Last Sunday evening we had some ladies stop by for a visit. They were from a church we had gone to a couple Sundays before. One of the women we had met and talked to at some length the Sunday morning we had visited the church. The other woman was her sister.
We talked and exchanged pleasantries and skirted around a variety of topics. They began to tell us of an "apologetic" study of Creation the church was about to embark on sponsored by Focus on the Family. The ladies said they had previewed it in small groups before going ahead with it church-wide. One lady said that a girl was converted during one of the studies and another said that a woman who was a devout Darwinist had changed her mind.
I asked them, "if the woman changed her mind, did she come away believing in a young earth, an old earth, or a 7-day view of creation?" She had no idea what I was talking about. Then the other woman chimed in and said the study promoted a 7-day view of creation and had all sorts of scientific evidence to support it.
Now I'm not an expert on creation, but it would seem to me if you had just gone trough a study on that topic and were touting it to possible members, you would have some idea of what creation theories entailed.
We later got on a discussion regarding Bible study and exegetical preaching verses topical preaching. Their point was that the people in the pew could not handle in-depth Bible preaching, it had to be "dumbed down" in order for people to understand. AHAAH! There is the primary problem in churches today. Dumbing down so that people can understand, when in fact, if we raised the bar, people might indeed raise their level of understanding. It is like the idea that you get what you expect.
In a survey done by Barna research, regarding "Personal Spiritual Goals of Born-Again Adults", only 14% said "read the Bible more or know more Bible content" would facilitate their growth. When asked, "What would make you spiritually successful?", 15% said following Jesus - being like him and only 7% said reading the Bible and doing what the Bible says. No wonder our pews are packed with pitiful Bible proficiency. No one is reading it! And how could a person ever hope to "be like Jesus" if they do not read the Gospels to see what Jesus was like?
I don't get it. People can read market analysis books, Leadership/Management tomes, romance novels up the whazoo, Time, Newsweek, even the New York Times & Wall Street Journal, but somehow they do not read or "understand" the Bible. Is it really that hard or is the Church just not doing a good job of giving people the tools they need to understand it or enjoy it?
(George Barna, Growing True Disciples, Waterbrook Press, Colorado Springs, CO 2001)
2 comments:
In your blog you ask "Is it really that hard or is the Church just not doing a good job of giving people the tools they need to understand it or enjoy it?"
I think the church is just doing a miserable job of giving people the tools they need to understand it or enjoy it!! Too busy preaching mental health and feel good stuff or topical sermons as opposed to exegetical (difficult) stuff.
Yes Dick I agree and it is unfortunate.
There are a dozen different translations out there - color coded, thumb indexed and filled with study notes. Still the problem persists.
Feel good "stuff" may feel good for a while, but it won't do much for growing in Christ-likeness.INDEED, the problem stems from the pulpit first.
You may recall a previous post where a Christian Magazine was pushing a seminar designed to help Pastors think. Think analytically, critically, and with depth. As I mentioned in that post, why would this even be necessary?
One last thing....it was also a question I posed to the women... Why does Christianity seem to be the only religion that needs a separate discipline for defending its faith? If people won't or don't read their Bibles, teaching them apologetics is like pouring water in a bucket with no bottom.
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