What Has Happened to the American Church?
The more I watch American churches the more I am convinced that we are losing the essential focus - the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe this is a two-fold problem and one that is creating false converts who are saturating American churches. We should be concerned about this and our passion as Christians should be to proclaim with boldness the full Gospel of Christ, not some watered down version!
I think the first problem involves the American church’s focus on numbers and growth. It seems that the majority of churches today feel that the qualifications of success is the number of warm bodies sitting in the pews and in Sunday school classes. It’s obvious given the proliferation, especially within the Baptist denomination, of the Purpose Driven Life and Purpose Driven Church curriculum. (Which in my opinion is a complete waste of time and produces a man-focused and “success” focused church.) Why can’t we understand that what the church needs is the regenerating message of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Don’t get me wrong. There are several churches I’ve seen or read about that have embraced this approach - namely Mark Dever and Paul Washer to name two, who understand that the focus should be the regeneration of their congregation.
We are so fast to cram entertainment, financial success training, purpose driven drivel, activities, football, concerts, clown-led worship and others that we water-down and oftentimes completely overlook proclaiming the most glorious message that can ever be uttered from a human mouth - the Gospel of Christ! I agree with Paul Washer wholeheartedly when he says from his recent True Church conference when speaking on church discipline…
“we need less discipline and more preaching…because, sadly, people are not faithful believers because of a lack of discipline, but because they are not being converted.”
The church today just seems to have major issues with the Gospel. Churches are run more like corporations who look at the numbers. I believe it’s not about the numbers, it’s about the spiritual growth and growing maturity of believers in the church.
I am a Sunday school teacher at our church and I gauge success not by numbers. I could care less about numbers. I look for spiritual growth, a growing hunger for God’s Word, a growing in holiness and a growing hatred for sin. Bottom line I look for the flock I am responsible for to be conformed more and more everyday into the image of Jesus Christ. And we need to remember that Sunday School, just like worship service should never be without the Gospel!
Churches today need to take a look around them at the results of leaving the Gospel behind and replacing it with entertainment or a man-centered feel-good sermon that is nothing more than a motivational speech. Are you afraid that you will loose membership at your church if you boldly proclaim the full Gospel message? Are you afraid that words like repentance, sin and damnation will drive your congregation away? If so, you shouldn’t be preaching - because you are not preaching the full Gospel message.
That leads me to my second point. I frequent the internet a lot. I love to visit blogs and I love to visit church web sites and listen to their sermons. Most who know me well also know I have a real problem with many of the “mega” churches out there who teach the “prosperity gospel” and the “man centered motivational best life now” drivel. However, those are blatant problems that can easily be seen by most Christians as heterodox or down right heretical. But what we’re seeing in churches today is a Gospel message that is so convoluted or watered-down that it’s not the gospel at all! I’ve heard preachers fumble through the Gospel as if they either have not heard it themselves or haven’t preach it in years. This is a serious problem in the church today. How can our churches grow spiritually if we’re not preaching the full Gospel? No Gospel = no conversions. Result: false converts saturating the church. And when we have false converts saturating the church the church looks no different from the world. Is this not a glaring problem in most of today’s churches! I stress that I am speaking of the visible church. The invisible church of Jesus Christ - the true body of Christ made up of His elect will never falter and will never fail!
I am so concerned about the American church today. In fact, I believe the American church is my mission field. I walked around most of my life as a false convert because I was never regenerated through the Word of Christ. I understand fully the problem of the American church today and the need for a return to the preaching of Christ.
That’s right… I want to hear about Christ in church. I don’t want to hear about how I can be successful, or about my purpose driven life, and I sure could care less about my best life now! I want to be in church and hear Christ exalted, heralded, praised and the good news of the atoning, propitiating cross-work of my Lord and Savior whose blood can cover the vilest, most wretched sinner who repents and puts their faith and trust in Christ. I want to hear about our God who performs a miraculous work on the spiritually dead to cause them to be born from above so that he sees his sin and turns to Christ as the only cure for the disease and condemnation of sin. I want to hear about holiness and sanctification. I want to hear proclamations of mortification of sin!
Preachers and teachers have the privilege of sharing the Gospel. We are to be faithful and handle the Word of God with fear and trembling knowing that through the power of the Holy Spirit, faithfulness in the preaching of the full Gospel of Christ will result in the regeneration and conversion of lost souls who are in earshot of that message. Pray for the church visible. Pray for the pastors, teachers and leaders in many churches today that are mishandling the Gospel and turning the church into a concert stage. Pray for the congregations of these churches. Pray that God will work repentance in these churches and in their leadership!
Soli Deo Gloria!
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Jay, I’m curious to see what you thing the purpose of a Sunday morning Sunday school class is for. Do you think that it is to make disciples through simple biblical study, or is the purpose of your class to simply study and grow as a community? What do you think of the closed small group where new members are not necessarily welcome to join. Another note: In essence the seeker sensitive movement is dead. Unregenerate people don’t seek God, right? So like you said the gospel is not being preached in American churches that approach their commission that are “sensitive” to Unregenerate sinners. In other words they let culture guide their message rather than the word guide their message. May we see the church fall into submission to the head, Jesus Christ our Lord!
Thank you , brother for being faithful to please our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and to possibly offend un-regenerate sinful man. I always say, we are going to offend one or the other, which will it be! I want to send this to my pastor, who is a contemporary of mine… we are both early 50s. He attempted to share the good news today, yet fell way short of driving it home. No mention of reprobation, repentance, propitiation, justice or holiness. I call it the Granny Gospel. Come to Granny with your sin and she will pat you on the head, give you a cookie and tell you everythings gonna be allright! I thank God that He is raising up a generation of young men as yourself who, in the face of godless postmodern rethoric, have chosen to take up their cross and follow Him! I will be spending more time here reading your blog. I am a publisher. God has called me to compile a maganine for Christian young men called Outstanding. We will address these kinds of issues at lenghth.
Hey Adam - in response to your comment I feel that Sunday School in general is to disciple believers in the full counsel of God through inductive Bible study. It’s the place to get the fork and knife out and really dig in to Scripture. It’s the place that fosters spiritual growth and maturity as the regenerate are conformed more and more into the image of Christ through the Word. (Psalm 119) However, I also do not discount the opportunity every single Sunday to preach the Gospel in a Sunday school class. Every unregenerate person sitting in my class must hear it (given that everything in Scripture inevitably points to Christ) and every regenerate person should live the Gospel-centered life and should never, ever forget it. Just something to think about. :-)
Hi Jay, I think you are right on about many church leaders focusing on numbers. I have seen plenty of leaders base their worth as a pastor by how many members the church has or how big the church building is. We have lost our focus on what is most important. I wonder if this has anything to do with worth before God. How many times do we “feel” good about what we are doing as Christians and side step Grace and fall into the “works” righteousness thinking? When we focus on works only we step on others and ignore true needs because it is now not about you but all about me.
I pray the church will be healthy once again and when we gather together to worship we can encourage each other with joy and words of holiness.
Thanks for this post. I truly pray that God raises up a generation of old-time preachers who talked about the law and sin, the righteousness and holiness of God and made the sinners really see their sin. As soon as you tell someone, come to Jesus and he’ll make you feel less lonely, more loved etc instead of they are a sinner who truly needs to be saved from their sin…well ur right, the result is false converts to the church. Don’t forget, only a remnant will remain in the last days.
I think that the problem with churches today are they are so numbered focused. Church is not about how many people oyu can get in a room. its abut growing deep and the width will take care of itself on Gods time.
It is painfully obvious that millions of Americans are completely turned off by church. Most of our nation claims to be Christians but only a small percentage of those people are actively committed to a local church.
What in the world is going on? Something is terribly wrong.
I posed this question to our congregation the very first Sunday that we met, “When did the church in America, especially here in the Bible belt, get hijacked by middle-class white Americans who have no problems?” I know that question may sting a little bit. It stung me as I asked it. Afterall, I am white and I have been middle class recently in my life. Yes, I have problems and issues - but I am like you, it is tough to admit them and come clean about them.
It is much easier just to fake it and pretend everything is ok, but you know inside you are dying and wasting away.
I have played the part of church before. I have said all of the right things and looked “churchy”. Going through the motions is something I have done many times in my life. This is rampant in churches everywhere and I have been the guiltiest.
Quite honestly, I am sick of the game. Jesus wants us to be real. He wants us to be transparent and open before Him and each other. This is what we are trying to be at Ecclesia. It is tough though and we are going to have to fight like crazy to protect it and keep it moving.
I truly believe that the main turn off in churches today is a lack of realness. Churches have become social clubs and something that we just “do” on Sunday. The church has been institutionalized and is no longer viewed as a movement of God. Obviously, there is a huge difference between these two. One of my favorite authors is Warren Weirsbe. He said this, “It is a sad to see that most churches today are not workshops for adults, but rather playpens for children.”
Ouch.
Tough statement, but very honest. It saddens me greatly that the church today has been tainted with ugliness and disgust when we were made to be so real and beautiful. I am ready to capture that beauty again. At all costs, I am prepared to become what Jesus has always intended for His bride to be.
As a new church start here in Norman, I want your ideas, hopes and dreams for Ecclesia to be presented here on this page. Let’s fight for this together. This thing called Christianity is incredible and we need to chase after it.
I agree and disagree. That the visible church has lost her way is undeniable. But, you must recognize the nature and purpose of the church gathering. The church gathers to worship, edify, equip, heal, teach etc. To grow and mature….till we all reach unity…grow up and become mature. The result should be evangelism as God’s people are empowered and equipped to share the gospel to the world. While I’m certainly not opposed sharing the gospel “in church”, evangelism is not the primary function when the church gathers. The command to make disciples is “go”. The traditional church has reversed this command to “come” (to church). We NEVER really GO to church, we ARE the church. We, the church, are to go and make disciples, not bring people into a building (erroneously called the church) to have the holy man (Pastor) preach the gospel so they will get saved. God’s way is always best. Let’s BE the church, not GO to church