I’ve begun a new series in our Fellowship Bible Class that I call “Contemporary Christianity’s Missing Links.” We all know many people who profess to be Christians, and yet evidence no difference in their conversation, conduct and practice than you would expect from and unbeliever. We ask ourselves, “If some 88% of all American politicians claim to be Christians, why is there so little integrity in government? So-called “church growth experts” have taught young seminarians how to gather crowds which congregate on a regular basis, but a religious crowd is not what defines a church.
I have some strong disagreements with John MacArthur, the pastor of Grace Community Church in Panorama City, but I certainly agree with this following assessment he recently made: There’s a serious defect in a so-called minister content to be proud of assembling non-believers and calling them a church. Something deeply wrong there. Modern evangelicalism seems to exhaust every imaginable and unimaginable means to attract and collect non-Christians into a building and then call it a church and call it church growth. Maybe there’s a better way to identify these places, let’s just call them non-churches.
Historically, biblically sound churches and Christians have seldom been the darlings of the larger society of the day. There is something to what the Scripture says in Luke, Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets. Luke 6:26.
God did not ordain His churches to exist to provide us good entertainment and an enjoyable worship experience. Our worship ought to be focused of God and not on our own “worship experience!” Its little wonder the present state of Christianity in America has been described as “anemic.” You won’t be entertained today, or through the rest of this revival meeting, but you will hear the preaching of God’s Word through one of His faithful servants.