Church Growth
“Don’t ever use the `E’ word with pastors,” I was advised by a prominent Christian leader. “Evangelism is a dirty word in the church. Use the `C’ word. Pastors like to hear about Church Growth.” During the past decade, a lot of pastors read books on Church Growth, attended seminars, and even hired consultants to help their church to grow. Some advice was helpful. Some was unscriptural. For example, they were told that churches that are “racially and economically homogeneous” grow best. Many churches, following this advice instead of James chapter 2, became comfortable social clubs for rich white people.
I was very interested when two experts on Church Growth appeared on the 700 Club TV show recently as part of a discussion of the current state of the church in America. Here are excerpts from their discussion:
C. Peter Wagner: “I think it is pretty obvious from the last election that some of the things the church was praying for and desiring did not happen in our society. The decade of the 80’s was a decade of a great flowering of the church growth movement with books and conferences and much interest….[It was] even featured in Time magazine. But yet at the end of the decade, church attendance was the same and Protestant church membership had decreased….Even the churches that had grown were shown to grow through transfer growth not through conversion growth. We haven’t seen large numbers of unsaved people come to Jesus Christ in America since the Jesus Movement. And I think it’s time that we move out and do what’s necessary to see unsaved people come to Christ….The only the way we are going to change the face of the church in America is to free the lay people, to get the lay people ministering.”
Ken Hemphill, Baptist Center for Church Growth: “From 1960 to 1990 church membership rose by 28% but at the same time population increased by 39% and thus we would have had to have 12 million more Christians today to keep even….There are churches that are reaching large numbers of unsaved people but by and large any growth that occurs is largely a transfer, what I term the reshuffling of the evangelical deck and it seems that every time we reshuffle the cards we drop some of them.”
I was amazed to hear two prominent experts on Church Growth say that despite all the books, seminars and interest in Church Growth over the past decade, church growth is not even keeping up with the population growth in our nation. And the growth we are seeing is pretty much people moving from one church to another. Wagner said that the last time we saw large numbers of unsaved people coming to Christ was during the Jesus Movement and that what we needed was to get the lay people ministering.
The Jesus Movement took place from about 1967 to 1975. During this time, large numbers of people involved in the drug counter culture were saved and were actively witnessing to others in this lifestyle. Most were saved through street evangelism, through coffeehouses and concerts, and through new converts witnessing to their friends.
I was saved in 1970 as part of the Jesus Movement. We met in crowded living rooms and storefront churches, not worrying about comfortable chairs or parking lots. We didn’t read books on church growth, but we did read and obey the Bible. Jesus, Peter, Paul and the other apostles went to the streets and public places to preach the gospel, so that’s what we did. We also witnessed to our family and friends, anyone we could. As a result, a lot of people got saved.
During the 1980’s, a lot of Christians who had been saved during the Jesus Movement stopped witnessing. They were busy making money, raising their families, and had a lot of excuses for not witnessing. Perhaps they thought that church growth experts and TV and radio ministries could do the job for them so they wouldn’t have to face possible rejection in witnessing to people. It didn’t work.
We need to become disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. Following Jesus involves obeying His command to take the Gospel into all the world. We need to sacrifice our money, our time, and our pride. The hardest sacrifice is our pride. We need to be willing to face rejection and opposition when we confront unsaved people with their lost condition and need of a Savior.
Outreach Reports
This letter is being written before the SOS outreach. We hope to have an outreach report on SOS-San Francisco in next month’s newsletter. On Saturday June 12, about a million Christians joined together to March for Jesus in 72 nations and 400 U.S. cities. Marches were held in seven S F Bay Area cities. I was involved in helping to plan the San Francisco March and Robin Woodruff operated the sound system for the rally at Civic Center. Over 100 churches were involved in the San Francisco March and the official police estimate was over 5000 marchers participating. To my knowledge, not a word about the March appeared in the news media, which may have been a blessing considering their anti-Christian bias. Over a hundred Christians were involved specifically in witnessing along the parade route and giving out food to the homeless at Civic Center. Christians prayed with one man who said he was the grandson of Satanist Anton LaVey. A lot of work was involved in preparing for the March, but I was excited that so many Christians joined together to praise God on the streets and to pray for our city and nation.
Over the years, we have experienced many kinds of opposition, but Saturday June 26 was the first time we had been picketed by a group of professing Christians. A man and five women from Grand Rapids, Michigan who call themselves the Church of the Firstborn picketed us for three hours and yelled at our worship group that we were going to Hell. They passed out a tract that says that the idea that God loves everyone is a lie. They also believe that true Christians don’t sin.
The New Life worship group continued to worship God, despite the distraction. Some who passed by were confused by the scene, and may even have thought these people were part of our group. But those who stayed around could see a clear contrast between the loving spirit in which we were ministering and the condemning, hateful, self-righteous spirit in which this cultic group “ministered.” This opposition caused the true gospel to stand out clearly against the counterfeit gospel.
A Final Word
As most of you know, I hate to talk about money or raise funds. I continually get things in the mail offering help with fund raising, but I find most of the methods offensive and I do not want to manipulate people to give. I have no moral objection to car washes, walks, banquets, bake sales, etc. but I would rather spend my time preaching the gospel. I am happy to speak in churches about evangelism, but we have few opportunities to do this. The only thing we do is to occasionally mention some of our needs in this newsletter. God has been faithful over the past 15 years to meet all our needs. Thank you, Lord, for your faithfulness. I also want to thank all of you who are praying for us and supporting us financially. I want you to know that we sincerely appreciate your help and will seek to be good stewards of every thing we are entrusted with.
One faithful soldier of the Lord and long-time supporter of this ministry, John Hazen, recently went to be with the Lord. John was a member of First Baptist Church and preached on the streets of San Francisco for many, many years.
Each year, we are not sure if we will have problems getting permits for our rallies during SOS, but this year we were able to get all the permits we needed. Bridgemont High School is letting us use their showers again this year, and also their swimming pool! Also, we are getting some beautiful, two-color tracts printed for the outreach. I offered one to a young man last week. He refused it, shouting “save a tree” as he walked away. I informed him it was printed on recycled paper and he came back and took a tract!
Please pray for the follow-up on those who will be saved during SOS-San Francisco. Pray for us that God will renew our strength after the outreach and give us fresh vision for the coming year. We have a new man in our house, James Otcheck. James came here from Homer, Alaska, where he graduated from Alaska Bible Insti tute. Pray that he will find work and make a successful adjust ment to living here and being part of this ministry.
Our next “Church on the Street” rally is scheduled for Saturday August 21. It will be held at the Powell St. BART Station from 3- 6 PM. Also, we will be doing an outreach in Fresno on Sat. August 14 and in Lakeport September 4-6. Call us for more information.
Our Tape of the Month is The First Amendment and the Gospel by Jay Sekulow. Jay is chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. He has successfully defended the rights of Chris tians in several important cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, which have helped to restore the rights of Christians to meet, pray and witness in public schools.
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
