Unless the Lord builds the house…

I recently read this article on Christianity Today.

After listening to alot of stuff lately by Byron Yawn on his podcast (Theocast) about American Evangelicalism; and after all the stuff I’ve read over the years; I don’t know if I can trust the leading voices in Evangelicalism to give me a clear vision of what church is supposed to be anymore.

Revivalism, Moralism and Pietism are so inbedded in every fiber of American Christianity and all of its leaders, organizations and coalitions (including T4G, TGC, etc..); I sometimes wonder if most of our ministry efforts are nothing more than contributing to or perpetuating the downward spiral of Christianity in our culture. Church gurus like Andy Stanley use consumerism and “theology of glory” to attract and form their churches. Others like Tim Keller have hitched their ministries to the Social Justice Warrior banwagon and as usual, Evangelicalism is uninvited and late to the party.

Even at a good Reformed confessional church, where they utilize the bare minimum of  exposition and litergy, most of the converts I’ve seen at the church we’ve been at are the children of nominal Christians from nominal churches. It’s still real kingdom growth that I’m happy and grateful for, but it’s still pulling from the same pool of “churched” people which pool is getting smaller and smaller every year.

I still think about ministry a lot and wonder how I would ever enter it again. Under what circumstances and in what context would I even want to? I have come to understand more about the committment to being a  Reformed Confessional church and the importance of the means of grace on Sunday (word, sacrament and corporate fellowship).

One thing is for sure…unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain (Psalm 127).

All these guys who talk about “making disciples”, evangelism and church planting talk about it as if it is something we can actually do if we formulated it correctly. I used to really think that way even while contradicting myself with the doctrine of election. At the end of the day, if God doesn’t turn on the faucet and if the water isn’t flowing, it doesn’t matter what kind of aquaduct or irrigation model anyone has built…we’ll just keep swapping church members from the shrinking pool and call it church planting.