9 Marks of an Unhealthy Church

Darrell, agreed 100% with what you say, and I think Ricky’s caution may be born of experience with churches which assume that their way is the Scriptural way, while in reality it’s just what pop culture said to do 50 years back. It’s a gotcha that we’ve got to watch out for no matter what our churches do.

To draw a picture, to listen to some, you would think that the apostles started out by driving a school bus around the streets of Hammond, or were discovered by Christ as they fiddled around with their electric guitar with the amp turned all the way up to 11. Trying to conform the church to our own biases is a powerful temptation.

However is fleshes itself out, the foundation for what we do as a church must be Scripture. That is our starting place. When a church starts by exploring what “works” in our culture, and pragmatically puts in place the suggestions of the very people we are trying to reach, then the culture inevitably reaches the church instead of the church reaching the culture.

I couldn’t agree more, wish I saw more of this on ShaperIron.

This pop-culture we are in will inevitably suggest principles and methods that run contrary to Scripture.

Darrell, would you say then that there is no common grace in unbelievers that might inform believers as to how to reach them? In other words, is there any baby in the bathwater?

[Larry]

…would you say then that there is no common grace in unbelievers that might inform believers as to how to reach them?

THAT’S an article begging to be written for SI…..my mind is reeling from the implications of it.

[Larry Nelson]

Larry wrote:

…would you say then that there is no common grace in unbelievers that might inform believers as to how to reach them?

THAT’S an article begging to be written for SI…..my mind is reeling from the implications of it.

If we are to become all things to all people that we might win some to Christ, then it would follow that, within the bounds set by Scripture, we ought to be willing to engage with some of the hallmarks of the cultures we’re reaching out to. No? My now seven year old son helped an Indian couple come to Christ by being held as an infant, and it was also important ot this couple that those reaching out would enjoy a cup of tea Indian-style. (if you’ve never experienced it, you should—the tea is spiced and sweetened, and the whole thing takes about an hour if you do it right)

Not that we ought to sin, but I think Paul clearly modeled that we ought to go into the cultures we’re serving.

Bert, if you remember my “Whatever it Takes…” SI article (the one about Eagle Brook Church), that passage was central in my conclusions/findings about the culture of Eagle Brook that makes them very effective at reaching the lost.

[Larry]

This pop-culture we are in will inevitably suggest principles and methods that run contrary to Scripture.

Darrell, would you say then that there is no common grace in unbelievers that might inform believers as to how to reach them? In other words, is there any baby in the bathwater?

Common grace means unbelievers don’t always do the worst possible things that they could do. Common grace means unbelievers can experience blessings in life—they don’t get the immediate judgment they deserve. But the unbeliever’s actions are always tainted by sin. The unbeliever’s wisdom is always worldly wisdom because it lacks a connection to God’s revelation and His personal work of grace. Now it is possible through common grace for an unbeliever to stumble into some truths that also happen to be Biblical truths, but they get there in spite of their worldly wisdom, not because of it, and they don’t arrive at truths that the believer couldn’t get from Scripture otherwise. So I remain resolute in the position that it is a fool’s errand for the church to leave the Bible closed, and open its ears to the wisdom of the world to learn how to do ministry, how to worship God, how to deal with sin, and how to live the Christian life.

So why would the church put its hands in the filthy, dirty bath water of the world looking for a baby in there, when the pure, clear water of the Word is available and sufficient for faith and practice?

Darrell

This may or may not be the place to do so, but perhaps it might be illustrative if you fleshed out what you’re getting at. What kind of methods are we talking about when we refer to “filthy bath water”? Are we talking about maybe opening a moonshine bar in the foyer, or are we talking about using an electric guitar on stage to accompany a song? Or are we talking about going from the metric Psalms to ungodly hymns? Keep in mind this last bit was a big deal to our Puritan/Separatist forebears, who really didn’t get into hymns until the 1800s if I remember correctly.

I am talking about the Scriptures being sufficient for faith and practice. It is the Scriptures that tell us how to live out the Christian life and not secular world that we are trying to reach. I won’t be trapped in a discussion about moonshine or other such things. I am talking about the church that brushes past the Scriptures and is eager to survey the secular culture to find out what they want, and then set out to give it to them—and then call it good. I am talking about churches eager to embrace and implement the latest fads in our culture with little reflection, pause, or concern about locating a Biblical foundation for such decisions. This is a question of which way the feet of the church are pointed. It is always the right time for the church to be firmly affixed to the Scriptures and say to the culture, “Here we stand,” instead of asking the culture, “where do you want us to go?”

I am not suggesting the church shouldn’t be wise. The Scriptures tell us to be wise and discerning, and so we minister in our communities with understanding, and that will flesh itself out a little differently in every location. But once we look to worldly culture for wisdom on how to reach that culture and how we live out Christianity, we have already surrendered as the culture is well on its way to reaching us.

Darrell, the problem is that your argument can be used properly, as in excluding that which is actually sin from a church, or it can be used (as is usually the case in my experience) as a bludgeon to enforce the personal preferences of those in leadership. So you really need to flesh it out.

For example, you mention pop culture. OK, what portions of pop culture are sinful? Given that the great hymns all were at one time expressions of what was popular in contemporary music, do we exclude them because they were once that filthy bath water? How long does music need to go before it transitions from filthy bath water to Evian? 50 years? 100? What about today? Is a song sinful because it features the 12 bar blues as its backbone, or do we have to point to obscene lyrics to do this?

To draw a picture, I’ve heard a “Patch the Pirate” song built on a tango beat. Do we call that song from BJU “dirty bath water” because to those who actually know what tango is, it points to a rather sensual dance?

So like I said, you need to flesh this one out. 1 Corinthians 9 indicates pretty clearly that Paul, who had visited the pagan Areopagus and was willing to buy meat and wine from the markets after it’d been sacrificed to the Greek “gods”, was one who clearly used the societal cues of his host cultures to reach people for Christ.

And for what it’s worth, I am one who would love to hear more of the really old hymns (pre-1800, often composed originally in French or German) along with the metric Psalms in church. I think a Psalm in the original Hebrew could be great special music. So I’m not a huge fan of modern Christian music—in fact I can’t stand most of it. But given that Psalms 149 and 150 talk about percussive instruments and dancing, I can’t go along with the idea that music with a beat is in itself wrong.

Common grace means unbelievers don’t always do the worst possible things that they could do. Common grace means unbelievers can experience blessings in life—they don’t get the immediate judgment they deserve. But the unbeliever’s actions are always tainted by sin. The unbeliever’s wisdom is always worldly wisdom because it lacks a connection to God’s revelation and His personal work of grace. Now it is possible through common grace for an unbeliever to stumble into some truths that also happen to be Biblical truths, but they get there in spite of their worldly wisdom, not because of it, and they don’t arrive at truths that the believer couldn’t get from Scripture otherwise. So I remain resolute in the position that it is a fool’s errand for the church to leave the Bible closed, and open its ears to the wisdom of the world to learn how to do ministry, how to worship God, how to deal with sin, and how to live the Christian life.

Thanks, Darrell. Hopefully I am not speaking past you here. I am sympathetic to what you are saying, though much less sympathetic than I used to be, however. I think you have a bit of a limited definition of common grace, or least a limited application of it. Grudem has a helpful section on this. I think common grace in this particular situation is better seen as the fact that while sin has tainted man’s intellect and moral sense, it has not destroyed it. Therefore, God’s common grace enables them to think about certain things in certain ways. Yet until we ask them what they are thinking, we don’t know what part of Scripture to use in reaching them. Until we understand how they think, we are ill-equipped to reach them. This is part of the science of ethnography. We must understand the people we are trying to reach.

I would suggest that you are a bit contradictory when you say that their wisdom is always worldly and yet they stumble onto truth that is biblical. Biblical truth is not worldly wisdom. I think a better way to put that is that their holding biblical truth is inconsistent with their worldview. So a Christian businessman can use biblical wisdom by common grace even though he might deny the Bible, or not know where that wisdom comes from. Wisdom is worldly or biblical because of its truth, not because of its proponents. Perhaps a semantical point, but a needed one, IMO. To me, understanding a person can help us to point out that they believe something they have no reason to believe.

I think Acts 17 gets leaned on awful hard at times, but nonetheless, I will lean on it here a bit. Paul’s comments on the altar to an unknown God are possible because Paul understood what they were doing. He knew it by conversation and by observation. Common grace meant that these people had a moral and religious sense though their sinfulness meant they expressed it in sinful ways. And Paul tapped into that moral and religious sense to know what specifically from Scripture to say. In other words, on that occasion, Paul knew where to poke because he took his cues from them.

If “taking our cues” means saying what they want to hear, then absolutely not. But I think there is a side that perhaps you are not considering. It’s part of the idea behind Stott’s book on preaching “Between Two Worlds.” It’s a good read. In that books, he speaks of a bridge, and notes that the bridge has to touch down in both worlds (the world of the Bible and the world of the hearer). But we can only touch down in the world of the hearer if we take some cues from them about what their issues are and how they think about things.

So why would the church put its hands in the filthy, dirty bath water of the world looking for a baby in there, when the pure, clear water of the Word is available and sufficient for faith and practice?

Because the “clear pure water of the Word” won’t tell you what your neighbor is struggling with, or how they process information, or how they think, or learn. It won’t tell you their cultural habits or perspectives. And the “filthy dirty bathwater” might not be as filthy and dirty as it might be because of common grace. Common grace means people can still think correctly and process information. They have questions about the world around them. If we don’t ask them and engage them, we don’t know the questions they have, nor the ways that they think.

Think of the difference between ministering in a theistic culture vs. an atheistic culture. If you treat an atheistic culture as if they already believe in God and just need to believe in the right God, you will miss the boat. Yet in our American context, we rarely have to convince people that God exists. That would not be true in places like China, or India. But we don’t know that unless we take some cues from them.

I think we actually do this more than we think perhaps. In a personal conversation with someone, we are quick to pick up on what’s important to them, particularly what troubles them. And if we have any spiritual sense, we are looking for ways to bring the Bible to bear on that. We might have a friend who is experiencing grief over a loss. We probably are sensitive to that and try to bring the Scripture to bear on that in some way. If we have two friends with grief, we do the same thing. But if your community has 100 people with grief, it’s looking to the world for cues if a church have some class or seminar on grief? I don’t buy it.

So I think your cautions are in order. I think they are a bit overstated though.

As I said before, it is beyond my point to get involved with arguments about moonshine, patch the pirate, or other such things. If a pastor or a church uses the “sufficiency of Scripture” as a bludgeon to enforce personal preferences, then that pastor or church is wrong. They have not understood what the sufficiency of Scripture is all about.

My point, as I have stated several times, is that the church must be concerned with the personal preferences of God, who very clearly gave us what we need for faith and practice. A church is in error when it concerns itself with the personal preferences of secular culture over the personal preferences of God as revealed in Scripture. Furthermore, every NT writer from Romans through Revelations warns very harshly about the dangers of the world system in which the church is placed to be salt and light.

Romans 12:2 - Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Titus 2:11-12 - For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.

2 Timothy 4:9-10a - Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

James 1:27 – Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James 4:4 - You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

1 John 2:15-16 - Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life— is not from the Father but is from the world.

1 Peter 1:13-16 - Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Jude 1: 3-4 - Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 1:17-19 - But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

So it is safe to say that the world is no friend of the church, and certainly not a fountain of wisdom to teach the church how to worship God, battle sin, and reach sinners with the gospel.

You asked the question “OK, what portions of pop culture are sinful?” A better question is, “what portions of pop culture provide better wisdom for Christian living than the Scriptures?” This is really the question I have been addressing all along here. And the answer to that question is None of it. I have already conceded that it is possible, through common grace, for pop culture to produce something wholesome, but this is done in spite of its sinfulness, not because of the value of worldly wisdom.

Your question is an invitation to debate which things culture produced are sinful and which are not. Again, this is not the point of discussion I am raising. I am saying that a mark of an unhealthy church is looking to the culture as a fountain of wisdom for how to worship God, how to battle sin, how to live the Christian life and how to reach the lost. That is a bankrupt position that inevitably leads to the culture reaching the church.

“Until we understand how they think, we are ill-equipped to reach them. This is part of the science of ethnography. We must understand the people we are trying to reach.”

I have already stated we are to be wise and ministry to people with understanding. That is not the point.

“Because the “clear pure water of the Word” won’t tell you what your neighbor is struggling with, or how they process information, or how they think, or learn. It won’t tell you their cultural habits or perspectives.”

Actually the Bible does tell us quite a bit about how sinners think and how they view the world, but beyond that, I have already stated that the Christian is to be wise and understanding in dealings with sinners. We should be well aware of their cultural habits…but this is so far beyond the point I was making, which was that a church is foolish to receive the instruction of culture and build ministry on it, instead of on the Word of God.