Brothers,
I am convinced that Pastors today are held captive to five commands
mandated by unregenerate pew fillers.
Even worse, ministers delight in crafting their sermons and structuring
Sunday mornings to satisfy these man pleasing appetites.
Why? Because doing so becomes the means to stroke personal ego by
fulfilling their "ABC's Vision" for secularized leadership success
defined as Attendance, Buildings, and Cash!
The Five commands:
>Tell me what I want to hear.....................................Narcissism.
>Tell me what will make me feel better......................Sentimentalism
>Tell me what will work for me..................................Pragmatism
>Tell me what is the least costly ............................... Consumerism
>Tell me what is inoffensive........................................Permissivism
With these in mind, read the article below from the Huffington Post.
Not the resource center for biblicism.Yet, the Pastor writing the article
is spot on.
Here is an extract from this confessing Pastor:
"I'm the pastor of a church called Redemption Church in Olathe, KS.
Our church was planted in 2003 and founded upon church leadership
principles that worked like a charm. We grew from 2 families to around
200 families in the first three years. We planted another church in a nearby
town and continued to grow. But, when we decided to reject sentimentality
and pragmatism and chase faithfulness instead we really began to grow ...
smaller that is. I don't know for sure because we no longer count, but my best
guess is that we have decreased by more than half."
If pressed about my church's growth strategy, I usually say it is to get smaller
and die; to continually decrease the amount of time, resources and energy we
spend trying to have the ultimate church experience, and to spend more time
actually being faithful.
Nowadays, faithfulness -- not success -- is our only
metric. Success is about "doing." Faithfulness is about "being," and it's
really hard to measure."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-suttle/how-to-shrink-your-church_b_1095841.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false
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