1- Non-Denominational Churches are Experiencing Growth. The reality is that the non-denominational churches are not growing from converts but from dissatisfied Christians who shop around from what is new and trendy. Studies have proven that this growth is not real growth but a mere reshuffling of people from one church to another....
2- Need to focus on felt needs over doctrine. Felt needs are a moving target but the real needs have not changed since Eden -- how to deal with sin, how to find a purpose in life, and how to answer the reality of death. Felt needs are the shifting sands of the moment and part of the purpose of the Church is to reveal what is real in the face of what is imagined or desired.
3- Pastors need to be pietistic/evangelical. Pietistic and evangelical are general code words for flexible and willing to sacrifice what is believed for the sake of making belief easier. This presumes that the goal is to win over the heart and mind of people with either a war of ideas or of good feelings when the reality is that no comes to God except the Spirit call him and the Spirit calls through the voice of the Word.
4- Church autonomy is a must. Does anyone know what this means? Autonomy in what areas? Our church body is not hierarchical in the sense that leadership from on high dictates how a congregation governs itself or how it spends its money or builds/cares for its property. We do not do this. What binds us is our confession of faith and our desire to be united as possible in the practice of that faith and in the shape of worship.
5- We must be humble. We are already so humble that we would rather offend God than people, work to make the Church and her worship as palatable as possible to the social mores and values of the moment, and as comfortable as possible to people (looking more like shopping malls or entertainment venues than real churches). You do not need to be proud to bear the authority of God's Word -- our boast is not in ourselves or what we have done but in Christ alone.
6- We need to allow the freedom to implement American Evangelical Worship. American Evangelical Worship is code for whatever people want and whatever works to fill the seats (and the offering plates). As the days unfold, it is more clear now than ever before that Evangelicalism is devoid of doctrinal integrity and, while it may be late to the party, is willing to adjust to fit the cultural and societal patterns of accepted truth, morality, and behavior. To adopt such worship forms is to abandon our confession and faith. We cannot say we believe the same and look radically different on Sunday morning.
7- We must elevate the role of the laity in the church. This presumes that the divinely appointed role for laity is in the church and forgets that the most important venue for laity is in the home, the workplace, and the neighborhood. The laity go where pastors would never be allowed to go and to give witness to the hope within them where clergy would never be allowed to speak. While there is certainly a place for laity in the governance of the church, it is foolish to overlook the most profound role and place for their service. The fact that marriage, family, home, and the public square are suffering so is a fairly obvious example of how we have neglected this arena of service.
8- Laity must be more involved in church service. This idea presumes that unless you are doing something in a visible and leadership way, you are not doing anything. How strange! Are the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving from our lips, the prayers of the faithful, the attention of heart and mind, and the tithes and offerings we bring nothing important or valued by the Lord? Giving people little jobs to make them feel important is demeaning and, worse, rejects the godly duties of the faith to pray, praise, and give thanks to the Lord -- which is why the pastors serve the people with God's gifts so that they may do these joyfully.
9- We need to elevate and enhance the role of women in the life of the church. We have got to stop pandering to the causes of gender or age. Youth ministry and women's ministry sound good on the surface but the reality is that we are all the body of Christ by baptism and our service to God and to our neighbor is defined by God and ordered by His Word. We ought to be inclusive here rather than separating out people from the whole as if their needs are different from any other people's needs. We are here for the same gifts -- forgiveness of sin, strengthening of our faith, eternal life, and salvation.
10- We need to be more open on communion. It is the height of arrogance to presume that the ancient and catholic practice of closed communion, manifested in Scripture and out of love for those communing, should be set aside for the sake of friendliness. I would rather be excluded because of concern for my soul than be welcomed without regard to what I thought I was receiving. But love can always be misunderstood. Should love then be set aside for something less? Closed communion is and never was about who cannot commune but about those who can receive for the benefit.
11- Hell should keep us sober and alert about the urgency of the church. Fear of hell saves no one. We are not saved from a fate we fear but for a future God has prepared. The threat of hell is the law and it cannot inform the heart to believe the Gospel anymore than it should drive what we do. Now, to be sure, there are many Christians today who speak of hell as if no one will end up there. They do so not in faithfulness to Scripture but merely as an expression of their own desire. We can no more ignore the reality of hell nor warn people of it than we can assume that such a warning will regenerate their heart.
12- We must keep ‘missions’ as the church’s primary focus; we must look out, not in. Looking at the statistics, we are two-thirds smaller on Sunday morning than in our membership rosters. Perhaps we should not pit out against in or the other way around but do both. Our strength and life as a church body expects that the people of God will be present where God has made Himself accessible at least every week. Have we been as diligent as we ought in reminding our people that this is God's expectation and not simply our goal? At the same time, it is inherent to our lives as Christians that we display the hope within us by word and deed so that we always giving witness to Jesus Christ. This encourages those in but it addresses those outside with the very Gospel by which they can be saved. A church going people will be a people concerned for those not yet of the Kingdom. Those concerned for the folks outside the Kingdom will manifest this concern by their own presence within the assembly of the faithful on Sunday morning. Is there a choice here?
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