Posted on 11/30/2016 2:41:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
A Canadian study has found that Mainline Protestant churches that have both modern worship services and teach a literal interpretation of the Bible grow faster.
(Photo: Reuters/John Gress)A parishioner cries as he signs a song of worship in the 7,000-seat Willow Creek Community church during a Sunday service in South Barrington, Illinois, November 20, 2005. Institutions like Willow Creek and Houston's Lakewood Church, each drawing 20,000 or more on a weekend, offer not just a vast, shared attraction but a path that tries to link individuals on a faith-sustaining one-to-one level beyond the crowd, observers and worshipers say.
The Canadian researchers who authored the study, "Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy," surveyed 2,225 churchgoers in Ontario, Canada, and interviewed 29 clergy and 195 congregants. The study will be published in next month's issue of the Review of Religious Research.
"This study was important because it quantified empirically something that evangelical renewalists have been saying for decades — theology matters," said the Rev. Tom Lambrecht, vice president and general manager of Good News Magazine, a United Methodist publication, in an interview with The Christian Post.
Lambrecht, who served for 29 years as a United Methodist minister in Wisconsin, told CP that people who are interested in the things of God "want spiritual substance, not just a feel-good message or the opportunity to engage in community service." The Church, he said, has to to be distinct from and offer more than local civic associations and charities.
A solidly Orthodox Gospel that motivates churches to adapt their worship life and ministries to engage the next generation more effectively will be one where the message remains the same, but the means of delivery look different.
The study also showed that services at growing "churches featured contemporary worship with drums and guitars, while declining churches favoured traditional styles of worship with organ and choir."
"The use of contemporary Christian worship music is an example of that adaptation," Lambrecht said. "It has been around for over 40 years, yet some churches still resist making that adaptation." He added, however, that he's seen examples of churches that have more traditional styles of worship that are also yielding growth.
Pastor John Daffern who leads a Southern Baptist congregation in Columbus, Mississippi, calls himself "an apologist for the modern church."
(Photo: Chris Ellis Photograhpy)Josh Daffern, pastor of MTV Church in Columbus, Mississippi.
"I pastor a church that fits that mold," said Daffern, who leads MTV Church, in a recent interview with CP after he read some of the study's findings.
"We are theologically conservative, according to that study, and yet we are unashamedly modern and we are in a sustained period of growth in our church, and that is in direct contrast to many of the Mainline churches and even some evangelical churches.
"And I think the wisdom of that study is the two parts. There does need to be a modern sense of an expression of the faith while at the same time a conservative, Orthodox view of Christianity," he added.
Daffern said he believes that what church growth comes down to is how man-made controls are applied and both liberals and conservatives do that in their own way.
"For those who would say that we want to liberalize the tenets of Christianity and pick and choose which parts we are comfortable with and which parts we aren't, that's man exerting control over the theology," Daffern said.
"In the same way, a conservative theology yet a traditional approach is still trying to exert man-made control over religion, but it's not over the theology but over the cultural expression," which amounts to an approach which he describes as leaders saying, "Hey, we're going to stick to the Bible but we're going to pretend that it is the 1950s or the 1960s."
Those man-made controls rob the supernatural aspect out of Christian faith, he asserted.
Lead researcher of the study, David Haskell, said in an interview with The Guardian earlier this month that Christians who rely on a fairly literal interpretation of the Bible, "are profoundly convinced of [the] life-saving, life-altering benefits that only their faith can provide, [and] they are motivated by emotions of compassion and concern to recruit family, friends and acquaintances into their faith and into their church."
The study also found that only half of the clergy interviewed who are presiding over declining churches agreed that it was "very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians," whereas every member of the clergy in a growing church felt that way.
A whopping 93 percent of clergy and 83 percent of worshipers from growing churches believed in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, compared to 67 percent of worshipers and 56 percent of clergy from declining churches. One hundred percent of clergy and 90 percent of worshipers from growing churches believe God does miracles in response to prayer, whereas only 44 percent of clergy and 80 percent of worshipers from declining churches say so.
"One of the reasons that people are drawn to modern churches is because people don't want to be part of a monument." Daffern asserted. "They want to be part of a movement. One of the greatest beauties of Christianity is that it is living and active."
"In my world, as a Southern Baptist pastor, I tend to deal with churches that have a conservative view of the Bible yet a very traditional mindset, often times it is monument to a bygone era of what they imagine to be the golden age' of Christianity in America."
Such churches are perfectly poised to come back were the 1950s ever to return, he mused.
However, the problem with some more modern churches, he added, is that people sometimes make the modern expression itself an idol of sorts.
"But the key is to be modern enough while not being a mere imitation of everything else around in culture."
See #432 above
I disagree with your interpretation of the self evident passages. Besides that, I thought that you needed a priest to interpret the Bible for you? That's what I was told when I was a Catholic, MANY years ago.
I hope you are not going to say what another Catholic FR poster told me a couple years ago, that he didn't interpret scripture, he just read it, and told me what it said. Needless to say, we did a hearty ROTFL.
At any rate, I agree with the other addressees, and disagree with you. I can see the others have tried to tell you the truth. It appears you don't really want the truth, so there is no hope in trying to reason with you. They have already tried.
The REAL issue here, is not all these peripheral doctrines, like communion, baptism, Christian living. I don't care as much about those things. The only thing I want to know is, what is your plan of salvation? How are you planning to get into Heaven. Nothing else is important.
I have a feeling, however, that if you tell me what your idea of getting saved is, I would probably disagree with it. So be it bro.
Yes, “It is the spirit that quickens: the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life.”
“But there are some of you that believe not.”
And there are STILL some that don’t believe that the SPIRIT gives life and that the FLESH, which Catholics claim you have to eat and gives life, profits for NOTHING.
And you never addressed the contradiction between Catholic teaching and the clear, plain reading of the entirety of Scripture.
Additionally. Peter HIMSELF declares that he had never eaten anything unclean. That would include eating human flesh and drinking human blood.
So did Peter lie to God when he said that?
Peter never ate flesh and blood according to words from his own mouth.
1Cor. 11:23- 29,
“Which also was carefully explained to you”
You “explained” nothing.
You provided an excuse for your obstinance.
Hint:
The OT and the covenant of the NT are NOT “at the same time.
Yes, I addressed this nonsense also, among the dozen or so deniers posting here.
The Eucharist is not a violation of the Law.
The Eucharist isn’t consumption of Blood in the normal sense.
Otherwise, we’d be cannibals. Although it’s literally Jesus’ Body and Blood, we aren’t destroying Jesus in the process.
So it’s no more against Jewish kosher laws than it is against the Christian prohibition against cannibalism.
Great theological depth.
Besides that, I thought that you needed a priest to interpret the Bible for you?
Really?
I thought that myth died at Trent.
Like St. Paul, I’m working out my salvation in fear and trembling.
I’m baptized and confess and study my faith.
I fall short and ask forgiveness.
I avail myself of God’s graces as often as possible.
It should be more than obvious that Christ's REAL meaning is not about the physical acts (or beliefs concerning) the consuming of the bread and wine of the observance of the Lord's Supper/Eucharist (thanksgiving) but of the FAITH that is required in order to have eternal life. The eating and drinking of the elements does not supplant the requirement of faith in what those elements represented - the broken body and shed blood of the Lamb of God for the sins of the world. We demonstrate our faith in Christ by doing as He commanded us to "for whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes."
I seems to me that Catholics place a much higher priority on the receiving of the Eucharist than the faith IN Jesus Christ and what He did for us. Some Catholics even go so far as to assert forcefully that ONLY their priests have the authority to "confect" the elements and administer them to believers and NO ONE else can do so, thereby making the reception of the Eucharist - and the grace for salvation they contain - ONLY available to Catholics. Other Christians are deprived of their benefits. Taking that logic a step further, since only the Catholic priest can give the elements and ONLY Catholics in a "state of grace" can validly receive them, the rest of the non-Catholic Christian body has no access to salvific grace. Now, that is a WHOLE lot of reading into the words Jesus spoke as told in John 6. It also blatantly contradicts much of Scripture that teaches salvation is by grace through faith in Christ and that we participate together in our remembrance of Him and His gift of everlasting life as a reminding testimony to ourselves and each other before God.
Your mind is carnal, focused upon a carnal perspective. Jesus knew His disciples, His closest followers, needed to be brought out of the carnal and refocused upon the spirit.
As He told Nicodemus, just as the Brass snake in the desert, when looked upon and believing God's Promise, would heal the physical body, He, Jesus (God with us) came to be lifted up to heal the spirit ... HEAL THE SPIRITUAL side of you, not the carnal side.
The directing of the will of the man is the method by which God heals the dead soul/spirit. When were the three thousand saved, born from above, on the day of Pentecost? when were the folks in the house of Cornelius saved? There is not one word of taking the Lord's Table at either of those momentous moments in human History, when GOD's Salvation came to the Jews, then to the Gentiles.
"Salvation cometh by HEARING and hearing by the Word of God". Saving the soul is not done by some carnal ingestion ritual performed by a specious priestly class, it is done by individually bowing THE WILL to accept what He did for us on that Cross.
You keep pointing to the scene in Matthew of the Lord's Table, when He took bread as the symbol of His body, not His body, BREAD; and He passed the cup of WINE, not transmogrified blood, and taught us how to do this ritual to focus our hearts upon His work done THE NEXT DAY on our behalf.
Two points you refuse to see are: 1) He instituted the Red>REMEBRANCE BEFORE He went to the cross; 2) He told them He would not drink wine again until in the Kingdom, identifying FOR YOU that there was ONLY wine in the cup, that using the symbols we affirm The Body of Christ, His Bride, His Ekklesia.
You insist on twisting the spiritual REMEMBRANCE into a pagan rite, which was very familiar to the Roman devils whose descendants now mock God with this devilish rite of flesh and blood supposedly transfigured from bread and wine (and now not even the wine!) into real flesh and blood of the idolatrous catholic religion's jesus.
Dude, you are disgusting as you continue pushing this paganization of the Spiritual which Jesus started for spiritual benefit ON THE NIGHT BEFORE HE WENT TO THE CROSS. Only via sick magic thinking can you continue to insist He served His real flesh and real blood for His disciples to imbibe before He had actually die upon that cruel cross. You are disgusting. YOU would have us believe Jesus will be drinking blood IN THE KINGDOM!
I'm going to tell you this one more time: you do not get God inside of your spirit by swallowing flesh and blood magically transmogrified from bread and wine for digesting in the alimentary tract.
Here is wisdom. Hear here!
Amen. It is beyond irony that something that so beautifully designed to remind all believers they are one body in Christ, that they all have a shared life through the blood of Jesus, has been weaponized to cause division. What should point us to the pinnacle of divine love for God and each other is degraded to a balkanizing debate about what the meaning of “is” is.
Here’s another thought I’ve had on this. We know from the book of Hebrews that God works in types and antitypes, an earthly thing that represents a heavenly thing. That’s what a metaphor is. Metaphor is not some cheap, shallow trick, people. It is God’s chosen way to download His vast, unimaginable truth into our tiny little minds and souls. It’s God’s chosen way to bring His people closer to Him and each other. God is love. Love bridges the gap, finds a way into the heart of the beloved. That’s what this metaphor of the body and blood in the bread and the wine does. It takes us into a higher reality. It enables us to see His love for us afresh, time after time. It is a beautiful thing.
Peace,
SR
Really?
I thought that myth died at Trent.
Like St. Paul, I’m working out my salvation in fear and trembling.
I’m baptized and confess and study my faith.
I fall short and ask forgiveness.
I avail myself of God’s graces as often as possible.
Yes, really bro. I don't know or care about Trent. Maybe those priests didn't get the memo. I am sure my ex Catholic friends got the same message. Most, if not all of us, were told either don't read the scriptures, or get a priest to interpret it for us.
On those other issues, I doubt I agree with your interpretation of scripture, so, since others have tried to tell you the truth, and it appears you are not really interested in the truth, there really isn't any reason to discuss anything further with you.
I hope you make it to Heaven bro, but if you don't, that's on you. See you at the Pearly Gates, maybe.
It's ALL Scripture and ALL relevant.
I also find it ironic that you dismiss *other references* and yet drag in John 6 which is not connected to the Last Supper in the least.P> Don't be a hypocrite.
God clearly prohibits the eating of blood. Period.
That command is reiterated by the church fathers, the church leaders and the HOLY SPIRIT at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. That's AFTER the Last Supper and outside the Law.
The prohibition still stands in God's eyes.
Salvation is by grace through faith as it ALWAYS has been.
Works of the Law never justified anyone or cleansed anyone from sin. And if the works of the Law that God established couldn't or didn't do it, then nothing else man invents or tries to substitute for it can or will.
As it rests on my tongue, it will read out "unleavened bread", unbleached flour, water, pinch of salt.
As it travels down my throat, it will read out "unleavened bread", unbleached flour, water, pinch of salt.
Resting in my stomach it will read out "unleavened bread", unbleached flour, water, pinch of salt but beginning to feel the burn of enzymes starting to tear me down
Everybody knows that to be true and no magic words from a robed magician can alter that scientific fact.
If you don’t need a priest to interpret the Bible for you, then each and every Catholic will have to depend on their own personal interpretation of Scripture, the very thing Catholics condemn when non-Catholics do it.
Plain teaching: "...call no man father..."
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