A student was once asked whether ignorance or apathy was worse, to which he answered, \u201cI don\u2019t know and I don\u2019t care.\u201d\u00a0 Within the last few months I have visited a \u201cnon-traditional\u201d church, watched a promotional video from another \u201cnon-traditional\u201d church, and read web sites from other \u201cnon-traditional\u201d churches (not to mention various articles, books, etc.). My observation is that the \u201cvirtues\u201d of the non-traditional church are usually manifestly accepted while the \u201cvices\u201d of the traditional are quickly believed without experience or investigation.<\/p>\n
The common argument of the non-traditionalists seems to be that lost people don\u2019t like traditional churches. For this reason traditional churches are no longer effective in reaching the lost.\u00a0 Unless church is exciting and enticing, the unchurched are not convinced of its usefulness or truthfulness.<\/p>\n
Well, a tornado may cause a lot of excitement, but is not very effective for the farmer\u2019s purpose.\u00a0 In my experiences, non-traditional churches are often popular with the wrong people and can easily be filled for the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n
I am using the description \u201cnon-traditional\u201d because I want to defend the \u201ctraditional\u201d church from general accusations.\u00a0 I could use the terms progressive, or contemporary as well.\u00a0 All of these terms have their denotations, but their connotations are well known to most church attenders.\u00a0 In all of the defenses of the non-traditional churches, \u201ctraditional\u201d seems to be fair game for blame, accusation, ridicule and the like.\u00a0 I have spent a number of issues in this paper defending the traditional (I would also say normal) church from such accusations.\u00a0 I am not defending the High-Church denominational traditionalism, in which countless souls never heard the gospel, but rather the traditional local church that generations have known and loved and where they came to Christ.<\/p>\n
Without doubt, the traditional church is a struggle for the lost or backslidden person.\u00a0 His mind and heart are not on the things of God, and there is no reason why he would enjoy what spirit-filled Christians enjoy.\u00a0 The normal church service is so different from what he experiences daily in the world that he must be convicted and led by the Holy Spirit to want to stay around.\u00a0 The singing is Christ-centered; the teaching is authoritative; the praying is humbling and the conversation is spiritual!\u00a0 Why would a lost person want to remain there?<\/p>\n
D.L. Moody once wrote, \u201cBut, some say, if we take the standard and lift it up high, it will drive away a great many members from our churches.\u00a0 I believe it, and I think the quicker they are gone the better.\u201d1 Today, we do not understand what Moody meant by such a statement.\u00a0 It was not a lack of concern, but a burden for the lost that we have seldom seen that made Moody say such a thing\u2014a burden we desperately need again.<\/p>\n
Churches adopt certain patterns because they believe those patterns conform to biblical standards and therefore allow the Spirit of God to change people.\u00a0 Here are five characteristics of traditional churches that have been patterned from biblical conviction.<\/p>\n
Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle (2 Thes 2:15).\u00a0 The local churches have a two thousand year history drawn from a two thousand year-old Bible.\u00a0 They have songs born from spirit-led hearts that have satisfied the souls of believers for hundreds of years.\u00a0 They have built buildings, sent missionaries, suffered persecution, sat reverently under the teaching of God\u2019s Word, observed the ordinances with Godly fear and passed on their faith to others with rejoicing.<\/p>\n
When T.S. Eliot said that \u201ca religion requires not only a body of [ministers] who know what they are doing, but a body of worshippers who know what is being done,\u201d2 he could have been speaking of any generation of believers.\u00a0 But few church-shoppers today even care what a church believes much less how they practice and are not much concerned with making a commitment to those things!\u00a0 They seem to think, \u201cA rolling stone gathers no moss!\u201d\u00a0 Yes, and the stone is dead, carried about by the current while the moss is alive and clinging to the immoveable foundation.<\/p>\n
Traditional churches help people get their feet on solid, immoveable ground.\u00a0 They help people look back and anchor themselves to a truthful history while encouraging them to look beyond the present to a heavenly reward. C.S. Lewis referred to his own atheistic past as \u201c\u2018chronological snobbery,\u2019 the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.\u201d3 In such a time as the present, we cannot afford to disconnect our churches from their own Christian history.<\/p>\n
Traditional churches do not use stealth tactics to lure people into their services.\u00a0 That is more cultic than evangelistic.\u00a0 Paul\u2019s prayer for Philemon was, That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus (Phile 6).\u00a0 The most effective means for gospel witness is to \u201cacknowledge\u201d the \u201cgood thing\u201d we have that the world does not have.\u00a0 Too often churches are busy trying to win themselves to the world rather than winning the world to Christ.<\/p>\n
Os Guinness wrote, \u201cThe very reason why penny loafers speak better to other penny loafers than to Air Jordans and wingtips is the reason why a penny-loafer gospel will never be the whole counsel of God.\u201d4 It is not our business to convince the world that they should like us, or that they will enjoy our worship, or that Christianity will fit their busy life-style.\u00a0 God desires to change them and change them drastically!\u00a0 And the way He wants to do this is by believers displaying their faith in a visible, unapologetic manner.<\/p>\n
Traditional churches do what they do because they believe that is what God wants them to do, not because they think that is what the world is looking for.\u00a0 Jean-Paul Sartre once criticized Christianity by saying, \u201cI did not recognize in the fashionable God who was taught me, Him who was waiting for my soul.\u00a0 I needed a Creator; I was given a big businessman!\u201d5 A Japanese businessman similarly said, \u201cWhenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man.\u00a0 Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager.\u201d6 What the world needs to meet are Christians who are going about worship because God is there, not because they are there!<\/p>\n
Though everyone feels his view of biblical separation is biblical, traditional churches have made this a priority because they know it reflects God\u2019s character. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty (2 Cor 17-18).\u00a0 This command is still in the Old and New Testaments of our Bible!<\/p>\n
Yes, traditional churches have their hypocrites but hypocrisy is hypocrisy.\u00a0 It always imitates the real thing.\u00a0 The Apostle John wrote, Love not the world, neither the things in the world (1 Jn 2:15), and said of false teachers in the church, They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them (1 Jn 4:5).\u00a0 Jesus said, Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets (Lk 6:26).<\/p>\n
We will not win the world by loving everything about the world and affirming that to the world.\u00a0 G.C. Morgan wrote, \u201cI am often told today\u2014told seriously\u2014that what the Church of God needs in order to succeed is to catch the spirit of the age.\u00a0 I reply that the Church of God only succeeds in proportion as she corrects the spirit of the age.\u201d7 The primary reason for separation from the world is the Lord\u2019s command to be holy because He is holy.\u00a0 The next reason is so that being holy, we might be filled with the Spirit of God and have power for witnessing and preaching.<\/p>\n
Contrary to what many are saying, traditional churches are more available to people for teaching, fellowship, discipling and worship than non-traditional churches.\u00a0 We still have Sunday School (Bible study) graded for all ages, Sunday night services and Wednesday night prayer and Bible study, and all of these with fully staffed child-care!\u00a0 These are not times when people merely \u201cgo through the motions.\u201d They are well prepared, taught by qualified teachers, done in comfortable (and neutral!) settings and, most of all, this all takes place when and where the brethren have agreed to meet.<\/p>\n
I, for one, am not buying the tired old line that Christians, because they happen to be teens, college age, or busy professionals, cannot come to where the saints are when they should.\u00a0 They do everything else they want to!\u00a0 John wrote, They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us (1 Jn 2:19).\u00a0 Why don\u2019t professing Christians love the brethren enough to meet with them?\u00a0 Because they have more pressing needs?\u00a0 John the apostle didn\u2019t buy that excuse.\u00a0 He called it not loving the brethren!<\/p>\n
Traditional churches offer services for all believers, regardless of age, race or status.\u00a0 I find that they offer more time to be with the brethren than any other kind of church.\u00a0 These churches, rather than catering to exclusive attitudes, honor the elderly who have no one to visit with or care for them; accept families who can use some help with their kids for an hour; encourage the young people to broaden their social horizons; don\u2019t target specialized groups of people; and promote body unity for all of the church.<\/p>\n
Traditional churches expect sinners to change when they come to Christ and are comfortable showing that change in the church service.\u00a0 They expect the gospel and the Holy Spirit to change a person immediately upon placing his\/her faith in Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Invitations are still given with that end in mind.\u00a0 They are not willing to change that doctrine to a more gradual view of conversion.\u00a0\u00a0 Too often today, the sinners are simply being called righteous, rather than being called to repentance.\u00a0 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (2 Cor 5:17).<\/p>\n
The reason most surveys show that unbelievers (or \u201cunchurched\u201d) do not like traditional churches is that something is being asked of them: some effort, some struggle, some patience, even some blessed quietness.\u00a0 For all of the talk of traditional churches being unwilling to change, the fact is, they have changed\u2014when they believed\u2014and it is the critics who are unwilling to give up their own life-style and change into the image of Christ.<\/p>\n
Traditional churches are what they are.\u00a0 It is not a show or a stage where anyone performs for anyone else.\u00a0 It is plain people, forgiven in Christ, doing what they would be doing whether you or I or a complete stranger were or were not there.<\/p>\n
Notes:<\/address>\n1. D.L. Moody, Spiritual Power (Chicago: Moody Press, 1997) 120.<\/address>\n2. T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture (New York: HB, 1949) 96.<\/address>\n3. C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1955) 207.<\/address>\n4. Os Guinness, Dining With The Devil (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993) 28.<\/address>\n5. Quoted by A.W. Tozer, Whatever Happened To Worship? (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publishers, 1985) 10.<\/address>\n6. Guinness, 49.<\/address>\n7. G.C. Morgan, Commentary on Matthew, 179.<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A student was once asked whether ignorance or apathy was worse, to which he answered, \u201cI don\u2019t know and I don\u2019t care.\u201d\u00a0 Within the last few months I have visited a \u201cnon-traditional\u201d church, watched a promotional video from another \u201cnon-traditional\u201d church, and read web sites from other \u201cnon-traditional\u201d churches (not to mention various articles, books, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123,225],"tags":[170],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-featured","tag-methodology"],"yoast_head":"\n