“A Clear And Unambiguous Expression Of Theology”

The other day I posted a link to some helpful words by Brian Croft on the dangers of measuring ministry success numerically. Over at the excellent site Credo, Tom Fillinger offers a much needed “theological metric for ministry.”

There is a discernable pathology in the theology of the American church. Methodology in ministry is a clear and unambiguous expression of theology. The trend in the past twenty-five years has been to modify ministry to conform to perceived preferences from the culture. This trend has been aided by the corrupt metric of mere numbers as a reflection of effectiveness, “more is better.” Perhaps the most prominent example of this is the declaration in 2008 by Willow Creek and Bill Hybels. His statement—the past twenty-five years of attraction without transformation has not accomplished in the lives of people what Scripture mandates—transformation (“Willow Creek’s Huge Shift,” Christianity Today, May 15, 2008).

The following data from the Francis Schaeffer Institute provides a stunning summary of the damage that doing ministry based on methodology devoid of applied theology has produced in the American Evangelical church.

God’s marvelous Church has become culturally irrelevant and even distant from its prime purpose of knowing Him, growing in Him, and worshipping Him by making disciples! This is evidenced by what is going on in our culture and in our church. Most of the statistics tell us that nearly 50% of Americans have no church home. In the 1980s, membership in the church had dropped almost 10%; then, in the 1990s, it worsened by another 12% drop—some denominations reporting a 40% drop in their membership. And now, over half way through the first decade of the 21st century, we are seeing the figures drop even more! (Richard J. Krejcir, Statistics and Reasons for Church Decline)

Read the entire article HERE.