Category: Biblical Identity

What is the Message of "Consumer Church?"

11/18/2014

We are looking at the rise of what we are calling, “Consumer Church” over the past 30-40 years in our nation. One of the things we must ask when examining Consumer Church is what message is being preached by it? Let’s take a look at that in our second installment of Consumer Church.

            By its very nature Consumer Church has as its main goal reaching those they consider consumers. But who is the “consumer?” Since the Consumer Church identifies them as the “unchurched” – the consumer becomes those who do not presently attend a church in whatever area a church is located. Therefore the message of Consumer Church becomes, “Come to church.” This may sound like a good message at first – but when placed beside the biblical message of salvation – it is found wanting. THE message of the church is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It matters little if someone is coming to church (i.e. they have become “churched”) if they are still in their sin. They will stand before God with a church membership certificate – and maybe even a church t-shirt and hat – but that will do nothing to pay for their sins against a holy God.

            Another thing that is normative about Consumer Church is how they use polls among the unchurched to find out what they need to do in ministry. Thus the message of Consumer Church is in some ways constantly morphing due to the “felt needs” or desires of the unchurched in its area. This is evident as Consumer Church changes regularly to accommodate the desires of those in the community. What is truly sad is when change is embraced even on a theological level. This is where Consumer Church becomes dangerous to those who attend. It is possible in seeking to be “relevant” to society that we find ourselves irrelevant to God.

            The message of the church – at least the true church – has not changed since its inception over 2000 years ago. The message of the church is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is that man is a sinner by nature and by choice. Sin separates us from God – and requires God’s just punishment for what man has done. The only way that punishment can be paid by men – is for them to pay it forever in hell. The good news is that God Himself provided a payment for sin – and that was accomplished at the cross where Jesus took sin upon Himself and paid to the uttermost its horrible price. He was buried and resurrected from the dead after 3 days. God, through this amazing grace, now saves those who respond to the gospel with repentance and faith. That is – has been – and always will be the message of the church. It will never change for all eternity.

            The message of salvation from sin and the wrath of God through Jesus Christ is the message of the church. Regardless of how the unchurched feel about this message – it is the only way of salvation available. When Consumer Church conforms to the desires of the unchurched, it is preaching a message of self rather than salvation. The “self-life” is something the New Testament identifies as sin. The self-life does not need to be something we cater to in the church, it is rather something to be exposed (Both in the lost and the saved – because even those redeemed by Jesus can become selfish and self-centered in their lives as well as in church). Give any honest survey of what Jesus teaches in your community and people will not be happy with Jesus. They will not like Him calling them to die to themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him. They will not like Him saying that to be His disciple they will have to hate their father and mother, wife and children, and even their own lives. They definitely won’t care for His statement, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.” That is WAY too exclusive for most of the “unchurched.” Throw in a healthy helping of Him affirming what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah, a six-day long creation, as well as Him stating that He is God, and you’ll have a poll that makes it clear that the world would like a different Messiah. What is truly fascinating is that this was the problem in the first place – that the world rejected Him because He didn’t compromise Who He was or what He was to do. He didn’t take a poll to guide Him into His purpose and plan – that He received from the Father (God as exclusively masculine also doesn’t poll well nowadays either).

            Please understand that I am NOT saying that the church should be inflexible when it comes to putting the gospel into the context of each society and culture where it is preached. Paul spoke of being all things to all men – but that never included the message of the gospel itself. It never included God’s call for us to be a holy and separate people. It never included an escape clause from being conformed to the image of Christ in our attitudes and actions. But when it comes to things clearly taught in the Scriptures – we do not have the luxury of changing or ignoring them without great loss on our part. The message of the church will forever be salvation by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ – whether a cultural and societal survey likes it or not.

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Who Exactly is the Consumer? (Consumer Church, part 1 of 4)

11/13/2014

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Consumer Church, part 1 of 4
Who Exactly is the Consumer?

            Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless you and bring you to a place where you desire what He desires in His church. This week I will begin my series of articles on “Consumer Church.”

            When the whole idea of “Consumer Church” came on the scene, it began with churches thinking it would be a good idea to begin polling people as to what they wanted in church. It was not long before churches were in surrounding neighborhoods going door to door asking people in their city what they wanted at church. Statistics were gathered from these polls and strategies were formed to “reach the unchurched.” Subsequently, a church program was developed that would minister to the felt needs that existed among the community. Over time the churches grew due to their ability to address the felt needs of their community. The unchurched were reached in large numbers – which eventually gave rise to the mega-churches of the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s. Success, right? Before we begin our celebration we might consider a fundamental problem that exists with this model of “doing church.”

            There is a problem that is inherently part of the “Consumer Church” model. That problem is that the consumer changes over time. This is why companies like Apple constantly poll the consumer. They do so to stay ahead of their ever-changing desires. The consumer actually drives what is happening in “Consumer Church.” If his or her felt needs are not met, he or she will be looking for a church that will meet their needs. In the years that I have been a pastor I’ve watched the “Consumer Church” change numerous times. They had to revamp just about everything because they learned that the busters did not want the same things as the boomers. A couple of years later they found out that the Gen X crowd had different desires than the Gen-next group. Even preaching and worship styles changed every few years. They learned that certain words – and even the symbol of the cross was seen in a negative way – so they morphed to meet those desires of the consumer.   In time some churches even set up different worship services for different age groups so they could continue meeting the felt needs of the last group they just reached.

            This whole scenario begs for an answer to a very pressing question. Who are we supposed to be pleasing in the church? The “Consumer Church” model says that we are to be please the consumer. But what happens when the consumer wants something that God does not? What happens when the consumer’s desires reflect the very lost and sinful condition God wants addressed in the gospel? What happens when the consumer wants a less convicting atmosphere or preaching that acknowledges there is more than one way to get to heaven? What happens when society becomes more open toward sexual immorality and the consumer calls for a broader mindset toward alternate lifestyles? Is the consumer always right? Is the church always beholden to shift her views and stands accordingly?

            The core problem with “Consumer Church” is that the consumer is treated as the supreme authority in how church is done – and often even in what the church preaches. Biblical church sees the revelation of God in Scripture as supreme. This is the radical difference between “Consumer Church” and “Christ-centered Church.” The “Christ-centered Church” believes that there is already an infallible rule for faith and for practice in God’s church. God did not set up His church to be a consumer driven endeavor. God calls His church to honor and glorify Him. He commands the church to seek His face and submit to what He desires. The way one does this is not by taking polls of the lost community. The way one does this is to read and study the Scriptures so that we know God – and in so doing – know what He wants in His church.

            Please understand that God will not lead us to be rude or disparaging toward the “consumer” or better said, the lost person in our community. God calls us to serve and love them – to minister to them – and lay down our lives as we share the gospel with them. But that being said, the “Christ-centered Church” does not have the freedom to ignore God’s desires because they conflict with those of the lost, consumer in our area. Our first and greatest priority in the church is to glorify God and make much of Him in everything we do at church. To make more of our potential “consumer” than we make of God is idolatry – and in the end it will not bring blessing to the church. We have to remember that our target audience is just One person in the end – God Himself. What I find interesting is that God is referred to as a “consuming fire” by Scripture. So actually, we are conforming to the consumer.   It is just that we are defining the consumer as THE Consumer. It is very appropriate to poll and consult THE Consumer. What we then learn of and from Him rules all decisions and reigns in the focus, direction, and program of His church. May God make us ever more sensitive to THE One and Only Consumer, making sure that whatever He wants is done in His church!

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Calvary Core Values - Core Value #1 - The Gospel

8/25/2014

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For the next couple of weeks I want to take a few moments to reiterate some very important principles by which we want to live and minister at Calvary Chapel. One might even call these things core principles and values that we hold.

This first of these core values we have is that we believe that there is only one way for sin to be forgiven - and that is through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Scriptures state this fact numerous times.

Jesus *said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. John 14:6 (NASB)

"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12 (NASB)

"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him." John 3:36 (NASB)

For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 (NASB)

Therefore we hold as one of our core values that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only means by which anyone can have their sins forgiven and be made righteous in the sight of God. We also hold that this salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace alone. It is not Jesus Christ and baptism (which is the error of baptismal regeneration). It is not Jesus Christ and the church (and by that I mean ANY church - even ours).

Permit me to unpack the rest of that previous statement. We believe that salvation is by faith alone. There are no works that we can do to merit or earn our salvation. Salvation is by faith alone - faith in what Jesus did through His perfect, sinless life - His substitutionary death (meaning He was our substitute on the cross - we deserved what happened there - yet He paid it for us) - and His glorious resurrection, by which God declared that He accepted what Jesus did to pay for sin and make sinners righteous in His sight. Faith is not just mental assent to these facts, but rather is a total commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It is a surrender on our part, where we lay down our own works as dead works - and our righteousness as filthy rags. We no longer trust in anything from ourselves - no religious standing or good works can make us righteous in God’s sight. The only thing God will accept for that work is what Jesus Christ did for us.

Finally, let me explain what we mean when we use the phrase, “by grace alone.” This phrase has to do with whether we ourselves can do anything for our salvation. The answer to that is a resounding NO! We cannot do anything for our salvation. It was God alone who chose to save us - we had nothing to do with our salvation. Romans 5 describes God’s grace this way,

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. “ Romans 5:6-8 (NASB)

The Word of God makes it clear that our state before God was that we were, “helpless.” There was nothing we could ever do - no amount of obedience to the Law - no amount of religious works - no amount of religious payments we could make that would ever bring us one millimeter closer to God. We had not just “messed up a little” with our sin. We had, “. . . fallen short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 (NASB) Therefore as Ephesians chapter 2 puts it, after painting the bleakest picture possible in verses 1-3 about our condition before God, “but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions - made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved). We believe that we are saved solely because of the grace and infinite mercy of God. Therefore no one may boast of having done anything whatsoever to deserve their salvation. We are infinite debtors to God for His indescribable gift - His marvelous, matchless, incredible grace.

This core value also comes with a core responsibility. We believe because there is salvation in no one else by Jesus Christ, we are responsible to take the gospel of His salvation to the ends of the earth. Our amazing salvation comes with a very real responsibility. If there is only one way of salvation - then all other religious views that do not come to God through Jesus Christ alone, by faith alone, through grace alone - are false. In the end all their religious fervor will amount to nothing - and they will face the wrath and judgment of God. This places on us a very serious task of proclaiming the gospel to every nation, tribe, people, and tongue (which by the way is Scripture). If our core value of belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ for salvation, does not lead to a core practice of taking the gospel across the street, across the city, across the state, nation, and world - then we are being very disobedient to the gospel, as well as very selfish toward the rest of the world who desperately need to hear of it.

Saints - we at Calvary Chapel of Jonesboro are very, very serious about the gospel of Jesus Christ and its implications. We know that this Core Value is at the heart of all that we do - and indeed is at the heart of who we are as a church. I urge you to consider what has been said here. Think about it and meditate on what is means - for you - for our fellowship - and for the world around us. If we will not just adopt such a Core Value as a statement of faith - but rather as the “reactor core” of our faith - I believe that God will revive us and begin to move among us in powerful ways. I believe those ways will include a reviving of our own hearts as we embrace the truths of the gospel - and a reviving of our passion for the world around us as we grasp the ramifications of the gospel.

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Digital or Biblical Identity?

5/20/2014

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Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord grant that your identity is firmly rooted in the fact that you are made in the image of God. May that truth, along with the fact that Jesus Christ died for your sins be all you need to know that you are worth infinitely more than our culture could ever offer you in its petty ways of establishing identity and worth.

     Ours is a culture that is obsessed with the idea of self-image. We labor constantly to make sure that our children – and indeed even adults – feel like they are worth something. Rather than base our view of ourselves on sound biblical footing, we’ve decided instead to manufacture worth for human beings out of thin air. The reason I say this is because the view of origins of those who seem to be consumed with giving people self-worth is more often evolutionary theory. That very theory makes it clear that there is no inherent meaning or purpose for our lives. We are just the latest in a series of very lucky accidents that have lead to our current state.   What I find somewhat funny is that those who hold to this view of our origin give themselves to a frantic effort to make people feel like their identity is something truly special.

     In keeping with this frenzied search for meaning I bring up a New York Times article entitled, “How Young is Too Young for a Digital Presence?” by Molly Wood. Much of the article is spent debating how young is too young to allow your child to participate in facebook, Twitter, Instagram and every other digital social network. But what is fascinating to me is Ms. Wood’s final paragraph in which she comments on our children’s need for such a historical digital presence. Her comments are not intended to encourage us to allow our children to participate in these social networks, but rather speaks of how we do need to make sure that they are represented on them by our own posting.

Let me quote her last paragraph to help you see the ridiculousness of her statement.

“if anything a child today who grows up and discovers that he has no photos on facebook or Instagram, might think of himself as an unloved anomaly. In an age of obsessive digital detailing if a child grows up unrecorded what is his identity at all?”

     Evidently to be absent from social networking is to have no identity whatsoever - what a horror! Please understand that I enjoy seeing pictures of my granddaughter Emily on facebook just like any other proud grandfather would. But to think that her identity would be wrapped up in how many posts were made on her behalf is utter silliness. What about the child who grows up in a poor home where these things could not be afforded? Are they an unloved anomaly? Are they identity-less phantoms who must spend the rest of their lives wondering if they have any meaningful existence?

     This is nothing more than the continued efforts of a society that is slowly losing their ability to reason. Having rejected God as creator, we desperately search for something . . . anything that can make us feel like we have value. Yet, searching for this in an online presence is little more than a fool’s errand where our true worth is measured in little more than how many pictures – how many “likes” – and how many reposts we can garner for ourselves. This kind of self-obsessed existence gives rise to a generation where we bury ourselves in our electronic devices – rarely looking up for any kind of real interaction with the person who is sitting across from us at a table. And to actually look even further up – seeing the glory of God in creation and realizing that if God made us we have ultimate meaning and purpose – well, that is just crazy talk.

     Let me encourage you to do something for your children. Take time to talk to them – personally – not by text. Take time to affirm them as something more than an electronic signature going out into the electronic ether desperately searching for one more “thumbs up” to make them feel loved. Let them know that they are the special creation of God. Tell them God knit them together in their mother’s womb – and knew all their days, even before one of them came to pass. Let them know that God loves them with an everlasting love. They are not made in the image of Mark Zuckerman (thank God!) or little more than a Twitter in the night. Tell them they are made in the image of God Himself and were made to fellowship with Him and know Him. Let them know that they are seen as more than a brief flicker of pixels on an instagram – that they were graven on the hands of God’s very Son as He gave His life for them.   Inform them that their lives are not measured by how often they are found on Vine, but rather that their live because by God’s glorious grace they have been grafted into THE VINE. Reject this goofiness that glorifies one’s digital presence as the end-all be-all of their purpose and identity. They are more than the sum total of their flashes of electronic 1’s and 0’s. They are made in the image of God – redeemed by the blood of the Son – and given life by the very Spirit of God Himself. That, dear saints, is how to help your child know that they have, not only an identity that will last until your hard drive dies, but one that goes on for all eternity.

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Articles

What is the Message of "Consumer Church?"

Who Exactly is the Consumer? (Consumer Church, part 1 of 4)

Calvary Core Values - Core Value #1 - The Gospel

Digital or Biblical Identity?

Biblical Articles

Categories

​Articles

What is the Message of "Consumer Church?"

Who Exactly is the Consumer? (Consumer Church, part 1 of 4)

Calvary Core Values - Core Value #1 - The Gospel

Digital or Biblical Identity?

Biblical Articles

Categories

Articles