Winning or Losing a City (pt.5): Church
[Series index if you need it]
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This time I’m asking ‘what’s with the church?’ in terms of winning a city.
In pt. 3 I said that I don’t think that taking over the denominational body or restarting/reforming the bible colleges is the way to do an about turn and head toward winning a city. This is because I think the problem is at heart theological, not structural. There is a lack of adherence to creedal/reformed christian faith in local churches. This locks you into a cycle of liberalism/heterodoxy from the ground up – The structures just happen to compound and perpetuate it.
So how could you ‘break the cycle’?
The key is the local churches and specifically the leaders of those Churches. Unlike the denom. body or the bible college this is the week by week point of contact for the christian person. What the local leader believes and teaches will be what shapes the belief and practice of parishioners. The other two can only really do this in a secondary way. This appears to be how liberalism took hold in Adelaide – parishioners didn’t just turn liberal one day, their leaders were liberal and the people followed. (and it only took one generation!)
(Protestant) Churches differ from franchises in this way then: Head office is not the denominational body (though it might want to be). Head office is the local pulpit.
So the first part of the solution is to get Christian men running ‘head office’ (just how, I’ll come back to later, but that’s the main game and is what we’re praying towards). win the pulpit, win the people (…then the city, then the world… 
Now I know you will say – but the leaders originally were turned liberal at the Bible college. True. And what orthodox Christian is going to want to go through a liberal Bible college? I guess that’s the second part of the solution. Once you have the willing Christian men you need somewhere to train them. But since we’re not talking completely hypothetically here we can say this is no big deal. Thankfully there is already a good local college (BCSA) and interstate options are in pretty easy reach.
Which points us back again to getting men to man the pulpits…
(And incidentally to the fact that you can make a pretty good go of things with only two parts of ‘the trinity’)
“how liberalism took hold in Adelaide”… I assume you’re talking primarily about the Anglican church in Adelaide. (Which is not such a big part of the wider Adelaide Church as it is for Sydney, but still worth the effort to make it what it could be).
Some denoms have more of a head office than others – Baptist, CoC and AoG churches are quite autonomous (“the churches run the union”), while Anglican, Catholic, Uniting and Salvos have a bigger “head office”/bureaucracy which not only has some authority (without necessarily controlling too much) but also does a lot more. My company put together the UCA-SA websites and there’s an awful lot happening.
“what orthodox Christian is going to want to go through a liberal Bible college?”
Reply to EricI can think of a few people who felt they ought to do their studies in the Uniting college and be salt there rather than an easier option like BCSA.
Yes, i primarily have in mind the Anglican church but it is also prevalent in the other denominations (uniting for example). I chose liberalism because it is easy to identify with but of course any kind of heterodoxy has the same effect. e.g. religious relativism (which you find even in some ‘bible teaching churches’), prosperity gospel and so on.
I know different denominations have different ways of organising themselves. But despite this they’re all pretty much the same: That’s mMy point with the head office thing. Regardless of how you organise your association of local churches the leader of the local church is in practice ‘head office’. For all intents and purposes he is the one who speaks on God’s behalf (as far as he preaches the Bible)to congregants – not denom. leaders or college lecturers.
do you think that’s fair? my suggestion that what we need is orthodox Christian bible teachers in pulpits really turns on this!
I’m glad for people brave enough to do go through liberal colleges! I’m thinking that they are the minority though and that this will not be a particularly attractive or beneficial option for most people. I personally don’t see Bible college as a mission field scenario. It really ought to be a place to be fed well for a few years so you can feed others well for a lifetime.
Reply to reubenOK, so where does this leave us — if it’s ultimately about the man in the pulpit, where do denominational bodies fit in if they aren’t supporting good colleges? Are we in the end just looking at some kind of “community church” model with strong independent colleges?
Reply to Arthur@Arthur – In short, yes but i don’t think the only way forward is creating pulpits (by starting a community church or whatever) if they are available to you within existing denominations.
In long:
I see a strong independent Bible college as a practical necessity in a place like Adelaide. (Eric’s friends aside) Most people won’t get the training they need and the encouragement to stay Christian any other way… But that is only in the short term, and need not stay that way necessarily. Say a denomination does largely become reformed theologically you’d expect the college and denom. body to follow eventually. That might get you to the sydney-type scenario where the three work together in, say, two or three generations.
I don’t think that what i’m proposing means you need to go ‘community church’ and ditch the traditional denominations. But that might be one way of doing it… I guess it depends on how much patience you have and what opportunities the Lord gives you. It also depends what value you give to a ‘brand’ (to put it crudely!).
Also (and i know you’d agree) it’s not ‘ultimately about the man in the pulpit’…It’s about honouring Jesus and loving his sheep (if you’re a shepherd). ‘the man in the pulpit’ is just how I reckon you break the cycle of liberalism. Denom. bodies still have a natural part to play. e.g. providing resources to run churches in places where it will never be economically viable.
Reply to reuben