Strong
Church/Weak Church 1
I have been a member of five churches
in my life. I spent my formative years from birth until age seventeen in the
church my dad pastored, the First Baptist Church of McDonald, Ohio. During my
senior year of high school my father accepted the pastorate of the
Sparlingville Baptist Church in Port Huron, Michigan. I moved my membership
there for about six months until I went to Bible college. At eighteen, upon
enrolling in Hyles-Anderson College, I joined the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. I attended there for the following six years. Then at age
twenty-four, I entered the ministry by way of the Bible Way Baptist Church in
New Castle, Pennsylvania. This church later changed its named to Lighthouse Baptist Church and moved to Bessemer, Pennsylvania where it still holds forth
the Word of life. After seven years pastoring there, I came to Maplewood Bible Baptist Church in Chicago, where I have served now for these fifteen years. All
of these churches are precious to me. I long to see them do well, and I thrill
at good reports, especially the one I grew up in and the two I have pastored.
Each of these churches had strengths
and each of them had weaknesses; including the one I pastor now. As a pastor, I
pay very close attention to those strengths and weaknesses. I seek to protect
and expand the strengths while simultaneously treating the weaknesses. I share
this wonderful opportunity and holy responsibility with tens of thousands of
other pastors, who are not the only ones concerned about the condition of their
church. Many a sincere, committed, caring church member longs to see their
church grow stronger. Their greatest fear is its decline and their greatest joy
is found in its advance. It is a rare privilege to pastor many such sweet
people here at Maplewood.
All of this begs the question, what
makes a church strong and what makes it weak? What are the signs of a healthy
church? Conversely, what are the signs of a sick church? These are critical
questions for they strike at the heart of what so many of God’s people care so
deeply about, and they speak directly to the availability of good churches for
the next generation. Answering these questions accurately lends insight into
what good pastors and good members should aim for, should work at, should pray
about, should prioritize for, and should seek to accomplish.
The next question that comes is where
do we go for the answers? Can I tell you what the answer to that question all
too often involves? Signing up for a conference somewhere at a “model” church.
Such churches, usually large, set themselves up as pattern churches for the
rest of us. We duly show up, are impressed, and run home to copy in our church
what seems to be working in that church. I do not mean this as harshly as it
probably comes across, but the longer I serve the Lord the less impressed I am
with the so-called great churches of our generation. I am glad for them. I am
grateful for their ministries. I am happy to see them thrive, at least as far
as I can tell, but I no longer look to them. I have gradually come to the
conclusion that if I want to find the pattern for what my church ought to aim
for, I need to look one place primarily – the pages of God’s Word.
So it is that this blog series was
birthed. In an effort to answer these questions biblically, I have studied at
some depth the local churches found in the Scripture. There are a surprising
number of them, and the written record contains more information about them
than one might think. As God does with men, He does not hesitate to record both
the good and the bad of these churches. In so doing, He reveals for us some
things that ought to be avoided and some things that ought to be pursued. For
the next few months, we are going to examine these churches with the purpose of
applying what we learn to churches in our own day.
Specifically, what churches am I
talking about? We will begin with the first and largest and most influential of
them all, the church at Jerusalem. We will move on to look at the church at
Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians. Following that, we
will discuss what is perhaps the weakest church in the Bible, the Corinthian
church. In due course, we will next inspect the churches at Ephesus, Smyrna,
Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. During this process we
will spend the bulk of our time in Acts, Corinthians, and Revelation.
As much as I know how, I will seek in
some sense to lay aside my experience and perspective as a pastor. I do not
want to spend the next few months giving you my considered opinion, for the
most part. I will try to bring us to an understanding based on the simple
truths of Scripture. In the process, I hope you will be enlightened, and more
importantly, I pray that your church will be strengthened.
We begin with the church at Jerusalem
next week. Stay tuned!
I am looking very forward to this series! Thank you in advance for your studies and willingness to share your observations from scripture with us.
ReplyDeleteBro. Tom - always enjoy your articles, they are a blessing to me.
ReplyDeleteBring it on...
ReplyDelete