The Church’s Pyramid Scheme: It isnt a Pretty Picture

Now that we are home we have returned to our Southern Baptist church. It is sad, to say the least.

We have a new pastor and everyone is salivating over him. That in itself is enough to raise my red flags. I’m not salivating, I’m too nauseated.

He’s a numbers guy and he’s a huge Jerry Vines fan, buddy, cohort, groupie…I’m not sure which.  (Jerry Vines isn’t a big fan of Calvnists.  Not sure what he thinks of Spurgeon…) When he told us Sunday morning that Mr. Vines will be paying our church a visit I wondered if the Calvinists would be invited. Probably not.

Yes, I’m jaded…and more than a bit irritated. My kids want nothing more than to be back with their friends, but because the church has become so bankrupt where the Gospel is concerned my husband and I feel we need to prayerfully consider switching churches.  (No, Rome isn’t calling.)

So what bothers me so much about our new pastor? First of all, in the four sermons I’ve heard since we’ve been back all I’ve heard about is getting more cars in the guest parking lot (and how he worked under a pastor who could baptize, dunk-style, five people at the same time). That seems to be his goal. It isn’t surprising, really. The big selling point in getting this guy was that he was good at “growing churches”. In the SB camp, that’s big business…I mean, really important. So, once we have more guests at our church, then what? What do we offer them, more sermons on how to get more people into the church?

I’ve tried to explain to my kids what the big deal is. Here is the analogy I came up with:

“Pretend there is a place that professes to paint pretty pictures to put all over the city. They have billboards all over the city telling how they paint pretty pictures and everyone is invited to come and paint the pretty pictures.

Now pretend you’re hungering to learn to paint pretty pictures and put them all over the city. The city really needs these pictures because they will greatly improve people’s lives, enhance the beauty of the city, and provide an opportunity to serve the community. So you head to this place with your new brushes and your painting clothes. You are eager to get started.

You walk in and a very cheerful person greets you at the door. “Hello,” she says, “Welcome to First Community Picture Painting. We are so glad you are here. Come on in and sit down.”

You sit down expecting to be taught how to paint pretty pictures. But wait, the man up front is telling you that you need to encourage more people to come and paint pretty pictures. You think to yourself, “O.K. Maybe we’ll learn to paint next week. I’ll invite LuLu next week.

Next week rolls around (LuLu didn’t come. She doesn’t believe in painting pretty pictures.) and you find yourself driving home, brushes still in their wrappers, wondering when you’ll actually learn to paint pretty pictures; when you’ll be able to get good enough to share them with the community.

After a couple months of messages about filling the parking lot but no instruction on how to actually paint pretty pictures you lose interest and finally stop going. You talk to LuLu over lunch and agree that painting pretty pictures is pretty silly. Besides, you both realize, there aren’t very many pretty pictures adorning the community anyway. It must not really matter that much.

O.K. It’s a silly analogy, but my ten year old got the point. He said, “Mom, no one was teaching anyone how to paint the pretty pictures. They just talked about getting more people into the picture place. You can’t put pictures around the community if you are never taught to paint.” From the mouths of babes. He got a lesson in pyramid schemes that day.

So why is the church failing? Simple. The focus is on numbers, not on Christ. Learning to properly exegete the Scriptures has been replaced with entertaining sermons sprinkled ever so lightly with a Bible verse here and there. Expository preaching has been cast aside for the unoffensive sermon geared toward keeping the hoped-for visitors happy and comfortable. For some reason, the church feels that the Gospel message needs to be made more palatable and easier to swallow. The church has become more concerned with appeasing the world than fearing God. The church doesn’t believe that a pure undiluted Gospel can save. The church is bankrupt yet it still promises large dividends.

Do I sound too harsh? Honestly, I don’t think I’m harsh enough.

~ by biblicalchristian on July 12, 2007.