 |
|
4th Annual Fall Pastors' Conference
GROWING THE CHURCH GOD’S WAY
“A Biblical and Historical Critique of the Church Growth Movement”
November 19-20
Several years ago a Russian KGB officer was converted to Christ and asked to come to America and visit some of the large mega-churches across this land to share his testimony and the mighty work God was doing in his homeland. Upon leaving to go back to Russia, he was asked what impressed him most about the churches in America. He thought for a while and then shockingly said: “That they can do so much without God.”
The time is overdue to have a conference that takes a critical look at the modern church growth movement in light of Scripture to discern whether it is headed in the right or wrong direction. We must begin by looking at the historical roots of the movement to discover the foundation it has been built upon, and then analyze its motives, methods, and message to determine if it is in line with Scripture and therefore a movement that is pleasing to God.
Let us heed the words of a great pastor from a bygone day:
"How is the world to be saved if the church is false to her Lord? How are we to lift the masses if our foundation is removed? If our gospel is uncertain, what remains but increasing misery and despair? Stand fast, my beloved, in the name of God! I, your brother in Christ, entreat you to abide in the truth. Act like men; be strong. The Lord sustain you for Jesus’ sake. Amen."
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Quotes To Think About ......
Charles Spurgeon from his sermon, "A Dirge for the Down-Grade, and A Song for Faith."
“I trust I am not given to finding fault where fault there is not; but I cannot open my eyes without seeing things done in our churches which, thirty years ago, were not so much as dreamed of…What folly has been left untried? What absurdity has been too great for the consciences of those who profess to be the children of God, who are not of the world, but called to walk with God in a separated life?...Ah sirs! There may have been a time when Christians were too precise, but it has not been in my day. There may have been such a dreadful thing as Puritanic rigidity, but I have never seen it. We are quite free from that evil now, if it ever existed. We have gone from liberty to libertinism. We have passed beyond the dubious into the dangerous, and none can prophesy where we shall stop. Where is the holiness of the church of God today?...Now she is dim as smoking flax, and rather the object of ridicule than of reverence.
|
 |
|
|  |
|
|
|
|  |
Let us renounce the hidden things of dishonesty; not walking in craftiness, or handling the word of God deceitfully. But by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
2 Corinthians 4:2
|
|
