Today we present an article written by Tennessee pastor Joe White. Brother Joe is the pastor of the Thompson Springs Baptist Church in Cleveland, Tennessee. He earned his Bachelors Degree in Theology from Andersonville Theological Seminary in Camilla, Georgia and his Associates Degree in Business Administration from Cleveland State Community College in Cleveland, Tennessee.
He and his wife, Andrea, have been married for 10 years and have been blessed with two wonderful daughters; Whitney and Makenzie. The Tennessee Baptist Convention selected Brother Joe as the 2007 Bivocational Pastor of the Year for the state of Tennessee. In November, Brother Joe and Mrs. Andrea began serving a 4 year term on the Tennessee Baptist Convention’s Bivocational Ministry Counsel. You can read this post, as well as other thoughts from Brother Joe, at his blog, Lifted by Love.
As we attempt to deal with the many social and cultural issues that impact the church, we need to make sure we are biblically accurate. We must not seek to be politically or socially correct, but biblically correct. We believe, and Baptists have historically believed, that the Bible is the “sole authority for faith and practice”. It is not the “final” authority; it is the “sole” authority. Therefore, our philosophy must be born out of our theology. If we accept this as true, that our philosophy is to be born of our theology, then our theology must be based upon the Word of God. In other words it is dangerous and can be disastrous to build a philosophy for the church, a philosophy for ministry, or a philosophy for life without building that philosophy upon the right theological foundation.
It is not our job to brainstorm and come up with something new, and then seek to add God to it. It is not our job to create an approach to ministry, and then beg God to bless it. Our job is to read the Word of God, understand and know the Will of God, and then get on board with the Lord. We do not ask the Lord to go the direction we are going, we ask the Lord to show us clearly the direction He is going and then we go in that direction. Yet, all over the world and especially in America, churches have become infected with the “Success Syndrome”. This means that many churches are doing things simply “because they work.” Well, we don’t do things because they work. We do things because they are right, because they are Biblical, and then we trust God to bless.
This brings us face to face with the question of how we measure success. The true measure of success in a church is not in the numbers attending or the offering given, but in how Christ-like it is. The greatest thing about any church is its likeness to Jesus. Anything that is not like Him is a blotch on His body the church. In Matthew 4:19, the Lord Jesus says… “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” If we are to be like Him, we must follow Him. Notice, the Lord says… “I will make you”. We do not make ourselves, He makes us. This reminds us of what Christ said in Matthew 16:18 concerning the church, where He said… “I will build my Church”. He makes and He builds, we follow. A church is not successful if it is not Christ-like.
One of the problems in the Southern Baptist Convention is that we continue to make our task the goal. The Lord Jesus says, “Follow Me… and…”. It is to be the Lord, and then the task. The Lord enables us to complete the task. The reason we are seeing a decrease in our numbers and baptisms is because we are not following Christ or like Him. Our convention will not be successful if it is not Christ-like. As Dr. Vance Havner would say, we need to quit “brushing away the cobwebs and kill the spider.”
This measure of success, Christ-likeness, applies to all areas of our life. Everything that we do should be preceded by time spent with God. I have the roles of husband, father, and pastor. If I am not like Christ, I cannot be the husband I should be to my wife. If I am not like Christ, I cannot be the father I should be to my daughters. If I am not like Christ and following Him, I cannot be the pastor I should be. Whatever sphere you live in and operate in, this principle applies to you. One of the great things about our God is that He has made it possible to live the Christian life and be a true disciple, even if no one else is. We can also have a church based on the Bible, a successful church, even if no one else does.
