6 THINGS A HEALTHY CHURCH UNDERSTANDS
ARTICLE
1. The Need for Sound, Balanced Teaching
Providing sound and balanced teaching regarding the Spirit-filled, victorious Christian life requires a proper understanding regarding salvation and sanctification. There is need in the church today regarding:
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• The true, biblical way of salvation
• The true, biblical way of sanctification
• The true, biblical way of revival
• Biblical balance
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2. Doing Comes out of Being
It is important that our doing comes from our being—not the reverse. There is much today about doing, and little about being. Doing needs to be birthed out of being.
So many ministers talk about church growth and their busy “doing” activities, but not many about what God is doing in them. There is little attention or attraction for what God is doing in individual hearts and lives. There is little attention to personal breaking and molding—or to individual revival in the church. There is a lot of attention given to facilities and numbers, but little to personal sin, repentance, heart purity and holiness.Tolerance and social activities become the theme, rather than heart purity and the Holy Spirit’s filling. Preaching has become milk rather than meat, and sin permissive “unconditional” love has been allowed to replace God’s genuine, holy, agape love. A believer’s doing should come out of Who God is (being) in his life.
3. Music’s Role Is Only Supportive
A healthy church will appreciate music’s supportive role in worship, but will never view it as the center stage attraction for a Sunday service. Music is wonderful for praise and worship, but not when it becomes a church’s dominant drawing card, while preaching God’s Word is regarded of much less importance.
In too many churches today, Sunday morning services have been relegated to a battle of the bands, where church attendance is prompted by music preference, as traditional music faces its contemporary opponent and urban takes on southern gospel. In an effort to be amiable, some offer a compromise or blend of genres.
In our day, the majority of churches view expository preaching as prehistoric. Our 21st Century post modern congregations are accustomed to hearing a shallow motivational message which members likely describe as “Awesome”—or perhaps, a story-style type of presentation totally replaces sermons.
4. Prayer Is Birthplace and True Sustenance for Believers
Some years ago, while auditing a seminary class, the instructor asked the class to tell him some of the important things a pastor should do to be an effective minister. He then wrote their answers on the board in the order given; prayer was number 11. Also, several years ago, a survey was taken among ministers asking how much time they spend daily in prayer. The average was less than 10 minutes per day.
What an indictment, especially since a minister’s prayer time should be his preaching in incubation. Such indictment is not confined to pastors and preachers, but to all believers when we become neglectful in prayer.
Prayer is a primary condition and essential factor. Prayer should be the position from which we say all we say and do all we do. Prayer should be the condition and disposition of our heart, through which we experience our deepest communication with God.
When prayer transpires from a pure and spiritually sincere condition and disposition of our heart, the essence of our communication with God will proceed from our position of prayer. A spiritually sincere condition of our heart will be embodied by God’s disposition in us and empowered by God’s Spirit through us. What then should we feel for the essential mandate for prayer being the birthplace of all we do in our Christian life and the venue of power by which we do it? Certainly not 11th place.
So then, every church should understand that prayer is a birthplace and a sustainer:
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• for growth and understanding God’s Word
• for maturing in a Spirit-filled walk with the Lord
• for rest and abiding
• for direction
• for avoiding sin
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Without prayer, a church will become deathly and backslidden, in desperate need of revival.
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5. Frivolity in Worship Is Foolishness
We certainly can understand a believer refusing to have one more morbid day at the “funeral parlor church”, nor one more Sunday of lifeless singing, religious organ music and
robotic attendees who yawn through
“I Surrender All” while their heart sings, “I’ll Do It My Way.” Our options are not to trying to rectify monotony through frivolity or lifelessness through foolishness.
It was not a good thing that Israel “rose up to play” (Exodus 32:6-10) and it is not good for there to be empty frivolity in worship at churches today. Scripture tells us in Exodus that this leads to foolishness and to spiritual idolatry.
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Ex. 32:6-10
v. 6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.
v. 7 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:
v. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
v. 9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff necked people:
v. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
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We see here that sensuous flesh gyrating with ridiculous antics is not the answer. We need the Spirit of God moving His people in godly liberty, not flesh and foreign spirits leading to an ungodly “ruckus”. God desires worship in Spirit and in truth, not in flesh and in foolishness.
It’s not about a cultural, nor a generation, thing—but a spiritual thing. True believers of any culture, race, gender or generation will be given godly ability to discern scriptural from unscriptural, spiritual from flesh, real from fake, truth from a lie and genuine from counterfeit. True believers are enabled by God to discern the difference between worship in the sanctuary and pandemonium in the auditorium. One is a light, shallow, flighty frivolity that quickly dissipates—the other a rich, sound, steady joy that lasts long after the meeting ends. The church that understands and discerns will choose wisely.
Remember, God’s Word reveals that the spiritually dead are not necessarily morbid, quiet pew warmers. Jannes and Jambres, pharoah’s magicians, lacked “the power thereof” (God’s power) but they performed supernatural acts—and, in Elijah’s day, we see that the 400 prophets of Baal created quite a ruckus in their worship.
6. God Calls for Holiness in His People
God has never said to his people: “There is no need to worry about being holy. This is not important.” Over and over, in His Word, God says the exact opposite. He calls for holiness, both in the Old Testament and in the New. Here are two scripture references, although there are many others.
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v. 44 For I am the Lord your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy…
v. 16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
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Churches are filled with people who speak with “God words,” which sound scriptural but are not actually God’s Word. Biblical words are often being given unbiblical definitions with unscriptural doctrinal descriptions, accompanied by faulty subjective experiences. One of the terms that so suffers in the hands of nominal (presumed) Christians and churches in America today is one which is a hallmark attribute of God: His Holiness.
Simply stated, we might define Holiness as the moral excellence of God. Tragically, when this majestic word is distorted and perverted, the very character and Person of God is perverted. When someone, claiming to be a born again Christian, follows a perverted idea of holiness, he demonstrates and teaches, not only a perverted testimony of Christianity, but also a perverted testimony of the Person of Christ.
This is why it is imperative that we not only use the “God words”, but properly define them, apply and live them through the power of His Holy Spirit. To misdefine is to pervert and to pervert is to mis-direct (mis-direct one’s self and others). To pervert God and His Christ is to pervert Christ’s gospel.
Holiness is one of God’s divine attributes which is vitally essential to His character, the gospel of Christ and the believer’s life in Christ. Without holiness, we cannot know the true nature of God—and neither can we understand His way.