December 21, 2007
Inflated
‘Numbers Racket’, an article written Warren Cole Smith, was published in the December 1st issue of World. The article exposes survey results showing mega-churches ‘notoriously inflate their numbers’ (membership). List publisher Lynne Marian admitted to the discrepancies, but then justified her lists by saying, “It’s not about the numbers. It’s about taking a look at what God is doing.” I wonder how God feels about churches padding survey results in order to make Him look better.
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Gail;
-----I think it is ok to look at what God is doing, as long as you do look at what He is doing. I think these mega-churches and mega-church want-a-be’s look to Acts 2:41 as the template for what is service to the Lord. They seem to think they must add to their numbers by the thousands, as well. But the day those three thousand were added was somewhat different than today. The things that had been happening all around that area for the previous three years were quite extraordinary. The people were peaked for response, and they did respond, in masses. But the mention in Acts of numbers being saved was not to show what God was doing that day, as if it were any other day, but rather to show the germination and growth of the Kingdom Jesus had planted amongst men. Just as importantly, and maybe more so, is verse 42, what the three thousand did once added. I won’t be so arrogant as to say that mega-churchers don’t devote themselves to the apostle’s teaching, break bread together, and pray, but this was also written to show what God was doing beyond just finding bodies to fill auditoriums. In fact, the terms, “apostle’s teaching” and “the breaking of bread” are rather packed. The writing of the New Testament was, in a sense, an unpacking and laying in order all of the contents of those terms. And really, what God continues to do in the hearts of His people, what is exposed in the Gospels and epistles as attitudes of the new life, far overshadows the events of a few people being saved.
-----If Lynne Marian is so concerned about, “…taking a look at what God is doing,” then maybe she needs to take a look at some of what God is not doing at these mega-churches and mega-church want-a-be’s. In order to be a mega-church, a certain perspective must be promoted amongst everyone involved, a perspective that is not taught in the Bible, although it may somehow be squeezed out from between the lines. On the contrary, the Bible teaches against incubation of extra-biblical perspectives. It isn’t that the perspective of reaching the people in masses is wrong, but promoting that as the only perspective, or even the major perspective for the church is just plain unscriptural. Paul spent many words on the need for everyone in the body to function as the part that God has made them to be. Another principle of breaking bread exposed by Paul in I Corinthians is the very basic functioning of the worship service itself. What Paul reveals is nothing like our services today. There was a certain orderly disorder that Paul not only addressed, but commanded. Everyone came to the meeting with a hymn, a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation (vs. 26). Paul insists all of this should be done for the strengthening of the church. Today, we have become so culturally grown into the highly scripted and controlled worship service that the thought of meetings like this discussed at I Corinthians 14 strikes fright into our hearts. Also, I believe we have become so spiritually dull that we no longer know the subtle tugs of the Spirit within us enough to produce the prophets, the revelations, the tongues, and the interpretations they experienced in Paul’s day. I think that is sad.
-----But I do not think that is an excuse to lose the purpose for why we do what we do in the worship service, and Paul was clear about that purpose being the strengthening of the church. This runs very counter to the reason the contemporaries do what they do in the contemporary service - to add numbers. Indeed, it is difficult for a church to show what God is doing within it without tooting the big horn. It is even more difficult for the mega-church to show these things, because it needs to show itself as spiritual without a tight hookup to the Bible so the seekers will continue to pour through the doors. They are faced with both the need to strengthen their church (which I believe they recognize, as well) and the need to hide that strength under a basket in the back rooms lest the seeker might see its connection to the dowdy, old Bible. Therefore they are left with only the telling of the numbers. How vacuous!
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