The Ken Johnson Group / May 1, 2006 Featured Article

Clear Cutting Our Churches

by Ken Johnson

Over this past weekend I encountered a number of things that reminded me that it was more important to be a Christian then to be a Liberal or a Conservative. When will we begin to get together as Christians and do what God commanded; “Go ye into all the world and preach my gospel to every creature.” He didn’t say that we should stand up and pound our chests and tell everyone that we are a Liberal Christian or a Conservative Christian.

We need to find some common ground and get on with saving souls. This is my proverbial soapbox and I am on it right now.

It’s interesting that from my 95 church visits and over 40 years in ministry I have found that the Conservative churches are far more creative and forward looking than the Liberal churches. This has been true for many years and is still true today. Liberal churches are often social clubs (and I’ve worked in some of those churches) and I am positive that that is not what God called us to be as a church.

I just came across an article by Dr. Larry Taylor the pastor of Calvary Church in Lowell, Massachusetts where he discusses five attitudes of a healthy church. These are things that I have been trying to say in my articles, blogs, seminars and talks for years. Here are his five.

1. A healthy church studies the Bible.
2. A healthy church is filled with people who pray.
3. A healthy church worships in Spirit and in truth.
4. A healthy church is filled with people who love one another.
5. A healthy church is growing in numbers.

You may think of more but these are the main attributes as far as I’m concerned.

If you go back through my writings you will see that these are all included in my feelings of a healthy church. Regretfully, for the most part, the only churches that I find all of these attributes in are the Conservative churches. There are some Liberal churches that have these attributes but they are few and far between.

When you get people reading and studying their Bible, praying, worshipping in Spirit and truth, (this is the most difficult one) showing love for other people no matter who they are, and a church that is growing in numbers, not from proselytizing from other churches, but by adding new people to the faith, amazing things will happen. The problem is, and I speak from experience, when this kind of church happens there are other so-called Christians who bad mouth them because they are jealous of their success.

At one of my former churches that included all five of the above attributes and more we were called the “circus church” because of the jealousy in the denomination. If I had been one of the people in the dying part of the denomination I would have been running to this church to find out what they were doing that we weren’t. Instead, we were the bad guys who were stealing their members. Incidentally, 95% of our new members, which totaled approximately 1000 per year were new Christians and not from other churches.

I would like to challenge you to look at the above five attributes and see if they are included in your planning—and if they are not, find out why not? They are so simple to include all you have to do is begin challenging your members to bring their Bibles to church and to use them at home (and don’t tell them what page the scripture is on at worship, make them find it). Teach your people how to pray and then make them do it. Call on them in your services and other meetings to pray—they may like it and it may become a part of their life style. Worshipping in Spirit and in truth has to begin with you, the pastor. You have to show your parishioners what that is—they may not even know. Loving one another also has to begin with you. It’s exciting to see a church that loves one another even when there are some people who are hard to love. Jesus didn’t make a distinction why should we. Number five is interesting. If the first four are happening then church growth will happen without you realizing it. There will be so much excitement and energy in your church that your parishioners will begin bringing their friends and the growth will begin.

Oh, and by the way, if the above five things are happening in your church all of the other things that a church should do will begin to happen because your excited parishioners will begin those other ministries without you even asking them. They will begin asking you if they can start a new ministry. Now your challenge will be to overcome your ego and stay out of their way as they begin to do God’s will.

This is my challenge to each of you to get out of the “I’m a Liberal” or “I’m a Conservative” and begin saying “I’m a Christian” who’s only purpose is to spread the Good News, to bring people into the Christian faith and help them grow and send them out to minister to the world. What do you think; can you begin this week? Get on you knees and ask the Lord for help and have a “new beginning” to your ministry. Believe me it’s much more interesting to see the excitement of committed members than to continue telling people that you are a Liberal or a Conservative.

In His Steps

Ken Johnson