As we begin a new year, I am reminded of what the prophet Jeremiah said to the people of God, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; ….’” (Jer. 6:16a, NKJV)
The Church, caught up in the culture of change, has become sophisticated, “purpose driven”, “relevant”, contemporary and consequently, has forgotten the clear blueprint of the Bible. She is distracted by materialism, slow to make disciples, and much of the time, so in awe of the CEO leadership style, that the Church is guided more by surveys and management gurus than prophetic insights, prayer and the Word of God
We need to go back to the basics, and I would suggest four basics for 2008.
Firstly, the Word of the LORD.Seminars abound but the study of books of the Bible seems to be no longer in vogue. After we graduate from Bible and Sunday schools, we are fed a smattering of Scriptures to the neglect of a systematic study of the Word itself.
We now have more workers who have not read the whole Bible and few actually have an annual Bible reading plan. A new generation is emerging that does not meditate on the Word. Today it’s not uncommon to find youths who know who Jackie Chan is but not the biblical heroes like Joel and Josiah.
It is the perfect law of the Lord that converts the soul (Ps. 19:7a). Many lives are not changed for lack of His Word in them. Today’s seminars and conferences are need-based and too often fail to stress on both the effectual working of the Word and the Lordship of Christ.
Disciple Making – the recent My Hope emphasis is probably one of the best things that has happened in our Malaysian churches. On the other hand, we discovered few are passionate about winning souls, much less making disciples. For too long we have ignored the obvious, that the number of believers is not synonymous with the number of disciples, and it won’t be long before we have a scenario of “more fat than muscles”.
This is partly due to the reckless focus on grooming leaders, rather than identifying leaders from the available pool of disciples. We seem so caught up with the “sausage production approach” of making leaders – we fool ourselves when we think we can make “a million leaders” in our “green houses”. This is simply not God’s way of making leaders.
Disciple making is a non-negotiable basic and cannot be hurried.
Thirdly, we need to come back to Prayer. There are many well-attended prayer seminars and conferences but with hindsight, it’s proving to be more hype than substance as we note that the prayer meeting attendance in local churches is still a dismal number. The average prayer meeting attendance in most churches is not more than 10 per cent of the membership. Some churches have dispensed with prayer meetings altogether. We must honestly acknowledge and evaluate the sad spiritual condition of the non-praying Church.
How can we begin to achieve anything significant if the Church is prayer-less?
Lastly, Servanthood. Emphasis is given to training, mentoring, and making leaders, but not servants. The problem is further compounded by the many “mature” leaders who have erroneously “matured and move on” from servanthood onto predominantly leadership roles. There are simply too many advisors, supervisors, “upper echelon leaders” who discuss and dole out the responsibilities, rather than continue to serve His Body. The leader is often glorified whilst the servant, at best, is “merely appreciated”. Servanthood will never go out of fashion – it’s nothing but good old Christ-like character that God wants us to nurture till we stand before Him in glory.
The Word, Disciple Making, Prayer and Servanthood – these are some of the “old paths, where the good way is”. We do well to build on these four foundations if we want to be on solid footing in 2008 and beyond. It’s time for the Church to take stock and get back to basics.
The attitude of the Old Testament Church was lamentable – “... they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ ”(Jer. 6:16b, NKJV). We cannot afford to make the same mistake.
Have a blessed new year! May He be pleased with His Church in our nation.
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