I thought these two blog posts were very good concerning the "new" evangelical Christianity being pedaled today.

Christian Smith has indentified five points of what he calls Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

Then he writes, "However, this is the basis of the 'theology' predominantly preached and taught throughout the seeker movement."

Source: http://christianresearchnetwork.com/?p=19792

The other post is from the Sola Sisters, and they write,

There is a new wind blowing across the landscape of evangelical Christianity. There are those who say, and it's increasingly common to hear, things like this in the evangelical church. There are those who say:

"We need less doctrine and more devotion."
"We need less learning and more loving."
"It's not what you believe that matters, it's whom you trust."
"We need to focus on the heart, not the head."
"We need to move from conviction to conversation."
"We need to move from the absolute to the authentic."

Source: http://solasisters.blogspot.com/2010/10/we-cant-know-truth-not-according-to.html

Old People in the Church--Wanted?

As I've written here before, as I get older I am becoming more and more aware of how things are changing in the church for older adults. Mainly, many of us feel pastors wish we would just go away.

This is a must read - about a pastor grateful for the lunches he has with one of his congregants--a 106 year old woman, and what he learns from her.

The link is here.

(A big thanks to Challies' blog for finding this gem)

Let's Stop Segregating People in the Church

There's a lot of talk about the church and how we are a family. But where do we really see a church "family?" In most churches there are groups of people who somehow find each other and have the following in commmon:
-the same social-economic status
-the same race; ethnic group
-the same age
-the same marriage or non-marriage status
-the same sin; dysfunctionalism, etc.

If this is a family, it is the most dyfunctional family around. Many churches answer this is by holding home groups, set up and run by the church. Most of these groups don't work because often they are led by people who aren't good leaders, people go to the group they want to be in which simply continues the segregation, and they answer boring Bible study questions. So what should a church do?

Proverbs 27:17 says, as iron sharpens iron, so does countenance sharpen countenance. There is nothing better to grow as a person than being around people unlike yourself. Recovery groups IMO, from what I've observed, simply hold people down with people just like themselves. And where I've seen a little growth in some of the people in these groups, on the whole, the growth doesn't continue. So what can a church do to facilitate this growth and come against the human tendency to segregate? Churches need to get brave and help people understand this fact. Most churches do not wish to upset the apple cart because they are terrified that people will leave the church. Good. Let them leave. If a church is doing things God's way, He will bring new people to the church.

Churches need to organize the groups geographically and have people go to the one nearest to them. But they also need to go further and tell people what group they will be in for logistical reasons, instead of allowing members to choose their own groups. Why? Because manhy people will still choose a group their friends are in. I went to a church that organized the groups geographically and it was incredible to see the growth in the people. By the way, this was not a controlling church at all. The reason the church could pull this off so well was because they simply told the congregation the truth, that is, they said many of the things I've written above. For the most part, the congregation understood and accepted this. Once the groups are formed leadership is very important as is supervision. So who should lead the groups? I firmly believe after seeing church after church wrecking their groups by not having the right leaders and supervision, that elders or what I term "near-elders" should be leading these groups. That also solves the problem of elders not really knowing most of the members of the church. So what do we do in these groups? I don't believe they should be therapy groups. This can be tricky when people are sharing prayer requests. There should be ice-breaker games on a frequent basis so people really get to know each other. Also, people can break up in smaller groups during the meeting to work on some question or project. I just do not want to go to another group where the church has no clue to what is going on under an ineffective leader with another boring Bible study that I've probably heard ad nauseum over the past 40 years. The younger evangelicals just will not come to this type of group either, so what is the future of the church if they aren't in it?

Some churches are doing a group I call the interest group. These are small groups for people with similar intersts and hobbies. Examples I've seen can include the knitting group, prayer group, cooking group, philosophy group, help the poor group and so forth. In many hcurches these are used to evangelize. I don't mind these groups but they should definitely not replace the small diverse group. Interest groups basically are made up of similar age groups and so here we go with the segregation again. The pastors and elders of a church need to bone up and stop being girlie men. They need to put the emotional and spiritual health of the congregants above their fear of offending people and the (maybe) resulting "low attendance numbers." We need leaders who actually care about thier congregants and put them above their fears.

The 75% Solution

As I pass my 48th year in Christ, I am realizing more and more a principle in play. Most churches, I suppose, would refute this, but I am very confident recently that this is true. IF we would follow the Holy Spirit more and take the Bible more seriously and more literally (in places where it should be taken literally--not all places are like that), then I believe firmly that at least 75% of individual problems and church problems would be resolved. We really don't have life answers for people outside the church nor even inside the church. Here is what I mean. The American church says:

Are you sick? Don't come to us for healing as we're not sure God heals. And if we did believe He heals today, we're not sure He is going to heal you. So, I hope you have health insurance and good doctors. Of course in poor countries we realize they don't have health insurance or even the money to go to doctors, even if there were enough doctors close by to go to. So, of course we realize that they have to live by faith.In other words, God has put forth a two-tiered system--one for wealthier countries and one for poor countries.
[See James 5:14-15-"Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven."(NIV)]

Do you have addictions, emotional problems? Are you soul sick? Well, don't come to us. We don't know what to do. We can only send you to the psychologist, tell you to take your anti-depressants or send you to a recovery group based on humanistic methods and full of dysfunctional people like you, which of course hinders you. We even call these psychologists and recovery groups "Christian" and sprinkle some Scriptures on top to make you believe God really has set them up. In other words, we don't have a clue as to help you.
[See most of what the epistles write, as the apostles write a lot about this area]

Are you a widow or some other person alone who has no relatives to help you? Well don't come to us because we certainly cannot help you as we don't have any money either. In fact,Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (NIV)]