The New Ways of Doing Church

I will never forget that early spring day in 1996 when I attended a pastors’ conference to hear Dr. Warren Wiersbe. I had grown significantly as a Christian on Wiersbe’s teaching and writings, but this was my first opportunity to see him in person. I was like a kid catching a foul ball at a big league game when Wiersbe tapped me on the shoulder before the first session and blurted out, “What are you preaching on these days?”

The conference made a profound impression on me—but not just because Wiersbe was kind enough to talk to me and sign my copy of one of his books. His subject—“Piloting on a Sea of Change”—left an imprint in my mind and gave me a reference point to which I still return.

Wiersbe used Heb. 12:25-29 as his main text. “God is shaking things,” his inimitable voice spoke—complete with drawn-out syllables. I summarized as follows in my notes: “God shakes things so that things we think are important are taken away, and what is left is only what is truly important.”

The World is Changing

Indeed, God is shaking things. Issues in the life of the church that Wiersbe alluded to back then have grown to full bloom in the last 14 years. It is now common for congregations to offer “a new way of doing church.”

Considering the deficiencies of some of the old ways of doing church, perhaps this is not such a bad standard to bear. Somehow, though, the phrase makes me cringe inside. I wonder whether the leaders of such groups really know enough about the old ways to critique them, and whether they really know enough about their new ways to understand their implications.

I will admit that for the most part I am a pretty traditional fellow. I was raised in a Lutheran congregation that conducted services in German until my father was a young boy, only three decades before I was born. There I was weaned on the pipe organ, liturgical worship and memorization from Luther’s Small Catechism and the King James Version of the Bible.

When I left that system and migrated into fundamentalism more than 25 years ago, I came with little understanding of my new camp’s past history. Yet I had purposed to submit myself to profound changes—in my theology and in just about every way of doing church.

I found many of these changes to bring joy and welcome relief. I will admit, however, that at times through these years I have felt like a fish out of water. On occasion I have even had to bite my tongue when my critiques would not have been “fitly spoken” (Prov. 25:11, NKJV).

Around the time I completed my jump from Lutheranism to the realms of fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism, intense change was beginning to unfold within the Christian world. The worst of that change evidences doctrinal drift and even falls in the category of apostasy, which many take as evidencing movement toward the end of the church age (cf. 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1).

Other changes are much more functional in nature. Technology has driven the bulk of these new methods, or at least makes them possible. All are familiar with the introduction of changes in the realms of music and worship, but those are not the only areas in which many Bible-believing people now do church differently. Marketing principles and professional standards have also come to affect the way we think about ministry in significant ways.

Many of the newer approaches are accepted by almost all as intrinsically amoral, while others are viewed skeptically in some quarters—the idea being that their use may be the slippery slide to other, less agreeable, types of change. Certainly some of the methodologies which churches now utilize are, at the very least, open to question and review from a biblical perspective.

Our natural tendency when confronted with new ideas is to gravitate to either of two extremes–tenacious objection or uncritical acceptance. Both of these approaches fail to discern the theological underpinnings of ideas. Both also fail to deal seriously with scriptural teaching on matters of Christian liberty.

There must be a better way. My purpose in this article is not to solve the myriad of questions related to the new ways of doing church. Rather it is to motivate the reader to embark on an unyielding search of the Bible to find answers for dealing with such complex issues as those we face in ministry today. As we do so, we may be surprised to find that some of those questions begin to fade in importance in comparison to the unsurpassed glory of Holy Scripture.

Change for the Truth’s Sake

It is vital to remember that God has ordained traditions for the church age. I speak of the apostolic traditions (cf. 1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Thess. 2:15; 3:6) which are embodied in the message of Scripture as it is understood in light of requirements for believers in this church dispensation.

Fundamentalists may not often speak in these terms, yet this is a vital truth. John MacArthur, teaching on 2 Thess. 2:15, sums up as follows: “He’s talking about the apostolic doctrine, the Apostles’ teaching which was essential to the life of the church… It is the tradition that came down, that was handed down from God to the Apostles to the church” (www.gty.org/Resources/Sermons/53-12_The-Coming-Man-of-Sin-Part-6; accessed 28 June 2010).

If you are determined to effect change, do not cause change for the sake of change. Rather cause change for the sake of truth–to bring the church into closer harmony with apostolic tradition.

Of course, this does not necessitate an anachronistic approach to church life or a yearning for “the former days” (Eccles. 7:10). Just as David “served his own generation by the will of God” (Acts 13:36), so must we.

Although I am very traditional in my approach to the church, I would certainly not want to argue that all innovations are bad.

I love the fact that Internet broadcasting now makes it possible for even a small church to have a media ministry that reaches a world-wide audience. I use multi-media projection heavily in teaching, and would even admit that it has caused me to alter my speaking style over the past five years. I am also glad that this new technology has answered the question of how to accomplish unison and responsive readings in the age of multiple Bible versions–allowing the church to revive these ancient, traditional practices.

However, we must be committed to Biblical integrity in the midst of change, learning “not to think beyond what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6). The new ways of doing church have magnified the need for attention and fidelity to Biblical truth. The world is more confusing today, and we must be ever more careful to evaluate and confront its offerings, trends and desires from a Biblical perspective.

Some adherents of the church growth movement have misused marketing principles in the context of ministry by shaping their messages to meet the demands of the market. This results in preaching or teaching which dumbs down, or even alters, the message of Scripture. But this is nothing less than a betrayal to the inspired call to “preach the Word” (2 Tim. 4:2).

These days of increasing complexity are no time for men in pulpits to speak with muffled voice. We need Bible expositors to preach with courage and conviction on all areas where the Bible is clear. “For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ” (2 Cor. 2:17).

Some Things Will Never Change

In these tumultuous times, it is comforting to know that there are unchanging, eternal truths. “Some things don’t change,” Wiersbe reminded us. “Hang on to them.”

The Scriptures will never change (Ps. 119:89). The triune God will never change (Mal. 3:6, Heb. 13:8), nor does the way in which He desires to be worshiped objectively change (John 4:24). Further, no technology or methodology will ever be developed which has the capacity to transform the human heart. That role is reserved for the Word of God alone (Heb. 4:12).

The Bible is not only our final authority, but it is our source for joy, wholeness and blessing and the means by which God will bring His plan to fulfillment in our lives.

In his fascinating book Already Gone, Ken Ham examines “Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it” based on statistical research conducted by coauthor Britt Beemer. Ham and Beemer challenge methods both old and new as they get to the heart of reasons young people are leaving church. Here is their bottom line: “Churches that defend God’s Word and live by God’s Word can once again become ‘the real deal’ to the generation of young adults that has left and the next generation that is teetering on the edge” (p. 136).

Then what of the thousands of new technologies and methodologies which are available today? For better or worse, the world is changing quickly, and churches are finding new and innovative ways to accomplish their missions.

My mother passed along to me a bit of wisdom she learned in college, saying, “Don’t be the first to try the new, but don’t be the last to throw out the old.” Some of these new methods may be better than the old ones they replace, and some may be better than others. Some may be purely technological, while others deserve further theological investigation. We need God’s wisdom and help to sort through these items and know which pieces are worth keeping and which must be discarded.

Wiersbe concluded his talk at that pastors’ conference with a word of encouragement. “I do not see this time as a threat,” he said, if my memory is correct. May God likewise give us such vision, courage and confidence grounded in His unchanging Word that we might strive to make its application precisely clear as we face these complexities.

Paul J. Scharf is a graduate of Maranatha Baptist Bible College (Watertown, WI) and Faith Baptist Theological Seminary (Ankeny, IA). He is the editor of the Columbus Journal, a ministry assistant for Whitcomb Ministries, Inc., a freelance writer for Regular Baptist Press and an associate with IMI/SOS International. Scharf served as a pastor for seven years and has taught the Bible on the elementary, secondary and college levels. He is a contributor to Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth (Master Books, 2008) and has written numerous articles for Gospel Herald and The Sunday School Times. He is a member of the Pre-Trib Study Group. Paul is married to Lynnette, and the couple resides near Columbus, WI.