Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works

Married to methods.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I attended church at Evangel Temple in Bismarck this morning. The sermon was about pastoral authority and other sub-sets of that (which sounds like a sermon of browbeating, but was not).

The message covered the first part of 1 Corinthians 9, and essentially dealt with three questions in the church:

Who has the authority? (1 Cor. 9:1-6)
Where is the money? (1 Cor. 9:7-14)
What is the vision? (1 Cor. 9:20-22, 24-27)

The pastor had some very good things to say about the first two, but what really struck me was his concise summation on the third point regarding ministry method and the cry of "compromise!" so often heard in some corners of Christendom.

In my notes, I jotted down some of the ideas the pastor presented:

Vision requires change. If there is no change, it isn't vision, but maintenance.
Vision can sometimes get in the way of function (this isn't a positive aspect).
When Jesus healed or did miracles, he did not repeat a previous method. He showed us we were not to be fixed on a method of ministry, but be dedicated to the actual ministry itself.
"We cannot be married to our methods. We need to be married to our message."
Regarding the claim that different methods leads to compromise, methods that are held captive to a different era of time are a form of compromise. It is not wrong to "compromise" the method, but never right to compromise the message.

Regarding Paul's statement that he has become all things to all people so that more would be saved:

We do not disagree that foreign missionaries need to learn the culture and language of the country they are ministering in. Yet, we balk and some people spend their time criticizing anyone doing the same thing here in our own country. The world we are in is our mission field.
We adapt our method to reach people where they are at, as Paul describes. But, we don't change or adapt the message.

There were a number of other good points in the message today, but these stick out in particular due to my own online experience of excessive time wasted fighting with other Christians about method disguised as being arguments about message. As the pastor said, we find it easy and comfortable to argue amongst ourselves about method when the world is dying from not hearing the message.

This is a valuable thing to talk about. Much energy gets wasted fighting about the kind of music to sing, or on warning each other of "dangerous" methods and, subsequently, ministers who use methods we aren't used to. So often, a theology is wrapped around methods which makes any attack on those methods appear as an attack on our "correct" theology. Some things that come to mind are music and worship styles, and women in leadership in the church*.

* Please read this book regarding women in the church. Even if you are a John MacArthur devotee and believe him to be correct in his position that women have no place of leadership in church, I would recommend it. I would especially recommend it, in that case.

Labels: christianity, church, culture