No Small Task

I made a profession of faith to Christ in the early 80's but it wasn't until 1987 that I began attending a "bible" church. After about 2 years there I realized the church had crazy cult-like beliefs and fortunately I was able to get out of there before the church came crashing down amid a scandal.

While I was there I had been warned several times that there were things not right about the church. But I was never interested in any of the warnings because this was "my place" and these were "my people." I wish I had a tape recorder of some of the arguments I would make with critics of the church, and I was never short of reasons why the church was sound. Amazing how when something is important to you and you like it, you can come up with all kinds of convoluted reasons for why you like it there.

I think reason has little effect when you have discourse with someone who you disagree with. And I think that is greatly in part because people like what they believe and have yet to find out that it is broken. I was watching a a Christian station and was watching a preacher spit out false teaching to a huge flock of adoring worshipers. Now if I had a chance to explain to them why they were receiving wrong teaching, even documenting several inconsistencies with their own doctrine, I doubt it would make a difference to them. As a matter of fact I bet they would come right back at me confidently defending their own position, doing it in a way that makes no sense at all, while at the same time be convinced that I was the bad guy.

This has everything to do with me attacking "their place" and "their people." Somehow we as orthodox Christians seem to think that knowing the truth is the most important thing for people of faith. We believe that those who are genuinely converted will somehow pick up on erroneous teaching and make it a priority to follow "sound doctrine." This is not how life works it seems to me, at least not with many people. The reason many crazy churches work is because they speak the language and have the pulse of the people. I realize this is hard to measure, yet some preachers are very good at it and therefore find people who love their ministry and love their pastor as an apostle-like figure.

So how do you find a way to stir people away from a church that is ultimately bad for them and maybe in the future leaves them shipwrecked from the faith. First, we need to be aware that the people who are there are there because the church works for them and language is being spoken that resonates with them. As crazy as a ministry may be, we have to admit that these places may be a safe haven from where a person has come from. I have many fond memories from my crazy church even though there was damage done from attending it for 2 years. And with the knowledge that at least on a belonging and surface level that the church works for people we have to kindly come up with ways to get them to explain to us specifically how the church works for them. If they come up with a crazy premise, say something like, "I haven't heard of that before can you tell me more about it."

Having said that I think it is far more likely that we will have to be there for them when things fall apart due to the aberrant or heretical teaching that will not nourish the soul. Hence the "my people/my place" glue will slowly come apart. Then we need to find them a place that has "sound doctrine" yet still speaks the language and has the pulse of the people. This is no small task yet I find that both are of equal value.