We only have one hope in America – we must pray for revival.
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard some variation of that phrase over the last 4 decades of my walk with Christ and my ministry, I would have a very large nickel collection.
It is an interdenominational plea, a heart-cry of millions who know that what is isn’t what should be and that only God can fix it. It’s often a sign of exasperation at the end of a long discussion of politics or other world problems. “There’s no hope – we need a revival.” It is used to stop theological discussions. “Let’s stop arguing about this issue and just pray for revival.”
And yet, no revivals come. There is the occassional random “outpouring” of something someone labels as revival, but it usually proves vain, false, or ineffectual. There have been some brief flashes of revival in local churches – my church in Cedar Rapids experienced one in 1994. But it has been well over a century since God has wrought a deep, soul-stirring, nation-altering revival on this land.
Or has it?
I met in Nashville this week with the leadership team of the Pastors’Conference to finalize a lot of details. One of my new friends is Dr. Paul Smith, the VP for the PC, a pastor in Chandler, Arizona, a professor at Gateway’s extension in Phoenix, and a great asset to our team. He also has a unique perspective on things. Monday night we “fellowshiped” at Steak n Shake. He’d been saying he wanted a milk shake and we didn’t get over there, so we headed out for some diet-busting (he doesn’t need it – fitness freak!) chocolatey goodness.
On the way back he said something that got me thinking. I’d never heard it before, but it made a lot of sense. We were talking about some of the shenanigans that have gone on in churches under the guise of “creative preaching.” Beds on roofs. Motorcycle jumps. Series based on movies, cartoons, superheroes. He made an observation that wowed me. I will summarize it in my own words. This is Paul’s observation paraphrased and enhanced by my own thought process.
God gave America a revival in the late 60s and early 70s – the Jesus people movement. The American church quenched the Spirit by rejecting the long-haired hippies, valuing our conservative American culture over the work of the Holy Spirit. Having quenched the Spirit we were forced to try to accomplish in the flesh what God would have done by his Spirit. So, we have turned to shenanigans, manipulation, advertising, promotion, right-wing politics, and so many other things to replace the Spirit we quenched
For most of the history of America, God graciously gave us periodic seasons of spiritual awakening.
- Since the early part of the 1700s, God granted this land undeserved visitations of his mercy which we have described as revivals or awakenings.
- There was the First Great Awakening in the mid-1730s which began in Northampton, Massachusetts, under the ministry of Jonathan Edwards. Read his published letter describing the beginning of the revival. Amazing.
- The second great awakening began at that Bible school known as Yale, not long after the United States gained its independence.
- There was a brief but intense revival just before the Civil War known as the Prayer Revival,beginning in New York City.
- The Welsh Revival around the beginning of the 20th Century spread to the US and had some impact here.
The overflow of the Welsh Revival is the last of the great revivals or awakenings that has visited America.
But is it?
Paul asserts that the Jesus People movement was the beginning of a Third Great Awakening in this land, a mighty work of God among the strung out, turned off generation of the 60s. They turned to Christ and many were saved – radically and genuinely.
But they had long hairs and wore funny clothes and liked music that had no place in the church. The respectable, conservative, buttoned-down, American “Christian” church didn’t want people who didn’t look like them, dress like them and act like them. If you want to come to our church, sure, you are welcome. But first you have to get a haircut and shave your beard. Girls, your skirts are too short. And you need to learn our hymns – don’t bring any of that hippie culture with you.
We put our culture ahead of the Kingdom.
We have done that over and over again. Too often, we still do it. The epitaph of the American church may be “Culture over Christ.”
And the Spirit, the work of revival, the potential for a great outpouring, a Third Great Awakening, was quenched – because we wanted to protect our “way of life” more than we wanted to see a great movement of God.
What happened next is the plague on the church of Jesus Christ today. Since we’d quenched the Spirit we had to try to do in the power of the flesh what was supposed to happen by the work of the Spirit of God among us.
- One megachurch pastor (not SBC) said that they had so much going on they didn’t really need the Holy Spirit.
- Was it Vance Havner who said back in the 70s that the SBC was so programmed and well-run that if God removed his Holy Spirit from our midst it would be 5 years before anyone noticed. Has that become a prophetic word?
- Instead of simply preaching God’s powerful word, preachers resort to stunts like beds on roofs, motorcycles on stage, and a host of lesser tools to wow the people.
- Churches build Disney-themed children’s centers and youth centers that make the local video game stores drool, attracting big crowds but often shy away from confronting them with the claims of Christ or the deep things of God’s word.
- Our leadership models are often principles of corporate leadership baptized for church used with little thought to the spiritual or the miraculous.
- I attended a church planting training seminar several years back that was basically a discussion on how to franchise a fast-food restaurant applied to church starting.
- We use cookie cutter programs to assure people that if they just follow our plan they can have this response or that, leaving little need to depend on God’s guidance.
Please understand. I am not saying that we shouldn’t use visual aids or creativity or learn from the corporate world. I do believe there is validity to this theory – that the American church quenched the Spirit and is now trying to do in the power of the flesh what only God can do. A good program can perhaps augment the work of the Spirit among us, but too often my observation, my judgment (call it what it is), is that we substitute our fleshly efforts for the absence of the mighty work of God. In the absence of God’s reviving grace we rely on human means, human manipulation, human promotion, human stunts – the work of man replaces the work of God.
This post will fall like a lead balloon among many of you. I do not apologize. When we deal with historical interpretations there is always room for disagreements, but this registered deep in my soul. Our American “besetting sin” has been valuing our culture over God’s kingdom and it must cease.
God does not share his glory and he does not bless the works of the flesh. In my airplane moments recently, I done a lot of reflection, and realized I’ve become, in my ministry, a bit of a faithless Abram. God gave Abram a promise and then waited 25 years. During that time Abram lost faith and tried to fulfill in the flesh (with Hagar) what God intended to do by his mighty hand. The result was Ishmael and 4 millennia of pain and sorrow for his descendants.
Did we quench the Spirit? Have we become faithless Abrams who try to do the work of God in the power of the flesh? Are many of our programs, our leadership systems, our creative efforts, our preaching affectations, little more than Ishmael-producing efforts by faithless Abrams who are seeking to do for God what God intends to do through us? There is much validity to this theory.
What the Southern Baptist Convention needs, what my church needs, what America needs- it’s all the same thing. We need to walk by faith and not by sight. We need to preach the word of God and watch the power of God change our people. We need to walk daily in the fullness of the Spirit.
Our prayer must be:
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me.
Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me.
Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on me.
Agreed
Most churches, especially ‘megachurches’ would not want to have anything to do with what TRUE REVIVAL would bring our way. Churches want numerical growth and budget growth. But they would not want to have anything to do with the chaos that TRUE revival would bring because of all the terribly spiritually and physically needy people who would come into the church. The ‘frozen chosen’ who pay the bills REALLY would not like it. And many church workers would quit because of the heavier load. REVIVAL would bring nothing but chaos, financial burdens and unpredictability to the American church…something most church leaders despise.
“I am not saying that we shouldn’t use visual aids or creativity or learn from the corporate world. I do believe there is validity to this theory – that the American church quenched the Spirit and is now trying to do in the power of the flesh what only God can do.”
Yes. It’s not that we are too good to learn from others, or that we can’t ever. Far too often we have decided we cannot learn lessons from the Bible, the apostles, the early church — and that THE place to learn is from observing what the world is doing. Now we won’t actually admit that is what we are doing, but isn’t it so often?
“O that Thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Thy presence. As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil – to make Thy name known to Thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Thy presence! When Thou didst awesome things which we did not expect. Thou didst come down, the mountains quaked at Thy presence. For from old they have not heard nor perceived by ear; neither has the eye seen a God besides Thee, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.” (Isaiah 64:1-4, NASB)
A very pointnant read for an early Saturdaycmorning. Could it be that we need less preaching and more praying? Also, Dr. Allen once told us in our preaching class, “Don’t preach with props unless you’re good enough to preach without them.” That one has always stuck with me.”
Seems to me that church leaders have put on blinders to view any of the issues that “liberals are interested in. It is the secular groups who are “on fire” to do all they can to alleviate the silent suffering of God’s creatures. Look at PETA for example. If only their zeal was for Christ!! But what we evangelicals miss, because we don’t see the forest for the trees,is that the zeal that they do have comes out through blinded eyes that somehow still recognize God’s glory in His creatures. (Psalm 19 ) We are afraid that if we look and allow ourselves to see His glory there, because we can see, then, heaven forbid, we are out of our comfort zone and might even be thought of as joining the bad guys.
The study of revival and spiritual awakening is a fascinating study and one from which we can learn some important lessons. I do believe God sovereignly intervenes at special moments in history, in various settings, to shake up the status quo, draw believers to brokenness and repentance, and to draw unbelievers to repentance and faith.
At the same time, in practically every revival moment around the world there has been a mixture of human, culturally-based elements and divine, supernatural elements. There is almost always a mixture of baby and bathwater (see Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, for further insights; also Mark Shaw, Global Awakening, is a fascinating read on a variety of spiritual awakening movements around the world).
Sometimes I think we focus too much on revival and not enough on what one author a few years back called “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.” But nevertheless, I believe that through our stubbornness and disobedience we can get in the way—and often do get in the way—of something authentic God is doing.
With regard to the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s, there is also a lot of both baby and bathwater. Chuck Smith is a personal spiritual hero of mine. He had the spiritual sensitivity and humility to see the needs and spiritual openness of a whole generation of lost and floundering young people in Southern California in the late 60s and to open up his traditional congregation to a flood of hippies and allow them to use their gifts and music and cultural expressions as a way to serve God and impact their peers. I—and I imagine many of the rest of us—was positively impacted in my faith as a teenager from the music that first arose largely through Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, and the spiritual covering of Pastor Chuck Smith.
All that glitters is not gold, though. Google “Lonnie Frisbee,” “Marsha Stevens,” and a few other related items, to read up on more of the sordid side of things. Ironically, the Calvary Chapel movement in the 90s and 00s morphed into one of the most enthusiastically engaged sectors of the culture wars and evangelical right-wing politics. And from what I understand, there is currently a major rift between several factions in the Calvary Chapel movement.
Mr Rogers- Thank you for your comment. I, too, wondered if mentioning the Calvary Chapel movement was infra dig, and yes, there is a major rift there now. But like the Israelites of old, we humans in God’s church follow the Lord, then our own way… Re: your first paragraphs. ““A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.”” Not shiny enough. Personally, it concerns me that we all seem to be panicked at the mess directly in front of us right this minute, rather than taking a long view of the state of the Church in light of the history of God’s relationship to his creation and his people, BCE and now, his Church. He’s left us a fascinating history and general roadmap and timeline (but Matt 24 36) for our future, and our leadership for the most part seems to be dancing up and down wringing hands rather than working (for souls) while there is daylight. But God is always sovereign and faithful and loving and Iran is a huge field of harvest, and China is training her own persecuted Christians to evangelize Muslims. The congregants of the churches of the SBC have giant hearts for the lost, servant hearts for hurting, and the open purses of the Philippians. I pray we will have the searching eyes of the Bereans and the mind of Christ to understand what we read. Thank you David Miller for this essay, and SBC Voices for giving us a voice.
First, sorry to nitpick, but during my ABT attempt at a MA in History with a focus on American Religious history, I got to nitpick…it is my DNA so to speak. Your ordering of the Great Awakenings is a little bit wonky. The First Great Awakening was during the early and mid eighteenth century. It was the revivals of Edwards and Whitefield. The Second Great Awakening started in the late eighteenth century but took full steam in the early nineteenth before puttering out just before the Civil War. These were the revivals of Finney as well as the rise of groups like LDS, Restoration movement (today’s many “Church of Christ” denominations), and Adventism.
From there religious historians are a bit divided. Many say no formal “great awakening has taken place”, others (such as William McLoughilin) point to the period of revivals following the Civl War and peaking at the turn of the Century. This is not to say other revivals took place during this time, but again the historian in me just had to say something.
Now, as far as the content of the post goes…
I’m sorry, but I always get a bit uneasy when people start “blaming” us silly old humans for the lack of revival. That some how our actions (or in actions) have prevented large scale revival from taking place. Similarly I also get bothered by people who jump around and declare “We are going to have revival!”, as if it was something they could command. True revival, is something the Spirit causes, regardless of the actions of us human beings. Look at Edwards and the First Greatawakening. He uplifted the temple tables of the colonial congregationalist churches of the time. Many strongly resisted and resisted what was going on, this was the “Old-Lights” vs “New-Lights”.
In deed I would argue that true revivals are MORE likely to happen in periods where the established church resists change and growth. Looking at the Second Great Awakening, the two groups that were the ones growing were the Baptists and Methodists. The old Congregationalists of New England, some of the same people who they, their parents, and grandparents experienced revival just decades before, rejected the new movement. They (like the “Old-Lights”) were comfortable with the way things were, no change for them.
Yes the more the “established” church clamps down on change, and resists anything new, I say the more likely True Revival will take place. However ultimately, it is a work of God. We must always remember that. Nothing we do, or do not do, can start (or stop) revival from taking place. God knows the exact day and the exact place the next great Revival will start. He has known it from the beginning of time created. Nothing we do or have done has changed that date or time.
The point of this piece is not really about revival, but the fact that the quenching of the Spirit led us to human and fleshly attempts to do what ought to be the work of God’s Spirit.
I agree with you, David, but I’m wondering if you are discussing apples to my assertion of oranges.
Steven, I’ll let you nitpick as you desire and ignore it.
Tony, I began with the thought of writing a follow up to your recent post, which I agree with.
Revival is not a magical moment, but the long work if faithful discipleship – David said it better.
But my thesis here is not really concerning revival but the presence of fleshly shenanigans. I thought it was a fascinating assertion I’d live to see some people interact with.
Dave,
I read these post – and honestly find myself disagreeing with the writer and the affirming opinions more than I agree (but that is another story)….
THIS POST IS RIGHT ON!!!.. I have long believed that the church squashed the 3rd great awakening and are now suffering the ‘harvest’ of that action. For a long time I ‘thought’ I was the only one to see it this way, so I said little about it. Then I met Michael Catt who has been preaching this truth for many years. He is so committed to seeking the face of God for a Holy Ghost (ok for fellow baptists – “Holy Spirit”) sent revival, renewal, and reawakening.
I will neither attempt to explain it from history because, it seems to me, we do to much of that; nor will I attempt to act like I know the mind of God in sending it – because—well, ditto. My heartbeat is that we simply seek the face of God like our lives, churches, culture, & country depend on it (and it does).
One historical comment that comes to mind was made by Vance Havner (I think), “We have as much revival as we desire” and “If most Christian understood revival, they would not want it” ….
Good word Dave.
One thing I often think about is whether or not ‘explosive revival’ is the best rubric to grade spiritual growth or effectiveness. Instead, I think we should look at the fruit of the Spirit, the sermon on the mount, and the faithfulness of proclamation.
Beyond that, I want nothing to do with seeking revival for the renewal of America. That is dangerous. We seek faithfulness for the Kingdom of God. Our motivation for revival must not be for the restoration of ‘traditional values.’
Great word. Thank you for posting
Are we quenching the Spirit?
Are we preferring the secular culture over obeying the Spirit?
I would say that we are doing those things but not intentionally.
It is easy to be a Christian in the USA. Its an easy life for most of us.
We have no need [we think] to live sacrificial lives.
Its hard to sacrifice, at least hard for me.
One way we succumb to the culture is by catering to the individual.
God’s will bows to human will.
God’s commands are filtered through humanistic understandings.
And we wonder why we are not growing.
We wonder why we are not revived.
What do we need revival for -we already have the good life!
We want our churches filled, but our way only.
So we appeal to the fleshly wisdom of the world to grow ourselves.
We are living in Laodicea:
” Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.”
Proceeding that:
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”
Our purpose is to proclaim Jesus to the world, to be His witnesses. The Gospel proclamation, not the results of it, is our obedience.
And when we failed to see the results WE wanted, we turned to secular and earthly means to grow our churches. We sought to mitigate the discipline of the Lord in those ways. And now we are fat and lazy, gorging ourselves on the entertainments of the culture, it being so rich in life and all. And we do our programs, pray our prayers, and bemoan the lack of response by the world to join us.
If that is what god has become to us, then why should they join us? Their gods are better than ours. They don’t have the baggage of sin. Their rituals [that we gleefully join in on] are more satisfying than ours. We spend more time in the fall with the NFL than we do in church, even though they persecute those whose morals have not sunk as low as theirs [is it North or South Carolina and maybe soon Texas?]. And we spend more time with CFP and MLB and NBA and March Madness and Sitcoms and whatever else the world seeks life in than we do in our Bibles and on our knees.
These my brothers are the Asherah poles of the false gods we keep in our homes and hearts.
Mr Parson, Thank you for your post.
I go to Parsons Baptist.
My name is Mile.
Hence Parsonsmike.
And you are welcome.
I’ve got nothing to say to this but Amen! I read articles all the time. This, by far, is the best thing I’ve read in ages. God forgive us for not recognizing His Spirit.
Thank you, Dave.
I have been reading the posts and comments on the Prestonwood controversy and I find myself looking for something about God in all of the writings. As I read the arguments and positions about the goings on and personalities in the institutional church, I often think of church business meetings. Everybody has an idea or an opinion and there is a lot of talk and then a vote. I have never been to a business meeting where we actually stopped, prayed, and openly sought the help of the Holy Spirit to show us God’s will.
It really has nothing to do with what we think best but what would God have us do. We can organize our worship services so tightly that there is little room for the Holy Spirit, especially sermons with lots of stuff on the screen. Nothing inherently wrong with that, except that it leaves no room for the Holy Spirit. We seem to have this business model of church were we present a sort of menu of spiritual goods and services and we just don’t stop, rest, and try to listen to God. We debate, we vote, we have committees to make recommendations, we study, we argue, and we take part in the various ministries of the church, but we don’t invite the participation of the Holy Spirit.
Like you, I am not talking about a sort of charismatic upheaval or Pentecostal service; I am talking about just stopping, being still, and asking God for the
Spirit to come and be apart of our worship, ministries, decisions, actions, and individual lives.
Your post reminded me what it should be all about. Thank you because if I took all of the institutional goings-on seriously, I would simply lose heart.
Jim
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What then shall we do? Shall we not humble ourselves (corporately where it applies) by honestly agreeing with God about this grievous sin of pride? Is not this rooted in pride to think we can play God and in doing so hinder His powerful work? Should we not asking Him for a broken and contrite spirit with repentance of heart and through the freedom, obedience, fresh faith and power that follows, seek Him in a different way? Seek Him now with the realization that we are finally in a place where He can descend in “demonstration of the Spirit and power of God” so that the utter madness of depending on methods of man will not be the basis of fruit that lasts but the “power of God”.
I Cor. 2:4-5 Thanks for taking the lid off. Let it begin in me.
It is easier to see awakening when looking back than it is to see it when you are living in it. I don’t know what the numbers show but the 50s, 60s through the mid 70s were times of great responsiveness to the gospel compared to today. Those were days when both independent baptist and Southern Baptist churches were full of children and teenagers. Larger Small town and average suburban and city churches had substantial youth choirs that sang ever Sunday night and could attract a crowd of youth simply by planning any event. (Now, small town churches running 250 will have 10 or 15 youth on a sunday am. In the area where I grew up the Jesus movement tapered off around the late 1970s. The most influential men in my spiritual life were saved in this awakening in the mid 70s. Most of them did not grow up in church and were saved while in high school. Interestingly, many of these same men were called to the ministry but never found a place where they fit in. Many of my friends (I mean dozens) -church-mates were profoundly impacted during our high school years by men impacted in the Jesus movement and most are still faithful but most landed in non traditional non sbc churches. Those saved in the 50s and 60s pretty much stayed in the traditional churches with most Independent baptists and methodists in the south migrating to traditional sbc churches as their denominations are dying. They represent the graying of the SBC.
Thank you for writing about this aspect of the “plight” of the SB churches and SBC. I believe the quadrennial exponential increase of politicizing in the SBC has driven many believers to independent and non denom groups here in the deep south. I. e. Everyone has not “fallen away” many have just gone to other Bible believing groups. We here are not encouraged to speak out nor given much voice in congregational polity, so after 8 years (count the election cycles) in this middle sized church, 8 years in that one, some just float on to a group they perceive as being less caught up in U S politics. I believe our loyalty is to Christ and his children, who are my brothers and sisters, and I will have a difficult time, in the manner of “Blest be the ties that bind,” if things locally get too distasteful, but I wonder about my/our witness when leaders affiliated with the group I worship with seem so centered on this group of U S power brokers or that. IF I am inviting folks to worship with me Sunday, what am I inviting them to? Thank you all for being readers of God’s eternal word, and being thinkers and pray-ers. I am appreciating reading this once a week or so, if not as much as reading his funny, well written, true, living word every day.
The theory is confusing because on the one hand you seem to suggest that the church quenched the Spirit by refusing to embrace the changes the “Jesus People ” wanted to bring to the church while on the other hand suggesting that most any other change since then is inherently man-centered and not of God. I am not dismissing the theory out of hand – I am though wondering if the theory is based more in Baby Boomer nostalgia for the good ole days than anything else. Feel free to show if my perception is wrong on this or not. Thanks.
Generalizations can be difficult given the exceptions, but I think you are on to something, Dave.
There are a couple of observations I’ll add:
1. The Holy Spirit doesn’t need us to help him out, but he truly uses us in his work. Prayer for revival is the most powerful thing we can do, but by no means can we let it be the only thing we do. After all, God hears the prayers of the righteous, but in order to be righteous, we need to obey him in kingdom work. That means using programs when those programs are fruitful and giving up programs that aren’t fruitful. That means not complaining about the government or the convention doing one thing or not doing another and going and doing it ourselves (within the oversight of our local churches, of course).
2. Many people who admonish people to pray for revival don’t truly have the Kingdom at heart. They have our culture at heart. The idea is that everyone should get saved so that God will bless our culture again so that we will be prosperous and comfortable… here in this world. That’s why I have heard many people wonder why anyone would give up the safety and security of their own home and risk life and limb to get the Gospel to people who are difficult to reach. The difference is that it isn’t about the kingdoms and comforts of this world in the least. It’s about building the Kingdom of God; storing up our treasure there not so that we have some kind of treasure there like we have here, but because Jesus Christ is our treasure.
Jim,
How do you think we should evaluate what is fruitful?
Numerical growth?
Stronger faith?
Growing disciples?
Sometimes the paring down of a plant is what is needed to make it grow in a healthy manner. Many times we emphasize only the gaining of numbers and fail to see that more people attending does make a church healthy or truly fruitful. Many times we see God ‘paring down’ Israel through persecution and dispersement and by saving a remnant.
If the paring down with its subsequent return to faithfulness does not happen, a church or a denomination seems to end up in a religious quicksand, seeking to hold on to form of godliness but denying the power there of. We can see this in both Revelation 2 and 3 as well as many major denominations here in the USA.
There must a call to both doctrinal purity and faithful action. The former usually pits brother against brother as we wrestle to find the truth God is calling us to. The latter demands sacrifice. Neither are easy or painless.
Mike, I agree completely.
To develop your thought here a little more, there are some things a church must do to be a biblical church. There are many things a church may do in the pursuit of faithfulness that are neither commended nor denied in Scripture. Outside the corporate worship of a covenant body of believers, I believe there is liberty here. I don’t think clown ministry has a place in corporate worship, for example. But if a clown ministry can be used to entertain some kids with an eye to breaking the ice in a neighborhood so the Gospel can be proclaimed there, then I’m all for it. But if you take some Christians dressed up as clowns into a neighborhood and it doesn’t open up those avenues for the Gospel, then there’s no reason to continue that kind of a program. That’s the kind of fruitfulness I was referring to.
Jim,
I was going to say something stupid, like there are already too many clowns in…
but that would be uncharitable.
Instead let me address what seems like an underlying assumption in your reply. It may not be there, since you already have agreed with men my last post, and if so, forgive my assumption.
To me, the avenues for the Gospel are the godly living of both the corporate church and the individuals as we interact in the world. As we live out in grace and thus imperfectly, our calling unto God, we have opportunities to present the Gospel to those we encounter. The Gospel is not simply a means we use to aid others to have opportunity to enter the Kingdom, though it can be and many times is that. The Gospel is first and foremost a proclamation of the Lordship of Jesus, proclaiming who He is, what He has done, what He is now doing, and what He will do.
Using that proclamation, God draws people into the Kingdom as and when He wants.
Disregarding clown programs, a program is faithful and fruitful when it proclaims the Gospel by its words and deeds. A program that does both, even if there are no visible results [conversions] is both faithful and fruitful. For maybe, a congregation 10 blocks away is reaping a harvest because of the seeds you planted and watered. 1 Corinthians 3
For the church is not your congregation, or my congregation, but the whole body of believers everywhere and throughout time: our congregations working together, by the power and wisdom of God working within us and through us, to accomplish His aims and purposes. And these He will accomplish. let us seek then to be faithful both corporately and individually to proclaim the Gospel in both word and deed.
Okay, I think I see where you are coming from. Ultimately, everything we do must contribute to the proclamation of the Gospel. I’ll offer Jesus healing people or feeding them as an example. Those things were not directly a proclamation of the Gospel, although they are apt analogies of aspects of it. Rather, those things helped foster a following from which he had a platform to proclaim the Kingdom through his own wise teaching. Especially, those things marked his own status as the Messiah and provided the basis for the Apostolic work of producing the canon of Scripture that makes up the NT.
But yeah, I agree that there are already too many clowns in _____. (Fill in the blank.) Maybe it’s not uncharitable if I agree that I may be one of them.
Jim,
as long as we leave our clown suits at home…