teaqueen (teaqueen)
03-23-2005, 12:55 AM
The Fad-Driven Church
by Todd Wilken
The Plumbline, Volume 10, No. 1, February/March 2005
… The dictionary defines a fad as "a practice or interest followed
for a time with exaggerated zeal." This could just as well be a
description of congregational life of many Christian churches today.
There is a new book, a new program or a new emphasis every year or
so. It's all anyone can talk about; it's all the preacher preaches
about - for a while. Then, as quickly as it came, it's gone. As
eagerly as it was received, it's abandoned and forgotten.
Welcome to the Fad-Driven church.
At first this might not sound like a problem. Some Christians can
remember when the Church didn't jump from bandwagon to bandwagon
every year or two. But for others, this is all they have ever known.
For them, it is hard to imagine what the Church would be like
without the constant ebb and flow of church fads. For them, the long
list of church fads represents their personal history as a
Christian: Spiritual Gift inventories, Spiritual Warfare, Promise
Keepers, Weigh Down Workshop, The Prayer of Jabez; the Left Behind
Series, Becoming a Contagious Christian, a long succession of
evangelism and stewardship programs, and most recently, The Purpose-
Driven Life and 40 Days of Purpose. There are many Christians for
whom this list (give or take one or two) is Christianity. Some
church fads come and go, some come and stay. A few are genuinely
harmless; most contain serious theological error. All are popular -
while they last. In the fad-driven church, "exaggerated zeal" has
replaced "the faith once for all delivered to the Saints."1
In the course of hosting Issues, Etc. I've examined most if not all
of the recent church fads. I am always surprised - not by the fads
themselves, but by something else. I am always surprised by how
uncritically churches accept a fad, how enthusiastically churches
embrace a fad and how carelessly churches abandon a fad. That is why
this article isn't about the fads themselves, but about the kind of
churches that accept, embrace and abandon fads.
The Life Cycle of a Church Fad
Every fad has a life cycle. The fad is first accepted, then embraced
and finally abandoned. For the fad4riven church, this life cycle is
a way life.
The cycle begins with acceptance. The fad-driven church is practiced
at this. Too close an examination of the fad at the outset might
raise too many questions. "After all, this book is a best-
seller!" "Thousands of churches are doing it, how can we go wrong?"
Accept first, examine later, if at all. This acceptance may come
through the pastor's active promotion or through grassroots
popularity. Either way, the fad spreads like wildfire in the
congregation.
The cycle continues with enthusiastic embrace. By "enthusiastic" I
don't mean excitement or emotion, although those things may be
involved. What I mean is that the fad-driven church embraces its
latest fad with creedal intensity. While the fad has currency, it is
an article of faith. Belief in the fad becomes a mark of loyalty to
the church. During this phase of the fad's life cycle, critics of
the fad may be dismissed as unloving, judgmental or unconcerned for
saving souls. At the very least, they are viewed as troublemakers
and obstacles to the church's mission. During this phase, in some
cases, the fad may dictate what is preached, the content of bible
study or even the focus of congregational life.
The life cycle ends with the abandonment of the fad. Some fads have
a built-in expiration date... most simply linger until something
better comes along. The fad-driven church may cling with a martyr's
fervor to the fad while it lasts, but everyone knows that its days
are numbered. Sooner or later it will have to be abandoned. Accept
the fad, embrace the fad and abandon the fad. This is the life of a
fad-driven church. There are exceptions to this life cycle. In a
few cases a fad doesn't die; it grows into something bigger than a
fad. It grows into a movement... I have often been critical of
church fads at the height of their popularity. After several
encounters with fad defenders, I noticed something. The seasoned
member of the fad-driven church will defend his fad today. But he
will happily abandon the same fad six months from now. I realized
that the fad itself is inconsequential; everyone knows that it will
be forgotten sooner or later. Christians caught in the cycle of
church fads must defend a particular fad, because by doing so, they
are defending their willingness to accept, embrace and abandon fads
in general. They are defending their fad*-driven-ness.
A Lack of Discernment
The need of discernment in the Church is one of the most frequent
admonitions in Scriptnre.2 Paul's warning to the Ephesians is
typical:
We are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and
carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by
craftiness in deceitful scheming, but speaking the truth in love we
are to grow up in all aspects unto Him, who is the head even
Christ. 3
The church is supposed to stand immovable against "every wind of
doctrine." By contrast the fad-driven church is a windsock. If you
want to know which way the wind is blowing, the latest teachings,
the newest programs or the most current methods, just look at the
fad-driven church. If you want to know what the fad-driven church
will be doing next, just walk through your local Christian bookstore
or page through a Christian publisher's catalogue.
In the fad-driven church, books, programs and seminars are evaluated
primarily by their sales, popularity and attendance records, rather
than on their theological merit "False teaching? Why would so many
churches be reading this book if it contained false teaching?"… Can
millions of Christians be wrong? Yes, they can.
Ironically, the fad-driven church often excuses its lack of
discernment in the name of saving souls. It justifies its appetite
for fads in the name of evangelism. "Whatever it takes" is the creed
of the fad-driven church. "Whatever it takes to reach the lost" is
supposed to be a courageous new strategy for evangelism.
But "whatever it takes" is not a strategy. "Whatever it takes" is an
admission that you have no strategy. Sinners aren't saved
by "whatever." Sinners are saved by what Jesus did at the
Cross. "Whatever it takes" is just another way of saying, "Whatever
people want," or "Whatever everyone else is doing." Rather than
seeking the lost, the fad-driven church is just seeking its next
fix.
Some advocates of church fads take the "Eat the meat, spit out the
bones" approach to false teaching. They claim that practicing
discernment means spiting the "bone?" of error while eating
the "meat" of truth. There are several problems with this approach.
First, it assumes that a church fad contains only isolated false
teachings, like so many bones in a fish. But many church fads don't
just contain false teaching; they are based on false teaching...
Second, the "bone spitting" approach assumes that the errors of the
latest church fad will be obvious to everyone. Often they are not.
In the second century, Irenaeus battled the fad of Gnosticism. He
observed:
Error, indeed is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being
thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily
decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to
make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the __expression
mqy seem) more true than the truth itself. 4
The "inexperienced" are still infants in the faith. Would you give
an infant a fish to eat knowing that there were bones in it?
Finally, the "bone spitting" approach fails to recognize that a
continuous stream of fads will erode the church's ability to discern
truth from error. With every new fad, the fad-driven church grows
less able to recognize the truth. In time, the fad-driven church is
unable to discern the true Gospel. Paul found this to be the case
among the Corinthians:
If one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached or
you receive a different spirit which you have not received or a
dflfrrent gospel which you have not accepted you hear this
beautifully. 5
This is the bottom line. A church willing to tolerate some false
teaching will eventually tolerate any false teaching - even a false
gospel, a false spirit and a false Jesus. For this reason, when it
comes to false teaching, Scripture's command isn't to "bone-spit,"
but to avoid it altogether. 6
Desperation
… Os Guinness has written about the "idol of relevance" and
accurately described the mentality of the fad-driven church:
And of course, whatever is next must be a great deal better still …
The past is beside the point, outdated, reactionary, and stagnant.
In a word that is today's supreme term of dismissal, the past is
irrelevant. Everything Christian from worship to evangelism must be
fresh, new, up-to-date, attuned, appealing, seeker-*sensitive,
audience-friendly, and relentlessly relevant ... "All new", " must-*
read", " the sequel that is more than equal" - the mentality is
rampant and' the effect is corrosive. 7
Rather than making the church more relevant this mentality only
makes the fad-driven church more susceptible to fads and more
desperate;
Relevance without truth encourages what' Neitzsche called "the herd"
mentality and Kierkegaard "age of the crowd" Further compounded by
accelerated change which itself is compounded by the fashion-driven
dictates of consumerism, relevance becomes overheated and vaporizes
into trendiness. 8
Guinness' final observation is an uncanny paraphrase of Jeremiah's
lament:
Feverishness is the condition of an institution that has ceased to
be faithful to its origins. It is then caught up in "a restless,
cosmopolitan hunting after new and ever newer things. 9
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for
themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
[Jeremiah 2:11-13]. This explains the short life span of so many
church fads. It is the result of desperation. The fad-driven
church's new cisterns are broken. They can't hold water. Even while
the last drops drain from the old cistern, the fad-driven church
must desperately dig a new one. But the new cistern is as leaky as
the old one, so the digging must go on.
Nothing to Offer; Nothing to Say
Williani Inge said, "Whoever marries the spirit of this age will
find himself a widower in the next." Take away the fads, and what of
the Church is left in the fad-driven church? In some cases, what's
left isn't the church at all, but a collection of principles,
practices and ideas that don't add up to anything resembling the
Christian faith. Rather than "the pattern of sound words",10 there
are only the remnants of past fads.
In the name of saving the lost the fad-driven is trading the saving
message of the Gospel for the newest gimmick. If such a church does
reach the lost, will it have anything to say that can save
them? ...Will the fad-driven church give Christians Jesus or Jabez,
lasting forgiveness or the latest fashion?
And for the member of the fad-driven church who has known nothing
but fads, will these fads leave her a Christian on her deathbed (or
will she be left wondering what that whirlwind of best-sellers,
seminars, video sermons and three-ring binders was all about?)
The church that wraps its identity and mission around the evanescent
desires of finicky consumers, will run the risk of creating a church
as ephemeral as those desires.11 Will the fad-driven church remain
the Church? In its "exaggerated zeal for all things new, will it
hold fast to the unchanging message of the Cross?"
Fad or Faith
We live in an age of pious distractions. We live in an age of church
fads. The fad-driven church has structured its life around the
trends and innovations of the day. Christian publishers and the mega*
church gurus are ready to provide something new as often as the
masses demand it. But St. Paul encourages and warns the Church:
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the
living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I
give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out
of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and
careful instruction For the time will come when men will not put up
with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will
gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their
itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the
truth and turn aside to myths. 12
The Church has something better than any fad. The time has come.
Ears are itching. Ears are turning. The Church must take up Paul's
charge. Now more than ever the Church must preach the Word and
ignore the fads.
Many in the fad-driven church believe that preaching the Word is
impractical: "If just preaching the Word worked, people would be lin*
ing up at the door." Others in the fad- driven church believe that
preaching the Word is outdated: "It may have worked 50 years ago,
but not today." Others believe that preaching the Word is just too
simple. Rick Warren has said as much,
We've all heard speakers claim, "If you'll pray more, preach the
word and be dedicated, then your church will grow." Well, that's
just not true. I can show you thousands of churches where pastors
are doctrinally sound; they love the Lord; they're committed and
spirit filled and yet their churches are dying on the vine. 13
This is nonsense. How can a church that is preaching the Word of God
be "dying on the vine?" Paul tells the Church to preach the Word not
because it is the most practical way, or the most current way, or
the simplest way. Paul tells us to preach the Word because it is the
only way.
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not
come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of
the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask
for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ
crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power
of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is
wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 14
G.K. Chesterton said "The Church always seems to be behind the
times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the
last fad shall have seen its last summer. It keeps the key of a
permanent virtue." That key is the Gospel, the message of the
forgiveness of sins purchased at the Cross, with the blood of Jesus.
That key is the Gospel proclaimed to every sinner every Sunday...
Yes, this Gospel is popularly believed to be impractical, outdated,
and simplistic. But it isn't. Rather, this Gospel is "power of God
unto salvation for everyone who believes. 15
Without this Gospel, the Church is at the mercy of every new fad.
However, with this Gospel, the Church really is beyond the times.
As I write this, my 12 year old daughter is convinced that hip-
hugger bell-bottoms are the greatest idea in fashion history. I
don't have the heart to tell her that I used to think so too. She
thinks her father looks old-fashioned and lacks all sense of style.
I don't have the heart to tell her that I look back at pictures of
my bell-bottom days and laugh. I don't have the heart to tell her
that someday she will do the same. The Church is an old man who has
been wearing the same clothes in the same style his whole life. He
refuses to change with the fashions. He simply lets the fads pass
him by. Yes, he seems behind the times. But look again at what he is
wearing. He is clothed in Christ.
This article is an abridgement of the longer article which can be
found in man, Elt Journal, Vol 3, Nal, pp.4-9. Thanks to Todd Wilten
for permission to share this informatiort You can access Issues, Etc
at www.M.suesetc.or (http://www.M.suesetc.or)£
---
1. Jude 3.
2. Romans 16:17; 1 Cor. 14:29; 2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 1:9; Phil. 1:8-11;
2 Thess. 3:6; 1 Tim. 4:6,16; 6:3-5; 2 Tim. 1:13; 2:13; 4:3-5; Titus
1:7-14; 2:1; 1 John 4:1; Hebrews 5:14.
3 Ephesians 4:l4-15.
4 Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus Haereses, 1,2, in The Ante-Nicine
Fathers, vol.1, Alexander Roberts and James Donalson, ed.,
Hendrickson, 1994.
5 2 Cor. 11:4.
6 Gal. 2:4-5; 3:9; 1 Cor. 5:6; Phil. 3:2; 2 Thes. 2:15; l Tim. 4:6-
7; 6:20-21; 2 Tim. 1:13-3:1-17; 2 Peter 2:1-3; 3:17-18; Rev. 2:14-16
7 Os Guinness, Prophetic Untimeliness, A Challenge to the Idol of
Relevance, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003, pp.40,76.
8 Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil, The Mega- church Movement
Flirts with Modernity, Rapids: Baker, 1993, p.63.
9 Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil p.63.
10 2 Tim. 1:13.
11 Philip Kenneson, James Street, Selling Out the Church, The
Dangers of Church Marketing, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997, p.20.
12 2 Tim. 4:1-4.
13 Rick Warren, "Rick Warren Interview" at
http://www.paston.eom/portal/lnew/Ricklnterview.asp
14 I Cor. 1:21-25, Also Matt. 24:14; Luke 24:46-47; Romans 10:17;
16:25-27; 2 Cor. 4:5; Col. 1:25-28.
15 Romans 1:16
by Todd Wilken
The Plumbline, Volume 10, No. 1, February/March 2005
… The dictionary defines a fad as "a practice or interest followed
for a time with exaggerated zeal." This could just as well be a
description of congregational life of many Christian churches today.
There is a new book, a new program or a new emphasis every year or
so. It's all anyone can talk about; it's all the preacher preaches
about - for a while. Then, as quickly as it came, it's gone. As
eagerly as it was received, it's abandoned and forgotten.
Welcome to the Fad-Driven church.
At first this might not sound like a problem. Some Christians can
remember when the Church didn't jump from bandwagon to bandwagon
every year or two. But for others, this is all they have ever known.
For them, it is hard to imagine what the Church would be like
without the constant ebb and flow of church fads. For them, the long
list of church fads represents their personal history as a
Christian: Spiritual Gift inventories, Spiritual Warfare, Promise
Keepers, Weigh Down Workshop, The Prayer of Jabez; the Left Behind
Series, Becoming a Contagious Christian, a long succession of
evangelism and stewardship programs, and most recently, The Purpose-
Driven Life and 40 Days of Purpose. There are many Christians for
whom this list (give or take one or two) is Christianity. Some
church fads come and go, some come and stay. A few are genuinely
harmless; most contain serious theological error. All are popular -
while they last. In the fad-driven church, "exaggerated zeal" has
replaced "the faith once for all delivered to the Saints."1
In the course of hosting Issues, Etc. I've examined most if not all
of the recent church fads. I am always surprised - not by the fads
themselves, but by something else. I am always surprised by how
uncritically churches accept a fad, how enthusiastically churches
embrace a fad and how carelessly churches abandon a fad. That is why
this article isn't about the fads themselves, but about the kind of
churches that accept, embrace and abandon fads.
The Life Cycle of a Church Fad
Every fad has a life cycle. The fad is first accepted, then embraced
and finally abandoned. For the fad4riven church, this life cycle is
a way life.
The cycle begins with acceptance. The fad-driven church is practiced
at this. Too close an examination of the fad at the outset might
raise too many questions. "After all, this book is a best-
seller!" "Thousands of churches are doing it, how can we go wrong?"
Accept first, examine later, if at all. This acceptance may come
through the pastor's active promotion or through grassroots
popularity. Either way, the fad spreads like wildfire in the
congregation.
The cycle continues with enthusiastic embrace. By "enthusiastic" I
don't mean excitement or emotion, although those things may be
involved. What I mean is that the fad-driven church embraces its
latest fad with creedal intensity. While the fad has currency, it is
an article of faith. Belief in the fad becomes a mark of loyalty to
the church. During this phase of the fad's life cycle, critics of
the fad may be dismissed as unloving, judgmental or unconcerned for
saving souls. At the very least, they are viewed as troublemakers
and obstacles to the church's mission. During this phase, in some
cases, the fad may dictate what is preached, the content of bible
study or even the focus of congregational life.
The life cycle ends with the abandonment of the fad. Some fads have
a built-in expiration date... most simply linger until something
better comes along. The fad-driven church may cling with a martyr's
fervor to the fad while it lasts, but everyone knows that its days
are numbered. Sooner or later it will have to be abandoned. Accept
the fad, embrace the fad and abandon the fad. This is the life of a
fad-driven church. There are exceptions to this life cycle. In a
few cases a fad doesn't die; it grows into something bigger than a
fad. It grows into a movement... I have often been critical of
church fads at the height of their popularity. After several
encounters with fad defenders, I noticed something. The seasoned
member of the fad-driven church will defend his fad today. But he
will happily abandon the same fad six months from now. I realized
that the fad itself is inconsequential; everyone knows that it will
be forgotten sooner or later. Christians caught in the cycle of
church fads must defend a particular fad, because by doing so, they
are defending their willingness to accept, embrace and abandon fads
in general. They are defending their fad*-driven-ness.
A Lack of Discernment
The need of discernment in the Church is one of the most frequent
admonitions in Scriptnre.2 Paul's warning to the Ephesians is
typical:
We are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and
carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by
craftiness in deceitful scheming, but speaking the truth in love we
are to grow up in all aspects unto Him, who is the head even
Christ. 3
The church is supposed to stand immovable against "every wind of
doctrine." By contrast the fad-driven church is a windsock. If you
want to know which way the wind is blowing, the latest teachings,
the newest programs or the most current methods, just look at the
fad-driven church. If you want to know what the fad-driven church
will be doing next, just walk through your local Christian bookstore
or page through a Christian publisher's catalogue.
In the fad-driven church, books, programs and seminars are evaluated
primarily by their sales, popularity and attendance records, rather
than on their theological merit "False teaching? Why would so many
churches be reading this book if it contained false teaching?"… Can
millions of Christians be wrong? Yes, they can.
Ironically, the fad-driven church often excuses its lack of
discernment in the name of saving souls. It justifies its appetite
for fads in the name of evangelism. "Whatever it takes" is the creed
of the fad-driven church. "Whatever it takes to reach the lost" is
supposed to be a courageous new strategy for evangelism.
But "whatever it takes" is not a strategy. "Whatever it takes" is an
admission that you have no strategy. Sinners aren't saved
by "whatever." Sinners are saved by what Jesus did at the
Cross. "Whatever it takes" is just another way of saying, "Whatever
people want," or "Whatever everyone else is doing." Rather than
seeking the lost, the fad-driven church is just seeking its next
fix.
Some advocates of church fads take the "Eat the meat, spit out the
bones" approach to false teaching. They claim that practicing
discernment means spiting the "bone?" of error while eating
the "meat" of truth. There are several problems with this approach.
First, it assumes that a church fad contains only isolated false
teachings, like so many bones in a fish. But many church fads don't
just contain false teaching; they are based on false teaching...
Second, the "bone spitting" approach assumes that the errors of the
latest church fad will be obvious to everyone. Often they are not.
In the second century, Irenaeus battled the fad of Gnosticism. He
observed:
Error, indeed is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being
thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily
decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to
make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the __expression
mqy seem) more true than the truth itself. 4
The "inexperienced" are still infants in the faith. Would you give
an infant a fish to eat knowing that there were bones in it?
Finally, the "bone spitting" approach fails to recognize that a
continuous stream of fads will erode the church's ability to discern
truth from error. With every new fad, the fad-driven church grows
less able to recognize the truth. In time, the fad-driven church is
unable to discern the true Gospel. Paul found this to be the case
among the Corinthians:
If one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached or
you receive a different spirit which you have not received or a
dflfrrent gospel which you have not accepted you hear this
beautifully. 5
This is the bottom line. A church willing to tolerate some false
teaching will eventually tolerate any false teaching - even a false
gospel, a false spirit and a false Jesus. For this reason, when it
comes to false teaching, Scripture's command isn't to "bone-spit,"
but to avoid it altogether. 6
Desperation
… Os Guinness has written about the "idol of relevance" and
accurately described the mentality of the fad-driven church:
And of course, whatever is next must be a great deal better still …
The past is beside the point, outdated, reactionary, and stagnant.
In a word that is today's supreme term of dismissal, the past is
irrelevant. Everything Christian from worship to evangelism must be
fresh, new, up-to-date, attuned, appealing, seeker-*sensitive,
audience-friendly, and relentlessly relevant ... "All new", " must-*
read", " the sequel that is more than equal" - the mentality is
rampant and' the effect is corrosive. 7
Rather than making the church more relevant this mentality only
makes the fad-driven church more susceptible to fads and more
desperate;
Relevance without truth encourages what' Neitzsche called "the herd"
mentality and Kierkegaard "age of the crowd" Further compounded by
accelerated change which itself is compounded by the fashion-driven
dictates of consumerism, relevance becomes overheated and vaporizes
into trendiness. 8
Guinness' final observation is an uncanny paraphrase of Jeremiah's
lament:
Feverishness is the condition of an institution that has ceased to
be faithful to its origins. It is then caught up in "a restless,
cosmopolitan hunting after new and ever newer things. 9
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for
themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
[Jeremiah 2:11-13]. This explains the short life span of so many
church fads. It is the result of desperation. The fad-driven
church's new cisterns are broken. They can't hold water. Even while
the last drops drain from the old cistern, the fad-driven church
must desperately dig a new one. But the new cistern is as leaky as
the old one, so the digging must go on.
Nothing to Offer; Nothing to Say
Williani Inge said, "Whoever marries the spirit of this age will
find himself a widower in the next." Take away the fads, and what of
the Church is left in the fad-driven church? In some cases, what's
left isn't the church at all, but a collection of principles,
practices and ideas that don't add up to anything resembling the
Christian faith. Rather than "the pattern of sound words",10 there
are only the remnants of past fads.
In the name of saving the lost the fad-driven is trading the saving
message of the Gospel for the newest gimmick. If such a church does
reach the lost, will it have anything to say that can save
them? ...Will the fad-driven church give Christians Jesus or Jabez,
lasting forgiveness or the latest fashion?
And for the member of the fad-driven church who has known nothing
but fads, will these fads leave her a Christian on her deathbed (or
will she be left wondering what that whirlwind of best-sellers,
seminars, video sermons and three-ring binders was all about?)
The church that wraps its identity and mission around the evanescent
desires of finicky consumers, will run the risk of creating a church
as ephemeral as those desires.11 Will the fad-driven church remain
the Church? In its "exaggerated zeal for all things new, will it
hold fast to the unchanging message of the Cross?"
Fad or Faith
We live in an age of pious distractions. We live in an age of church
fads. The fad-driven church has structured its life around the
trends and innovations of the day. Christian publishers and the mega*
church gurus are ready to provide something new as often as the
masses demand it. But St. Paul encourages and warns the Church:
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the
living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I
give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out
of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and
careful instruction For the time will come when men will not put up
with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will
gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their
itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the
truth and turn aside to myths. 12
The Church has something better than any fad. The time has come.
Ears are itching. Ears are turning. The Church must take up Paul's
charge. Now more than ever the Church must preach the Word and
ignore the fads.
Many in the fad-driven church believe that preaching the Word is
impractical: "If just preaching the Word worked, people would be lin*
ing up at the door." Others in the fad- driven church believe that
preaching the Word is outdated: "It may have worked 50 years ago,
but not today." Others believe that preaching the Word is just too
simple. Rick Warren has said as much,
We've all heard speakers claim, "If you'll pray more, preach the
word and be dedicated, then your church will grow." Well, that's
just not true. I can show you thousands of churches where pastors
are doctrinally sound; they love the Lord; they're committed and
spirit filled and yet their churches are dying on the vine. 13
This is nonsense. How can a church that is preaching the Word of God
be "dying on the vine?" Paul tells the Church to preach the Word not
because it is the most practical way, or the most current way, or
the simplest way. Paul tells us to preach the Word because it is the
only way.
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not
come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of
the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask
for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ
crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power
of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is
wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 14
G.K. Chesterton said "The Church always seems to be behind the
times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the
last fad shall have seen its last summer. It keeps the key of a
permanent virtue." That key is the Gospel, the message of the
forgiveness of sins purchased at the Cross, with the blood of Jesus.
That key is the Gospel proclaimed to every sinner every Sunday...
Yes, this Gospel is popularly believed to be impractical, outdated,
and simplistic. But it isn't. Rather, this Gospel is "power of God
unto salvation for everyone who believes. 15
Without this Gospel, the Church is at the mercy of every new fad.
However, with this Gospel, the Church really is beyond the times.
As I write this, my 12 year old daughter is convinced that hip-
hugger bell-bottoms are the greatest idea in fashion history. I
don't have the heart to tell her that I used to think so too. She
thinks her father looks old-fashioned and lacks all sense of style.
I don't have the heart to tell her that I look back at pictures of
my bell-bottom days and laugh. I don't have the heart to tell her
that someday she will do the same. The Church is an old man who has
been wearing the same clothes in the same style his whole life. He
refuses to change with the fashions. He simply lets the fads pass
him by. Yes, he seems behind the times. But look again at what he is
wearing. He is clothed in Christ.
This article is an abridgement of the longer article which can be
found in man, Elt Journal, Vol 3, Nal, pp.4-9. Thanks to Todd Wilten
for permission to share this informatiort You can access Issues, Etc
at www.M.suesetc.or (http://www.M.suesetc.or)£
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1. Jude 3.
2. Romans 16:17; 1 Cor. 14:29; 2 Cor. 13:5; Gal. 1:9; Phil. 1:8-11;
2 Thess. 3:6; 1 Tim. 4:6,16; 6:3-5; 2 Tim. 1:13; 2:13; 4:3-5; Titus
1:7-14; 2:1; 1 John 4:1; Hebrews 5:14.
3 Ephesians 4:l4-15.
4 Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus Haereses, 1,2, in The Ante-Nicine
Fathers, vol.1, Alexander Roberts and James Donalson, ed.,
Hendrickson, 1994.
5 2 Cor. 11:4.
6 Gal. 2:4-5; 3:9; 1 Cor. 5:6; Phil. 3:2; 2 Thes. 2:15; l Tim. 4:6-
7; 6:20-21; 2 Tim. 1:13-3:1-17; 2 Peter 2:1-3; 3:17-18; Rev. 2:14-16
7 Os Guinness, Prophetic Untimeliness, A Challenge to the Idol of
Relevance, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003, pp.40,76.
8 Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil, The Mega- church Movement
Flirts with Modernity, Rapids: Baker, 1993, p.63.
9 Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil p.63.
10 2 Tim. 1:13.
11 Philip Kenneson, James Street, Selling Out the Church, The
Dangers of Church Marketing, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997, p.20.
12 2 Tim. 4:1-4.
13 Rick Warren, "Rick Warren Interview" at
http://www.paston.eom/portal/lnew/Ricklnterview.asp
14 I Cor. 1:21-25, Also Matt. 24:14; Luke 24:46-47; Romans 10:17;
16:25-27; 2 Cor. 4:5; Col. 1:25-28.
15 Romans 1:16