Some years
ago a dear old friend now with the Lord who pastored and taught in a prominent
Bible college for forty years reminisced to me what it was like to be in the
ranks of the independent Baptists in the 1950s through the 1980s. “Oh, Brother
John,” he said with that remarkable grin of his, “It was wonderful seeing all
of our Churches being filled with those
people pouring in from mainline denominations.” Pouring in from mainline
denominations? This was just the comment I
needed to spark my interest in a line of inquiry growing out of my increasing
frustration at seeing so little fruit from my agonizing hours spent knocking on
doors while refusing to try to coax someone into repeating words of a prayer I
recited for them if I saw no discernible evidence of spiritual interest or
conviction. Many of my younger former Bible college classmates who had
grown up in IFB Churches were thrilled whenever they could persuade someone to
repeat the sinner’s prayer no matter the insincerity written all over the subject’s
face. To repeat the words meant the sinner was
saved, or so they thought. However, I had stumbled through a false hope
and knew what pretend Christianity was from my experience.
Coupled
together with that wonderful gentleman’s remark was a second illuminating
experience. Here at my second pastorate,
our Church worked hard to fill the auditorium at the end of an evangelistic
campaign that featured a wonderful Gospel preacher more than two decades ago.
On that last night of the crusade we had such an overflow crowd that well over
a hundred men had to stand outside to make room for women and children in the
auditorium. There was simply no place to put them. Thankfully, everyone could
hear the wonderful Gospel message, with 54 responding to the invitation to be saved if memory serves me correctly, most of
them adults. When I sent the great report to the Sword of the Lord, I quickly received a strongly worded
letter of rebuke from Curtis Hutson. “How dare you describe them as hopeful
converts,” he wrote. “It shows a lack of faith on your part to count them as
anything but new creatures in Christ.” I was stung by his remarks. After countless weeks of follow-up letter writing, phone calling,
personal visitation, and yet not one single person who responded to the
invitation that last night and praying the sinner’s prayer ever visiting our Church again, I became convinced the
description hopeful converts was the appropriate designation.
You may
wonder what the two illuminating experiences I have related have to do with
each other. They are vitally connected, I assure you because there is a world of difference between obtaining a
profession of faith, either being out soul winning or at the front of the
auditorium during an invitation and
adding someone to the Church. I beg your indulgence while I describe what I
think happened in the heyday of Baptist fundamentalism when the ten largest
Churches in the United States were all independent Baptist Churches.
Of the
thousands of two-person soul winning teams earnestly desiring to reach the lost
for Christ with the Gospel, consider the experiences of one team that
illustrate the familiar pattern of so many other teams. They knock on door
after door after door. Most doors are closed to them or are opened by hostile
or indifferent people. At one door, however, they find someone who is open and
curious, who graciously allows them to present the Gospel, and who then bows
his head, closes his eyes, and repeats the words he has been told to repeat. He
is then asked one or two questions, assured from First John 5.13 that now that
he has trusted Christ he is secure forevermore,
and arrangements are made for him to
attend Church the next day. This pattern is repeated all over America, and as
with most who follow this pattern the subject, despite repeating words of a
prayer, did not trust Christ as his savior and did not attend Church the next
day. Two more times that day this soul winning team erroneously thought they
met with success as they led two more subjects in a prayer that did not result
in them finding new life in Christ. Despite the spiritual reality, the soul
winning team reported three people saved that day.
Unknown to
that soul winning team, one of the couples they came to during the day who
turned them away closed the front door but then said to each other, “I wish our
Church did that.” Then, when they attended their Church the next day they were reminded of its spiritual deadness by the
lifeless preaching and the obvious absence of zeal in the lives of others
attending. Several weeks later, using the Gospel tract handed to them by the
soul winners from the Baptist Church, they attended the energetic fundamental
Baptist Church, were thrilled by the preaching, and then decided to join after
attending for several consecutive weeks. When they went forward during the invitation, they were asked, “Why have you come
forward?” They said, “We want to join.” “Are you Christians?” “Oh, my, yes.”
“Have you been baptized since you were saved?”
“We were sprinkled when we were very young.” To join they agreed to be immersed
and thereby became Baptists.
What the IFB
pastors did not know during the rapid growth years of the last half of the 20th
century is that the matter of false hopes was a vastly more serious problem
than their inexperience and lack of training had taught them. They were convinced that those who said they were
Christians were, in fact, Christians. And they attributed the growth of their
Churches to aggressive soul winning.
Their Churches did grow as a result of aggressive soul winning, but not
by adding newly born again Christians. Their Churches grew by adding still unsaved members from
mainline denominational Churches, with the baptismal waters being stirred by
the immersion of still unsaved people who were excited by the energy, the
passion, and the vigor of the determined independent Baptist pastors who sought
to win ‘em, wet ‘em, and then work ‘em without much attention paid to whether
they were truly won to Christ.
The three W's seemed like a good approach to the
pragmatists of our movement, but after a while
the old approaches began to wear thin and were eventually discarded. How can we
be sure the old approached wore thin? They were discarded, for the most part,
with few Churches running buses these
days, few Churches having big days these days, few Churches “scheduling
revivals” these days. What has replaced the specific crowd draws of days gone by? I could list a whole number of things,
but the important thing is what is still not taking place for the most part; conversions. How do I know few conversions are
taking place? Two things persuade me: First, if real conversions were occurring
with regularity those conversions alone would be all that was necessary to get
lost people to Church since that was the
approach used in the first century. Second,
if real conversions were occurring with regularity growing Churches would not
seek to grow at the expense of other Churches. Let me address this second
phenomenon at this time because I am convinced
it contributes to the departure of our young people from our Churches and the
departure of our young Gospel ministers from our movement.
Most growing
Churches in California do not grow using
evangelism but using sheep stealing,
which is to say the enticement of Christians to leave the congregations where
they were reached with the Gospel to find greener pastures elsewhere. Most
Christians are reached in medium to small congregations using intimate personal witness and contact with faithful Christians
who do not employ a scheme, an evangelistic plan, or some template. It is one
concerned prayer warrior who is burdened
for a friend, co-worker, or neighbor and who witnesses, patiently interacts,
and invites to Church. That subject then comes under real conviction and
genuinely trusts Christ as his Savior.
However, with the passage of time that fairly new Christian displays impatience
associated with his spiritual immaturity and succumbs to the enticements of a
nearby ministry that focuses on entertaining music or a truly exciting youth ministry
to attract members of nearby Churches. Of course, they claim their interest is
evangelism, but an accounting of their growth patterns reveal they are actually
“reaching” already Churched people.
Imagine for
just a moment the impact that approach has on the young people in both types of
Churches, those whose people are leaving to go to a larger ministry for what
are essentially carnal reasons and those whose friends have left the smaller
Churches they are attending for what are essentially carnal reasons. It establishes
as acceptable a pattern of conduct by Christians that is most definitely not
acceptable. Yes, Aquila and Priscilla left Rome for Corinth where they met
Paul. However, their departure was of necessity and not for reasons of personal
preference or the lure of entertaining ministry. When I was a young Christian
Church letters were still the norm in most Baptist Churches because leaving one’s
Church for another Church was still a serious matter in those days. No longer.
When was the last time you granted a Church letter to another Church where one
of your people had joined? Even rarer,
when was the last time you were made aware of a Church letter request being denied because the move from one Church
to another was for unspiritual reasons?
Is it any
surprise that our young people treat attendance at Church, faithfulness in
Church, and respect for Church so casually given
the way pastors have come to treat such matters? Pastors in our day are for the
most part no longer leaders who set the pattern for Christian practice and
convictions, but followers with a spiritual wet finger in the air to detect
which way the ecclesiastical winds are blowing. And the pastors of growing
Churches are too often cleverly, if not consciously, growing using solicitation of other Church’s members
and not evangelism. This is easy to
verify by simply asking members if they were ever members of other Churches. A
very significant number of our Church members came to us lost, and I can tell
you from twenty years of experience in a forty-year-old
ministry that getting folks saved, really and truly saved, is not only the
result of a great deal of hard work but a
huge investment of time.
Our young
people used to leave our Church, but that was back in the day when our
membership was a revolving door of comings and goings. Since we stopped inviting members of other Churches to attend our services
(even on special days and holiday season events) and focused on reaching out
only to the unchurched or those who attend Churches that do not preach the Gospel
we have noticed two things: First,
new Church members are very hard to come by now that we have limited ourselves
to growth by evangelism only, real evangelism. Also, far fewer of our young people leave now than they did before,
partly because our entire congregation treats membership and faithfulness to
this ministry as being very important. We not only encourage our people to be
faithful to our Church, but we also encourage anyone who visits us from other
Gospel Churches to be faithful to their Church, as well.
Is there a Scriptural warrant for our approach? I think
so. In addition to displaying straightforward ethical conduct, we consider Christians
to be sheep who are best situated in
their home flock. However, for those who are allergic to any principle drawn
from the Old Testament, consider Paul’s comments to the Corinthian congregation
in First Corinthians chapter 9.10, where the pastor is likened to a plower and a
thresher who should be granted the fruit
of their labor. To engage in sheep stealing is taking from a faithful pastor
the blessing God would give him of benefiting from the fruit of his labor.
Sadly, there are many sheep stealers in the Gospel ministry these days, and I am convinced it affects our young people and
our young Gospel ministers.
