. That may be the problem. Even the church has hardly ever really taken the message all that seriously. Ouida and I were recently reading Luke 24 and were impressed all over again how slow Jesus’ own disciples were to believe. Verses 9-11 tell how five women reported to the disciples that they had been to Jesus’ tomb and found his body missing, and that an angel appeared telling them that he is risen, just as he said he would. The disciples did not believe them, accusing them of hallucinating, all five of them! Jesus had told them again, again, and again that it would happen just as it did. They just didn’t get it. Does the church today really get it? If we did, our methods would be merely means to the end, not the end itself. The end would be the proclamation of Jesus as the risen Christ. The power would be in the message, not in the methods. The message of the cross of Christ has always been, is now, and always will be, except for a few, foolishness to the world. Are we really “fools for Christ sake”?  |
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