Notthemama1984
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
I listened to a series of lectures today on why the church should become missional and some aspects on how. At first the speaker was making some good points, but then once he started giving examples I realize he was advocating a Social Gospel mentality. A couple examples of what a good missional church looks like were, "an assistant pastor becoming the President of the local Soccer league (which meant he was never in church on Sunday because Soccer is like football and played on Sundays) in order to reach the soccer guys." Also "a church closing their doors on Sunday in order to be the volunteer force for the annual Air Show." And "a church should be using their website as a portal into the community. Peole should come to their website to receive information on the Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and other groups. You should also have the community calendar on your website."
A big red flag arose when someone asked the question, "the next logical question that arises is why should a church pay thousands of dollars every year for a pastor who sits 20 hrs a week in his office, when the church can get the same thing for free because everyone is out in the world doing the work of the church." The speakers reply was basically, "yep."
This is truly sad. The speaker is apparently well respected on this topic and has written a few books. This means this is not just some fringe concept, but is gaining traction.
Has anyone else run into this kind of thinking?
A big red flag arose when someone asked the question, "the next logical question that arises is why should a church pay thousands of dollars every year for a pastor who sits 20 hrs a week in his office, when the church can get the same thing for free because everyone is out in the world doing the work of the church." The speakers reply was basically, "yep."
This is truly sad. The speaker is apparently well respected on this topic and has written a few books. This means this is not just some fringe concept, but is gaining traction.
Has anyone else run into this kind of thinking?