Introduction: Defending and Examining
I first got involved in defending our movement on the Internet a few years back, where I felt like our churches were getting a "bum rap." On the public forum alt.religion.christianity.boston-church newsgroup and on a variety of individual Internet websites, all sorts of unfair and untrue things were being said, without any challenge. Some members were out there trying to defend us, but they tended to defend in a partisan fashion with an resulting loss of credibility. As a movement, our reputation was horrible-- and while we had our problems we still didn’t deserve the bad reputation we had.

I felt like I could relate to much of what the "critics" were saying, but that there were better ways to deal with things than just leaving the church and going down the road of bitterness. I have seen how we have handled these things in Denver-- both the good and the bad. I have been most fortunate to have had some great people involved in my life to help me with the issues that were troubling, and have also been able to persuade leaders to make changes from time to time. So, I wanted to share what help I have been given with others who may not have access to that same type of help.

As controversial topics came up, I had to "take a stand." What did I really believe? Well, I simply chose to be honest. Where I felt like the church was OK and/or defensible Scripturally and people needed to "back off" or "chill out," I said so. Where people in the church had blown it, I said so. On large-scale issues that have come up, I've weighed in-- trying to be honest and sincere and also paying respect to the movement in areas where I've disagreed.

I've been cursed and spoken against in vicious terms. I can't control what they think, all I can do is be real and care about people. I do seek to bring healing to people who have truly been hurt as a result of their involvement in the church. The private emails I've received from "lurkers" (people who read the newsgroup but don't post to it publicly) have been encouraging. Many members lurk and are generally glad someone is speaking reasonably about the subjects that come up, even putting up with all the other nonsense and mean treatment from critics.

The Barnabas Ministry
For quite some time it bothered me that the only Internet resources for members that were hurting were the critic's sites. They were willing to discuss known problematic areas and "help" but our official sites were stagnant, plain and benign. There was no discussion of issues or offer to help people. Over the last few years, many of our sites have gotten better, but they are still fairly stagnant and still don't really address the issues of those who are hurt or subject to some of the nasty criticisms of our opponents. There was a huge void that needed to be filled.

Seeing this void, I got the idea for the "Barnabas" site (www.barnabasministry.com) some years back and went on-line in November 1999. I wanted it to be a place where people could find real help, work through their own struggles of faith, and find defense of their faith against the charges of critics. In addition to the similarity to the work of Barnabas, it also reminds me of Apollos' work in Achaia (Acts 18:27-28), championing the Christian cause in the face of criticisms. To the best of my knowledge, no other writer in our movement has ever publicly addressed many of the topics found on the Barnabas Ministry website. While it contains many articles on a variety of topics, I feel like it only scratches the surface of what I would like to see it become.

I've gotten many encouraging emails of support, and have offered help via the "help line." One couple with both sets of parents in restoration movement churches got baptized in a movement church after communicating with me about the difficulties they were having in their situation. Others have been encouraged to work through their own issues after seeing my writings. I've tried to offer hope and encouragement to people who need it and feel they have nowhere else to turn, usually attempting to route people to resources in their own congregation for help and giving advice about how to approach and resolve their issues. The website is now averaging about 150-200 hits a day.

My site has also become controversial. It has been linked by people who oppose our movement in varying degrees. I've been slammed as a "cult apologist" on one of those websites; many other critics tend to view me as "a plant of the church sent as damage control," which is not true. Paradoxically, some have used my writings as a "reason" to consider leaving movement congregations.

As I've gotten more and more involved with this work, it's become clear to me that there really are some things we need to examine as a church, some things we really need to address in our framework or approach. I've started providing some thought and commentary about these things on my website, too. In doing so I seek to generate thought and discussion for all, and hope for people who see the same needs. The purpose is not to undermine anything or anyone-- in fact, I know that many of these same topics are discussed privately among leaders. Like many others, I love the movement and want it to live up its ideals.

I have done my best to defend things in the movement, but when I know I can't defend something Scripturally or ethically…. well, it probably needs to change. Not that I consider myself my only resource; I've also spoken to high-level leaders in the movement about various topics from time to time. All in all, I try to be true to the Scriptures and keep a balance between being challenging, truthful, supportive and respectful.

New Solutions are Needed
Besides my experiences in my local congregation and my ongoing ministry in cyberspace, there are two other factors behind the ideas in this paper. One is the well-documentated "fall-away" rate from our congregations and the other is what I perceive to be a lack of spiritual maturity on the part of members. I think these problems are closely related and have very deep roots in our structure and approach.

In our movement we have seen basically a 25% retention rate-- for every 4 that have been baptized, 3 have left. Though the movement now consists of about 120,000 people, a simple projection of this percentage shows that there are about 360,000 former members of our movement. In spite of the great successes of the movement, this cannot be explained away or ignored-- if our former members chose to be a movement, they would be three times larger than us. Or if they were still a part of our movement, our movement would be four times larger than it is. The number of former members is staggering.

Though some people leaving is to be expected, the number of those leaving demands serious soul-searching on our part. Another sobering fact about this statistic is that this is only the short-term retention rate; the vast majority of members have not yet lived their entire lifetimes and passed away as faithful Christians. Our long-term retention rate is unknown, but it can only be equal to or lower than the short-term retention rate of 25%.

In our movement, we have also seen a decline in the vibrancy of older Christians. Over time, they seem to lose heart, "plateau out" in their growth and convert less people. By its very nature, this problem is more subjective than the problem of people leaving the church-- but it is just as serious.

Observations and Analyses
In examining these issues I have consulted numerous sources, inside and outside of the movement. I have found some of the comments of outsiders without merit, but have also engaged in public and private dialog with critics and former members and have attempted to learn their perspectives as well. My involvement in this work has been misunderstood and spoken against by people inside and outside of our movement. The fact remains, people failing to mature and leaving the church have been huge problems for many years and are still problems to this day. All of the other previous attempts at solutions have not worked. That is the honest truth, and until we come to grips with this as a movement we have no hope of reaching solutions.

No doubt what I have to offer may strike very close to home to members of our movement. Rest assured, these comments and analyses come from someone who loves the Lord and the movement. In fact, though I am making generalizations concerning various elements of our practices, I also recognize that these are based upon my perception and my particular environment. Others may differ in their perception because of their environment and other individual factors.

I've seen us come a long way on many great things over the years in a number of different areas-- but it should also be obvious that there are some serious problems to solve. If we can plant churches in 150+ countries, surely we can straighten out some things that need straightening. We should approach this study not with defensiveness but with enthusiasm as we begin to see how to solve problems that have hampered us for many years.

A few years ago, I wrote a book Keeping the Faith, a study of church practices of the first four centuries of the Christian era. In it, I examine how and why it changed into the early Catholic church. Having been a student of church practices throughout the Christian era, I think the Scriptures give us a lot of leeway on many things, but there are other traits and characteristics that we need to be very careful about.

I bring a plea to examine today's issues in the light of Scripture, our only reliable authority. Our hope for salvation is not in the proclamations of men nor the trendy ideas and practices of movements, but in the Word of God and salvation through Jesus.

So what I have to offer is my analysis of the situation, combining my nineteen years in the movement, experiences in and out of the full-time ministry, having experienced both the best and worst of our movement, and several years of study, research and prayer on the topic. I offer these opinions with love and respect for the brotherhood and the fear of the Lord above. Please receive them in that same spirit.

Ongoing Ministry
We haven taken Matthew 28:18-20 as the "mission statement" for the church:

  And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20)

Imbalanced Ministry
While we have sought to restore New Testament Christianity in terms of its growth and impact, we have unwittingly reduced "teach them to obey everything I have commanded" to three things: evangelism, attendance and giving. These are the things that are measured and reported for every member, all the way to movement headquarters in Los Angeles. (We might add discipling and daily "quiet times" consisting of Bible reading and prayer to this list; while these are not reported movement-wide they are expected.)

Each of these three things is good, but by focusing on these things for a long period of time, other aspects of Christianity are excluded. There are many other Christian pursuits and commands that are relatively neglected in our churches: a true and genuine relationship with God, purity of heart, sincerity of life, serving others and expecting nothing in return, true humility, love towards one another, meeting the needs of others, true faith in God-- everything besides evangelism, church attendance and giving! We don't explicitly teach against these other traits, but none are emphasized in comparison to evangelism, attending services and giving contribution. Over time, the lack of emphasis has the same effect as neglect.

Jesus specifically said that he wanted the church to teach obedience to everything he commanded; we have criticized other denominations for a "cafeteria-style picking and choosing" of what is important in Christianity, but by this imbalance we have become guilty of the exact same thing.

Imagine a person whose diet consisted of only one particular food. Such a person would not be healthy, because the human body requires a balanced diet for health. What is true for the human body is true for the body of Christ-- a balanced "diet" addressing all the important things about Christianity. Interestingly, the New Testament letters provide the example and standard of the balance of real Christianity, discussing all the important traits of Christianity in balance.

The long-term result of our imbalanced focus is that people grow up in the Lord "unhealthy" and shallow. Is it any wonder people don't mature and don't last when challenges arise (Mark 4:17)?

Lack of Bible Teaching
We do not have an effective Bible teaching ministry.

Most sermons and lessons are shallow "topic-oriented" talks that leave the great depth and power of the Scriptures untouched. In addition, we tend to be far more subjective than objective. Preachers are encouraged to "speak from the heart" as though that was the same as speaking from the Spirit. The preferred method of sermon preparation seems to be 1) decide what to preach on and then 2) find Scripture that seems to support it. The concept of expository preaching is completely lost, and Scriptures are routinely taken out of context to justify points. Our speakers want to be relevant and sincere, but when they ignore, contradict or misuse Scripture, there is a problem. Messages from the Spirit cannot misuse Scripture. The Scriptures are used in lessons and sermons but aren't really the basis of sermons. They are not the primary authority anymore.

Most leaders are not competent to teach the Scriptures because they have never really seriously studied or learned about the Scriptures themselves. I don't necessarily mean seminary training (though that can be helpful and should be encouraged more and more), but simply the disposition to be a student of the Scriptures, in accordance with the Scriptural mandate to "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15).

Beyond a lack of expertise in handling the Word, we have advanced a paradigm "speak where the Bible is silent, be silent where the Bible speaks" in response to the Church of Christ paradigm "speak where the Bible speaks, be silent where the Bible is silent."

  Along with this, I came to differ with the Churches of Christ whose creed is "to speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent." This creed dictated that one must have specific authorization by command, example or necessary inference from the Bible to do anything. It developed a legalistic, pharisaic mind set that sowed the seed for much dissension and division producing the factions of the Churches of Christ. For example, the whole mandate to only "call Bible things by Bible names" is contradictory because the word "Bible" not even in the Bible! From the Scriptures I came to believe the opposite. I believe the we should be silent where the Bible speaks and speak where the Bible is silent. In other words, a Christian should simply obey where the Bible speaks and only speak (have opinions) where the Bible is silent. In building a life, a church or a "system" for a movement, we are "free" to do anything the Scriptures do not specifically, by command, by example or by necessary inference prohibit (Galatians, Colossians 2:6-23). The truth seeker will always strive to be faithful to the direction and the spirit of the Scriptures. (Kip McKean, Revolution Through Restoration, "Seeds of Faith")

Author's Note: The word "Bible" comes from the Greek word biblion, meaning "book." "Biblion" is used to refer to the Scriptures in Lk 4:17, 4:20,  Jn 20:30, Gal 3:10, 2 Tim 4:13, Heb 9:19, 10:7, Rev 1:1, 22:7, 22:9, 22:10, 22:18, 22:19. The word "Bible" is a "Bible" term!

Yet, if the net effect of the Church of Christ guideline has been a "legalistic, pharisaic mind set " and "factions," the net effect of the new paradigm in our movement has been to promote the words of leaders over the Scriptures. They can now authoritatively proclaim all sorts of ideas as long as the Scriptures don't prohibit them. If this paradigm is used without wisdom and a real grounding in the heart of New Testament Christianity, allows for all sorts of departures from the apostolic pattern and spirit of faith.

I appreciate the desire to be faithful to the "direction and spirit" of the Scriptures and recognize that one needn't have a Scriptural command for everything in the church. However, this paradigm has created a spririt where members look to human wisdom rather than Scripture and God for guidance.

Even Discipleship Publications International (DPI, the publishing arm of the movement) has published scores of books where the "practical" words of humans are featured. Many of these books are wonderful and inspiring, but lack in-depth examination of the Scriptures. Apparently, the more weighty books don't sell well. It is hard to tell whether these type of books from DPI are a cause or an effect of the shallow Biblical knowledge and competency of the membership, but this Biblical shallowness is a troubling characteristic of our movement.

Accordingly, we have seen a steady decline and de-emphasis in Bible teaching and study. Once our movement had the spirit of study and investigation like the Bereans (Acts 17:10), now we seem to act as though all the studying and investigation is completed. Members seem to be expected to trust and obey the leaders in their subjectivity. True study and teaching are ridiculed as dry and irrelevant, which couldn't be further from the truth. Some may even view study as the work of people "critical of the leadership."

The most advanced teaching going on in the movement (with few exceptions, like teaching initiatives by Doug Jacoby, Marty Wooten, Gordon Ferguson, Steve Kinnard and others) is either the persistent reiteration of the "First Principals" studies, or the frequent repeating of common themes, especially evangelism, discipling and giving. The Scriptures are often misused and/or taken out of context in these situations-- whether forcing one-another passages into a "one over one discipling" paradigm, using Old Testament mandates and vows in giving (and often ignoring the substance of New Testament teachings on these matters), or forcing evangelism into passages where it is absent.

Older Christians are left to fend for themselves to grow in knowledge of the Scriptures. On their own they must pursue a deep faith in God, a strong relationship with him, a solid understanding of fundamental Christian doctrines and balanced Christian living, because the ministry of the church doesn't help in these areas. They must routinely ignore and excuse teaching errors and a lack of Scriptural expertise on the part of untrained leaders "speaking from the heart."

As a result, many if not most older Christians are spiritually malnourished. When significant spiritual challenges arise, most of our people are not up to the challenge.

The most troubling aspect of this realization is this: while true disciples are marked by "remaining in his word" (John 8:31), it appears that we are going away from the word, and have been doing so for quite some time.

Self-View and Ideals
We have seen all sorts of great blessings in our movement over the years. Unfortunately, I think we have allowed these blessings to lead us to a prideful and exalted self-view. Beyond a godly sense of appreciation and thanks for the good God has done, we seem to want to make the "good" look "better" in a number of different areas.

Seeking Divine Mandates
One area where this exaggerated self-view has become evident is what I will call "divine mandates." This is the idea of claiming God's sponsorship of human decisions or opinion. It is a persistent and widespread practice in our movement, and appears to be an outgrowth of the "man, message, movement" model we like to cite.

Perhaps the most bold instance of this is the interchangeable use of the terms "Boston Movement," "God's Modern-Day Movement" and "The Movement of God." While I do believe that God has worked among us in great ways, it doesn't mean we are the only ones in whom he is working, nor does it mean that God is behind everything we do. The term "The Movement of God" suggests both specific divine appointment and exclusivity.

Other examples of this pursuit of divine mandate are claims like "God put such and such on my heart" or how "God has appointed" a certain person to be one's discipler and/or leader, and how some plans are "from the Spirit." The common feature of all of these claims is the idea that some human action is the product of a direct and specific Word of God. Such claims may reflect a sincere thought that God has led the person to whatever is under consideration, but there are several problems with these claims of divine mandate.

First, we should not confuse God's approval and specific appointment with God's sovereignty; just because God allows or permits something doesn't mean that he endorses or approves of it.

Second, God no longer speaks to men as he did to Moses (Exodus 3:4ff), John the Baptist (John 1:33) or the apostles or Paul (Galatians 1:12). No leader today can claim the same type of divine mandate, as the Scriptures teach that God has completed his revelation to mankind in the message of his Son (e.g. Hebrews 1:1-2, Galatians 1:6ff). Even the Jerusalem apostles recognized that God also revealed the same gospel to Paul, apart from them (Galatians 2:7). Our objectives today are not to live up to a "new revelation," but to be faithful to an old revelation-- the word of the Scriptures.

Interestingly, apostles and prophets in Biblical times always had a definitive word of the Lord to substantiate things that they claimed were from God. When such a word was missing, they were honest and straightforward about it. Consider these two stories from Acts contrasting the difference between a specific divine word and human decision.

  Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.
  So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus. (Acts 13:1-4, emphasis added)

  Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas--Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren, and they sent this letter by them, The apostles and the brethren who are elders, to the brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles, greetings. "Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction have disturbed you with their words, unsettling your souls, it seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell. (Acts 15:22-29, emphasis added)

We should not attribute our actions to God in the absence of a direct and specific word from God concerning that action. This is a slippery slope that even the apostles dared not travel! The warning of the Law on this topic is sobering:

  But the prophet who shall speak a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he shall speak in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.
  And you may say in your heart, `How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?'
  When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. (Deuteronomy 18:20)

The Image of Growth and Impact
In "Revolution through Restoration," Kip McKean approached the "Movement of God" topic:

I have never believed or taught that anyone has to be baptized into the Boston Church of Christ to be saved. The Scriptures clearly teach you must be baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and then, the Lord adds you to his church (Acts 2:36-47; Romans 6:3,4; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Acts 2:41,42). However, I do not know of any other church, group or movement that teaches and practices what we teach as Jesus taught in Acts 2:41, 42: one must make the decision to be a disciple, then be baptized for the forgiveness of sins to be saved and receive the Holy Spirit. When one is born again at baptism (Titus 3:5), one must have Jesus' heart and attitude to do anything, go anywhere and give up everything for God. After baptism each disciple is taught to obey all the commands of Jesus as one grows and goes making disciples. If this is what God teaches in the Bible, then we are God's movement. (Kip McKean, Revolution Through Restoration, "Restoration in Boston")

Ten thousand strong gathered in the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Sunday, August 15, for the finale of the 1993 World Missions Leadership Conference. Only weeks before, the New York City Church celebrated their 10th anniversary with 8,000 worshiping in Madison Square Garden. The book of Acts reads, "...they continued to meet together in the temple courts (2:46)...[and] Solomon's Colonnade (3:11)... The Lord added to their number daily (2:47)... and the number of men grew to about 5,000 (4:4)."

Just this past year Arturo Gandara, a minister in one of the world's most prominent denominational churches, heard about the revolution through restoration of the Bible. He came and saw the L.A. Church services. Inspired, yet shaken from the differences, he and his wife, Jolie, intensely studied the Scriptures for three weeks. Arturo then resigned from his position, and he and Jolie were baptized as disciples of Jesus. Presently, the Gandaras lead the most fruitful of the 10 regions of the L.A. Church, and, Lord willing, will plant the Guatemala City Church this autumn. Acts 6:7 reads, "So the word of God spread. The number of disciples increased rapidly and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith."

The Manila Christian Church and the Moscow Church of Christ both have 3,000 in attendance on Sundays. The Moscow Church is redefining Christianity in Russia as it is now the largest single congregation of any affiliation in the commonwealth of Independent States. Acts 9:31 reads, "the [church] was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord."

The Australian Broadcasting Company, the British Broadcasting Company, Time magazine, Germany's "Der Spiegel" magazine, the Times of India, the Boston Globe, the Bangkok Post, 20/20, CNN and countless local TV news shows and newspapers have sent reporters to circle the globe to cover the controversy surrounding our fellowship. Acts 28:22 reads, "People everywhere are talking against this sect."

In just 15 years, the Bible revolution, which began in June 1979 with 30 would-be disciples in a little Boston-area church, has multiplied by the power of God into 156 churches with a collective attendance of almost 90,000 in 60 of the approximately 200 nations of the world! The parallels to the book of Acts unmistakably mark this movement to be of God. (Kip McKean, Revolution Through Restoration II, "Introduction," emphasis mine)

These two citations illustrate the point about "image." As we have gotten larger, it appears that our identity (or "image") has more and more become "large churches, worldwide impact and growth." We now seem to use "impact-related" criteria to attempt to identify and distinguish ourselves, and to validate ourselves in the eyes of God and men.

We should measure ourselves by faithfulness to Scripture and the grace of God, and not just by growth and impact. Many other religious movements (e.g. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.) have had much greater "growth and impact" in these ways and yet are demonstrably not faithful to Scripture and thus not movements of God.

Any church or group is bound to have some "image" or identity. Having an image or an ideal to aspire to is not the problem. And desiring to have an impact is not the problem. The problem with the image we are aspiring to is that it is unbalanced; it neglects other important and distinctive elements about God's people. The early church had "impact" but was also marked by love, spirituality and faith in God, perseverance, service, selflessness, holiness in the midst of a decadent society and other great traits. When we aspire to just one trait, or put one ideal above the others, we become imbalanced.

Henceforth, when I refer to the term "image" I am referring to us being known as "God's Movement" on the monolithic basis of growth or impact from the "30 would-be disciples" to whatever is being accomplished today in terms of numeric growth.

History and the Image
An important part of the image-building process for us is the telling of history. We have told and re-told our movement history numerous times with the apparent intent of substantiating the "divine mandate" attached to our image.

We have been reluctant to discuss the human aspects of our history-- including the role of the Churches of Christ, the "Crossroads Movement" and Chuck Lucas in the history of the Boston Movement. Our history accounts say that the movement started in 1979 in Lexington (Boston) with the oft-mentioned "30 would-be disciples." That may have been the beginning of a new era for that congregation, but the Boston movement itself was a product of the Crossroads movement, which was led by Chuck Lucas. Up until his dismissal from Crossroads in 1985, the Lexington (later, Boston) church was one of many, many churches with Crossroads-trained ministers. Only after the fall of Chuck Lucas did Kip McKean rise to an informal and then formal position of leadership of this movement. In fact, even the name "Boston Movement" suggests that 1979 is not as important as 1985; otherwise we would probably be known as the "Lexington Movement."

Our current telling of this story ignores these and other relevant "human" facts. It gives the impression that we arose out of nothing and seems to reach for a divine mandate-- that "God raised up Kip McKean and the Boston Movement " rather than simply telling the history the way it happened.

Other Churches and the Image
Another important part of our image building is the place of other churches and denominations. We seem to want to deny that our faith and movement has any roots or debt of gratitude owed to members of other churches or movements, though nothing could be further from the truth.

We tend to present differences in a way that makes us look better in every way. I am not defending erroneous denominational doctrines or lack of righteous living in other churches, but I am saying that we compare ourselves to them when it suits us and fail to compare ourselves with them when it makes us look bad. We use a double standard in discussing other churches, and we attempt to make them look like the enemy instead of Satan (Ephesians 6:12, 1 Peter 5:8). Such thinking and speaking is very prevalent in our movement.

For example, we typically advance images of other churches as "dead," "false churches" and the like because of their traditionalism, incorrect teachings and/or lack of commitment. However when our own weaknesses in these areas become evident, we fall back to statements like "well, there's no such thing as a perfect church," "we've got a lot to learn" and "people are human and make mistakes." For some reason, we are allowed to make mistakes and still be valid, but others are not. Another example is that we criticize denominationalism, yet we ourselves have become a denomination.

We often misrepresent the doctrines or practices of other churches in a "strawman" form that is easier to "knock down." (an example would be how we have handled the church of Christ "speak where the Bible speaks" paradigm). One would think that since we have been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment enough, we should not treat others in a way that we do not like to be treated (Matthew 7:12).

We also avoid mentioning areas where other churches are way ahead of us. Some examples:

• Scholarship: When our members want to get a professional-level theological education, they have to go to schools sponsored by other groups because we don't have any such schools. Other denominations are way ahead of us in terms of scholarship. How many people in our movement could serve on a bible translation committee, author a true commentary, or teach at a seminary? What percentage of ministers even have a simple M.Div. degree or any formal ministry-related education?
• Impact and Size: We compare ourselves favorably to Reformation-era movements led by Luther, Calvin and Zwingli by citing "number of countries" influenced, but the clear fact is that those movements changed entire countries and the course of history in a revolutionary manner. Many of the countries and states with ICOC churches only have a small number of members, and even our biggest churches haven't come close to this type of impact of these other movements. And we never compare ourselves in terms of impact and size to the Roman Catholic church or the Eastern Orthodox churches, because of their enormous size and influence.
• Commitment: While we usually compare favorably with the commitment of other churches in our day, we don't normally consider the extraordinary commitment levels of people involved in these churches in the mission field. By this I specifically mean the persecutions to the death endured by those advancing Biblical truths and opposing religious tyranny. I also am referring to the brave missionary efforts where people gave their lives to advance the gospel as they understood it. Even if these groups have serious problems in our day, the examples of many individuals in these groups are an upward call for all of us. And leaders of many other religious movements either take vows of poverty or choose to live in very humble circumstances.
• Charity: We proclaim HOPE's works and projects (and HOPE is doing some wonderful things), but these are minuscule in comparison to the efforts by other church groups in terms of hospitals operated and other selfless ministries for the poor.

  For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus' sake. (1 Corinthians 4:5)

  Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips. (Proverbs 27:2)

Contemporary Events and the Image
We also put our "spin" on contemporary events to build our image. We freely talk about the good news but we either "spin," ignore or erase from history any facts about contemporary or recent events that speak against the image we want to present:

• Plans that fail (though formerly announced as "of God" or "of the Spirit")
• Negative membership statistics (lack of growth, people leaving the church)
• Ministry failings of leaders; leaders that are removed, demoted or leave
• Outside reports of true but negative things are regarded as "spiritual pornography" and are to be avoided as sinful

We seem to be afraid to discuss negative facts publicly-- in spite of the fact that everybody knows about them. This is akin to the problem in dysfunctional families were everybody knows about the problem but nobody talks about it, and nobody does anything about it. How can we address issues that we aren't even willing to recognize or talk about?

My point is this: Once we were a group of churches simply trying to be faithful to the Scriptures, but now we seem to have become this "movement" claiming a divine appointment with a "bigger than life" image to live up to. Everything about us-- from KNN media to the Internet web sites, from HOPE to the ministries of local churches around the world-- seems to exist to serve and maintain the image of growth and impact. And anything that tarnishes the image is regarded as anathema.

Do Our Ministries Serve the "Image?"
I have already discussed failures in ministry regarding imbalance and teaching. If the imbalance in our ministries is a result of a warped or distorted concept of the Christian ideal, that is bad enough and needs to be fixed. But because these imbalances are in line with the stated goals of our image or ideal, it opens the door to the very real possibility that our ministries are self-serving. In fact, I think we have "crossed the line" of having a self-serving ministry in a number of areas.

Auto-Centric Evangelism
The most obvious way in which our ministries could be self-serving is what I call "auto-centric evangelism." Evangelism is persistently viewed in terms that are relative to the organization and not the objects of ministry outreach. The real spiritual needs of the lost and genuine love towards them are rarely, if ever, discussed.

Some examples of this would be regarding conversions as "God blessing us" (not the one being converted!), discussing visitor-to-member ratios in regards to events, baptism-to-member ratios, and the regular grading of event attendance with "good, great, awesome and poor" labels. The focus is not on sharing good news to open ears, but on the performance of the members.

Conversions are viewed as the mark of God's blessing upon individuals or the group. On a large scale, conversions feed the image of "growth and impact" and the desire to validate a divine mandate. On a smaller scale, conversions allows us to retain highly cherished labels and/or status like "fruitful," "healthy," "growing" or "dynamic."

The Shame-Based Ministry
Lack of conversions result in labels like "dead," "unfruitful" and the like, along with threats that “if we don’t convert people we will be cut off from the vine.” Other common shaming remarks include, "If you aren't fruitful, it's sin;" "If you aren't fruitful, it's your fault;" and "If you were more spiritual, you would be more fruitful." Rather than help people be more effective, this shaming is deeply hurtful to people who want to have impact on others but are persistently put down for failing to have that impact. And these sort of remarks betray the auto-centric frame of reference.

The whole statistics-tracking apparatus once was useful for tracking spontaneous evangelism, but it now seems to have become a tool for managing these labels of identity, self-esteem and shame. I suggest that the real needs of the lost dwarf the petty identity issues in which we seem to be trapped. The "fruitful" have a false sense of merit and the "unfruitful" have a false sense of shame. Consider Paul's words to the Corinthians:

What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. (1 Corinthians 3:5-7)

In reality, our approach condemns everyone to shame, since "bearing fruit" is an infrequent occurrence even for the most "fruitful." Hence, members assume a "shamed" identity. The longer they are around, the more we attribute shame to them- no wonder older Christians in our movement are not happy. Ironically, the shame-based paradigm is doomed to failure at converting people because shamed people are less likely to be "fruitful" and more likely to leave the church.

Leadership Has a Singular Focus
In efforts to be faithful to the image of growth or impact, leaders naturally drive evangelism hard. It is the single scale upon which they are ultimately measured.

Because leaders are busy working to achieve growth, real spiritual and physical needs beyond those that contribute to the image (conversions) are often neglected because they don't seem to help achieve the desired goal. For example, in-depth Bible study, maturing in the faith, helping the weak, being righteous or faithful or spiritual in "secret" areas are considered relatively unimportant because they don't directly feed the desired end result of conversions.

Leaders are also victims in this serving of the "image," as their training needs are not taken care of either. We don't teach our leaders (staff or lay) how to lead people, how to counsel difficult situations or how to teach; they are to be the guardians of growth and impact. Any needs beyond growth-related needs are beyond their training. They may in fact want to do right and meet the needs of their people, but are trained and expected to manage growth. Some needs may get met, but many go unmet because of the lack of training and expertise by the leadership.

Individual Maturity Thwarted
The end result of this image-centered ministry is that individual maturity beyond what is necessary to convert someone else is neglected; it never has a high enough priority. Yet, without the end result of building a lifelong faith and relationship with God, everything else in ministry is ultimately futile.

Much could be said about the development of individual maturity, but to me there are three areas of special concern: foundation, usefulness and leadership. In my opinion, our ministry approach in each of these areas thwarts the development of real maturity.

Foundation: God's Grace or Human Commitment?
In accordance with our concept and ideal of Christianity, we seem to have changed the message of the gospel. Whether we know it or not, we seem to have warped the relationship between grace, faith and commitment.

Where the Greek text of Matthew 28:18 has a verb for "make disciples," we talk about "disciples" as a noun. Instead of "making disciples" (verb, i.e. "training," the right meaning of the phrase), we wrongly take the passage to make "disciples" (noun, i.e. like the Twelve).

Discipleship in the case of the Twelve was specifically for leadership training and the start of the church (Mark 3:13-14); it was neither offered nor expanded to other followers of Jesus during His earthly ministry, nor was it continued in the early church. We have taken our misunderstanding of Matthew 28:18 ("helped" by the unfortunate English translation of a Greek verb into an English verb-noun combination) and made apostolic discipleship ideals (which the apostles themselves did not live up to) into "requirements to be met" prior to baptism.

In the New Testament church, the response to the message of the gospel was simple faith, repentance and baptism. The fact that biblical conversions took place in a single day but conversions in our movement take weeks and even months shows how much we have embellished and burdened the simple conversion process.

I'm all for making sure people are well founded in their decisions to be baptized, but that doesn't need to take weeks or months. Conversions in the book of Acts proves that point.

It seems that the crux of our conversion process consists of proving that one is "broken," "repentant" or "a disciple." This appears to be a departure from the pattern of conversion in Acts, where no one appears to have had to prove anything prior to baptism other than faith in Jesus and a willingness to repent and be baptized and thus saved.

The core and fundamental meaning of repentance is change of mind; it is a decision that need only take minutes. Later ramifications of repentance may become apparent, but they do not invalidate the initial sincere decision to repent. The question of whether anyone had a proper conversion on the basis of their repentance is never seen in Acts or the New Testament church. People are told to repent of sins as they arise, not to question their initial conversion (Acts 8:20-24, 19:18-19, Colossians 3:5). We want people to repent, but there is no such thing as a "perfect repentance." We want to avoid half-hearted responses, but we can't allow the gospel of grace to be warped by the potential for half-hearted responses. The apostles certainly faced these same concerns and risks with their "plain" gospel but preached it nonetheless. Subtly, our process makes one's foundation of faith commitment or repentance rather than word of the kindness and grace of God offered through the cross.

This warping of discipleship extends beyond conversion. We have also taken these ideals concerning discipleship and made them standards of conduct to be adhered to after baptism. They have been imbued with a near-omnipotent quality, as the phrase "just be a disciple" (i.e. be more committed) is often cited as the solution to nearly every problem, issue or question. In fact, everyone is guilty of falling short of these ideals and can be spoken against as "not being a disciple" at any time. We have made discipleship heavier than the law of Moses.

I have written elsewhere on this matter (in a paper entitled "A New Look at Discipleship" that was shared at the 2000 International Teacher's Seminar in Paris and is now included on the Barnabas Ministry website). Simply stated, it seems that New Testament discipleship had to do with physically following a physical Messiah. Once that Messiah went to heaven, discipleship was not possible (since discipleship by definition involves the physical following of a physical teacher). Belief was a far more applicable concept, and "believers" became one of the most popular terms of identification for Christians in the church age. Our theology and practice seems to fail to recognize the fact that the term "disciple" faded from use in the apostolic church, only appearing rarely in Acts and never again in the New Testament.

In fact, we have admitted that our use of the term "disciple" is a reaction to the lack of commitment (real or perceived) in other churches, rather that the product of a comprehensive examination of the topic from a Scriptural point of view.

  The most impacting was called "Discipleship" where, from my study of Scripture, I taught what was clear in Acts 11:26: SAVED = CHRISTIAN = DISCIPLE, simply meaning that you cannot be saved and you cannot be a true Christian without being a disciple also. I purposely developed this study to draw a sharp biblical distinction between the Lexington (later renamed Boston) Church of Christ and all other groups. (Kip McKean, Revolution Through Restoration, "Restoration in Boston", emphasis mine)

Author's Note: The equation "SAVED = CHRISTIAN = DISCIPLE" has been removed from the discipleship study, presumably because of its mathematical and theological imprecision.

I believe in teaching devotion and commitment. But it is a result of receiving grace, not a prerequisite of receiving grace (Titus 2:11ff). Like all fruit, devotion and commitment comes from within-- the genuine fruit of true faith.

Usefulness of Christians
I believe Christians need to continue to be "taught to obey" Jesus' commands. I also believe that personal involvement of other Christians is an important and God-ordained part of Christian growth.

In our efforts to make sure that this important part of the church's charter is accomplished, we have employed a hierarchical discipling paradigm where everyone has an individual "discipler." Our current one-over-one hierarchical paradigm works great for leaders and young disciples, but it has some Scriptural difficulties and dreadful inadequacies that had become apparent over the years.

The paper I distributed at the 2000 International Teacher's Seminar discusses my views on this more elaborately, but my points may be summarized by observing that the Moses model was for leaders only and not the entire nation of Israel. There is evidence that mentoring was done with leaders and leadership candidates in the church, but none that it was done throughout the church. In fact, I don't think that the fifty-plus "one another" passages in the New Testament could have been written in an environment where the entire church was in a one-over-one discipling chain as we practice it today.

By the very nature of the hierarchy, the weakest member at the bottom of the hierarchy (who may in fact need the most skillful training) has the least competent trainer. This gives rise to inadequate or even harmful training. The model also creates distance in the body between leaders and those with whom they are not in direct contact. It also weakens the Scripturally-mandated "one another" concept of relationships by creating a barrier that isolates members from the rest of the body as a whole.

There are other "human effects" of the hierarchy as well. By imposing an ordering of relationships, it encourages competitiveness and selfishness, a situation where the weaker should be honored but are put down instead. Though we speak of these relationships being "two-way," they rarely are. As a result, half of the church (those at the lowest level in the hierarchy) have no one to teach, encourage or admonish. No matter how much they grow, if they don't "rise up" in the hierarchy they remain useless. Not only does this stunt their individual growth, it hurts the health of the church because they are not actively involved in contributing to its well being.

The apostles certainly were aware of the Moses model. If the apostles considered such a hierarchical model either a mandate or even useful for the church, they certainly would have or could have employed it. Instead, these "one-another" passages make much of the work of ministry in the church the responsibility of each member of the church, in conjunction with those possessing sanctioned leadership positions having a duty to train the church for works of service (e.g. Ephesians 4:11ff).

We seem to persist in this organization throughout the church not because it works or is Scripturally mandated, but because it fits our traditions and the people making the decisions are full-time leaders, one of the two groups for whom individual mentoring works best. I used to argue that "hierarchy vs. body" was a false dilemma, but I honestly believe now that the presently utilized hierarchy cannot help but weaken the body.

Leadership
Most leaders don't know how to lead mature Christians.

Our movement has its roots in campus ministry. Campus ministers are often much more mature than those they lead. As a result, giving specific direction in all sorts of areas is appropriate and beneficial.

In spite of the benefits of this type of leadership in campus ministry, there are three great risks here. One is that Christians become more dependent upon leaders than God. This dependence upon leaders makes the leader the basis of faith, not the word of God, and it opens the door for undermining the basis of that faith:

  Deprogrammers, like Satan (for these people are his instruments), try to destroy the faith of disciples by undermining their trust in the leadership and doctrines of the church." (Kip McKean, Revolution Through Restoration II, "Family of God," emphasis added)

  And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:4-5, emphasis added)

The third great risk of this type of leadership is that it trains the leader to expect the mature to act as though they were immature.

When the mature don't act as the leader expects, they may be shamed with negative labels (like "unteachable" or "prideful") and have their motives questioned. But what they really need is another type of leadership. Such leadership respects their maturity and faithfulness and finds ways to encourage them to be faithful and effective in circumstances that are probably much more challenging than those they faced when they were younger. Consider Paul's words to Timothy:

  Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father. (1 Timothy 5:1)

Recommendations
At the outset, I must say I don't have all of the answers to the questions raised here. Finding problems is easier than finding solutions. Even in raising these issues, I've tried to do so in a way that helps us solve the problems.

I believe the Scriptures illuminate our path and point the way to solutions as we examine them. Indeed, the primary solutions I see are a new sense of humility and a re-dedication to the Scriptures to get our ministries into better balance.

Greater Humility
In my opinion, the image-driven, auto-centric ministry is the most deep-rooted and serious problem our movement is facing. Our goal as a movement seems to be advancing and substantiating the image ("God's Movement") that has been claimed based upon size and impact. We no longer seem to care about faithfulness to the Biblical pattern and reliance upon God for useful ministry. Although we have condemned building a monument to ourselves, to me this appears to be exactly what is going on.

  As the movement matures, the leadership comes to an unavoidable fork in the road: whether to build a monument to themselves or to build an altar to God and continue as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1-2). As with King Saul, a monument means the death of a movement (1 Samuel 15:12) because the leadership ultimately glories in itself and its accomplishments rather than in God. (Kip McKean, Revolution Through Restoration II, "The Movement of God")

Humility is a true mark of being "of God." The more one is really given by God, the more humble he is. Jesus washed the apostles' feet (John 13:1ff). Scripture records that Moses was the most humble man on earth (Numbers 12:3). Paul said he was the least of God's people (Ephesians 3:8). They were not out to make themselves look greater than anyone. Leaders of the early church were willing to be nothing, if only their flock would know God through the gospel (Acts 20:24).

I want to see our movement and leaders have that kind of humility. I don't want to hear boasting under the guise of "sharing good news" or tacking "to God be the glory" on the end of self-glorifying statements. I don't want to hear leaders and movement titles (WSL, GSL, etc) elevated.

I would rather be exalted by God than by myself; I would very much like to see our movement go in this direction as well:

And whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. (Matthew 23:12)

  But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, "LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD." (1 Corinthians 1:30-31)

  And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

In my book Keeping the Faith I identified seven factors in the departure of the early church towards the early Catholic church.

1. The Myth of Infallibility
2. Speculative Theology
3. Incremental Changes
4. Universal Application of Individual Solutions and Allowed Practices
5. Expectation of External Conformity
6. Neglect of Protodoxy by Leadership
7. New Purposes
8. Change in the Object of Discipleship

When we have questions or need for direction, do we go to the Bible first, or to humans first?

When Scripture is read publicly in lessons, people usually "tune it out" and wait for the "real message" from the person reading. Those reading Scripture publicly contribute to this phenomenon, reading it as though they were in a hurry to finish so they have more time to say what they want to say. These things are evidence that we really don't value the Word very much.

We need to aspire to know and understand the Scriptures. We need to be willing to put them into practice whether or not it fits our biases, traditions or previous understandings.

This need reminds me of the old story about the man in the third world who taught starving people to fish. Someone asked him why he just didn't pass out fish to the people. He replied, "If I give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If I teach him to fish, he eats for a lifetime."

We need to teach our people to "fish" in the Word-- to get their answers, beliefs and direction from the truth of God's word. This is not an unreasonable expectation; in fact it ought to be the long-term mission of the church. Then our members can obey the Scriptural commands to "discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness" (1 Timothy 4:8) and "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:13).

Every Christian has different educational levels and aptitudes. We need to structure our teaching to reach people within their abilities. We can teach everyone, regardless of education level, that searching the Word for answers to their questions will be a rewarding experience. Those who do have more aptitude or educational training should aspire to more advanced learning, and have that education available within the church. Is this not what "loving God with all of your mind" is all about?

Is what I am proposing more work than simply telling people what to do (i.e. "giving them the fish")? Yes. But do we want our people to be faithful today, or faithful for life? The answer to that question points the direction to the solution.

Suggestions for Better Balance
While the recommendations towards humility and a better Biblical foundation are general by their very nature, I also have some specific suggestions to offer towards the ends of better balance and defensibility of our movement in the face of criticisms.

• Public Image of the Movement

• Name: We need to stop using the name "The Movement of God" (and others like it) to describe ourselves. The term implies a specific and exclusive divine appointment.
• Decisions: We need to immediately cease the practice of putting God's name on the product of human decisions. We also need to be a lot more straightforward about who makes decisions and what factors go into those decisions, instead of using the passive voice ("... it was decided...").
• History: We need to cease telling movement history that makes the movement look like it arose out of a vacuum.
• Boasting: Kingdom News Network (KNN) needs to "tune down" the boasting about the movement. News is OK, but it shouldn't be told in a way that glorifies us. In addition, HOPE activities need to be done without a media push (Matthew 6:1-4).
• Other Churches: Immediately cease making derogatory remarks about other churches. Instead, we should make efforts to develop relationships with people in other churches on all sorts of levels. Our present course of isolation allows us to be unfairly portrayed, works against the cause of the gospel and prevents us from learning.
• Leader-Centrism: Change the leader-centric culture; leaders are supposed to be servants but we have made them into celebrities. We should also avoid worldly descriptions such as "powerful," "high-powered," "kick-down-the-door type," etc.
• Perceived Extravagant Compensation: We need to get high-level leaders out of living situations that are significantly more expensive than those of the rest of the congregation. It is inequitable and out of touch with the spirit of the New Testament. As such, it brings too much disrepute upon the church. In addition, criticisms such as "members sacrificing so so-and-so can live in his $400,000 home" are impossible to defend against.
• There can be no exception to this policy if leaders have an inheritance or other outside income or assets to support living situations more expensive than average. Leaders need to either give up all church compensation, their inheritance or their leadership role. Not only is there Biblical precedent for this (ref. Acts 4:36-37, Matthew 19:27), it is common in many other churches.
• Financial Access: All detailed financial records should be made public, specifically including staff compensation packages and professional expenses.

• Balance Ministry

• First Principals: We need to revise the "First Principals" study series. In keeping with the gospel preached by the early church, the "discipleship" study ought to be eliminated and replaced with a study emphasizing grace, faith, obedience, commitment and relationship with God. This will provide a much better foundation for the faith of our people.
• Organizational Models: Eliminate the hierarchical discipling model for all but leaders. Emphasize the "body" and "one another" concept of the church in accordance with the New Testament. Get evangelists more involved with new converts after baptism as well as before.
• The "Cord of Three Strands:" Establish the teaching, eldership and evangelist ministries as of equal importance, and work aggressively to establish these in every church. We have typically had only one "growth path" in the church: ministry leader. Pursuit of the offices of elder and teacher are also legitimate growth paths in the church. Our attempts to cram everyone into a single growth path goes against both experience and the concept of the different parts of the body having different functions (1 Corinthians 12). And having these ministries to balance one another will lead to a more balanced church.
• Bible Curriculum: Develop an adult teaching curriculum. Teach the people how to understand the Scriptures via exegesis and not the "proof text" or "out of context" approaches. The curriculum needs to be both academic and practical and scaled to individual's maturity and educational abilities. The curriculum needs to teach people to utilize the Scriptures for themselves and not just be another series of lessons; this demands that group-study and interactive methods be utilized. (In continuing with the "fishing" analogy, teaching someone to fish requires that he actually do the fishing as some point.)
• Leader Training: As churches get larger and more mature, needs become more specialized and significant. Therefore, leaders need to be formally trained and equipped to meet the needs of those they lead. Staff leaders should be encouraged (and possibly required) to get advanced educational training. Lay leaders are critical to the ministry of the church and should be equipped in areas such as marriage and family counseling, mental health counseling, etc. as needed. These could be done either "in house" with movement leaders doing the training or "out of house" using other educational resources.
• Value Balance: The early church grew explosively yet the epistles rarely if ever talk about evangelism on the part of members. I think that the early church taught people to have a fulfilling relationship with God and evangelism was spontaneous as a result (e.g. the epistles). I think we need to use this pattern to achieve better ministry balance.

Past Damages and Grievances
 
• Take Responsibility: As a movement, we have a well-publicized reputation for harshness, legalism, dividing families, ruining careers and other negative impacts (shaming, spiritual damage) in the lives of members. We may not be responsible for all of these things we are accused of, but we must take responsibility and publicly apologize for past instances of poor judgment and ministerial failures that have contributed to these problems.
• Active Resolution of Grievances: Current members, former members and families of members need to have access to those in high levels of leadership to express grievances. In the past we have discouraged the raising of grievances via isolation and/or intimidation, whether perceived or real. I am not naive enough to think that all the problems will go away, but I believe we need to be righteous and willing to go the extra mile to resolve these things. We cannot simultaneously worship God and ignore righteous grievances; the Scriptures expect us to seek out those with grievances:
 
If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to our brother, and then come and present your offering. (Matthew 5:23-24)


• Public Trust: We must devise a system where we are publicly accountable to eliminate ministry failings in these areas I have discussed. Private statements will not suffice; public statements of recognition, change and repentance are needed, or changes won't really happen. And ministry failings must continually be evaluated and discussed publicly, or else new problems will arise. Our trustworthiness as ministers of the gospel is at stake, and we need to earn that trust on a daily basis with honestly, humility and sincerity.

Our real spiritual problem is sin and condemnation; the remedy to this problem is salvation by grace through Jesus. The church exists to reach the lost with this message and to feed the faith of the saved. A church like that will have commitment and impact and deliver souls to heaven.

The enemy of Christians and the church is, and always has been, Satan. It is not other churches or "uncommitted members." Nor is it former members or critics.

We teach that someone who is really humble will take truth from anyone. Yet as a movement, sometimes we isolate ourselves from criticisms or pridefully dismiss criticisms because the critic hasn't "earned the right to speak." Responsible leadership needs to deal with the substance of criticisms in humility and act appropriately.

I pray that what I have offered will help illuminate the way to improving our movement and reaching the ideals to which it aspires.

Copyright © 2000 John Engler. All rights reserved. Send a letter to the editor concerning this article