About Jesus    Steve Sweetman

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Doing Things God’s Way

I have suggested that today’s Christian conservatives look similar to  yesterday’s liberals. I explained how this was true in many of our Evangelical sermons. In this article I would like to expand on this idea, and show how liberal thinking has influenced us in the way we conduct our meetings.

Many churches, in what is known as the "Church Growth Movement" have decided to change the structure of their meetings to draw in more people. One such church sings Beatle songs Sunday mornings to bring in the baby boomers. Other churches invite well known people to speak, even though they are not Christian. Many more have turned to a performance based meeting where people come to watch and be spectators.

The problem with this is that we have let the idea of "bring them in at any cost" dictate how we run the church and our meetings. In fact, God’s Word should be telling us what to do when we come together. For example, Paul says in 1 Cor. 14:22-26, "...if the whole church comes together … and if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner … and the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God exclaiming, "God is really among you!"

Can such a thing happen when we are singing Beatle songs, or listening to someone speak who doesn’t even know the Lord?  

Running the church the Lord’s way may not always be popular. We may lose some people along the way. We may never get some others, but the ones we will get will be dedicated followers of  Jesus . Besides, Jesus has called us to make disciples, not church meeting attenders.

So let us all take heart. Our Lord will look after us when we do things His way.

 

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