"Powerful indeed is the empire of habit." - Publilius Syrus

I recently read a fairly long essay linked in a Facebook post by a good friend/valued colleague. It's written by Andy Stanley, son of Charles Stanley and the leading guru for church leaders under the age of 40. To say he's worshipped for his insights and opinions probably goes too far, but not by much. Everything he says and writes is accepted as essential wisdom for effective ministry in contemporary culture.
Note: to be fair, my friend is not an Andy Stanley devotee, just found some of what's said in this article worthwhile.

If you're not inclined to read it (I understand), allow me to summarize. He explains the motivation for the piece was an admonition from a former prof of his, Norman Geisler, himself something of a giant among contemporary scholars. Geisler urged Stanley to affirm in writing his commitment to the authority and inerrancy of Scripture because some things Stanley had preached led his critics to accuse him of bailing on that tenet. So this article starts as a solid affirmation of Stanley's commitment to the inerrancy of the Bible.
Good so far.

But by the time I got halfway down page 1 of 5 I was backing away. It started when Stanley urged his readers (the article is essentially addressed to other preachers) to change our approach to preaching as he has. Why? Because, "the world has changed."

He explains that too many of us act as though we live in a non-Christian world when in fact it's a post-Christian world. The former knows nothing about God, his grace, and the sacrificial death of Christ on our behalf. A post-Christian world knows all of that because they grew up in a culture where those truths were widely accepted and the authority of the Bible assumed. But they now reject that assumption, so "The Bible says..." carries no weight with them. They see the Bible as a harsh legalistic document with no relevance to their life and certainly not authoritative. That's why the only group responding to the gospel in any numbers are the offspring of believers, raised in homes where they were taught and accepted the role of Scripture as truth.
I get it.

This post-Christian environment is why Stanley says he quietly changed his preaching eight years ago. He shifted away from "The Bible says..." to an appeal to "the authority, courage and faithfulness" of the individuals in the Bible, something that carries weight with today's listeners.
And this is where he began to lose me.

At some point, further back than Stanley's preaching shift eight years ago, church leaders decided the goal of the sermon is to reach the unsaved and present them with the gospel in terms they can lay hold of. It probably had its birth in the seeker church movement of the late 70's and beyond (remember Willow Creek Church?) which urged us to get rid of the trappings of the traditional worship service, including congregational singing, the reading of Scripture, and a preacher dressed in coat and tie. Andy Stanley has just taken this to the next logical step: frame the gospel in terms the post-Christian (his term) will accept, which is not, "the Bible says."

Of the 27 books in the NT, 21 of them are addressed either to congregations or the pastors of congregations. You'll look in vain for one verse anywhere in any of the 27 that suggests the "church service" (the Bible doesn't use that term, but does refer to the weekly gatherings of believers) is intended to reach the unbeliever. Pastor Timothy is told to "Preach the Word" (2 Tim. 4:2), most certainly with the assumption that, "Thus saith the Lord" carried weight with those in attendance. Every passage that talks about what we call a church service assumes it's believers in attendance and that the content of that gathering is aimed at believers. The biblically ordained elements of singing, prayer, the reading of Scripture, the Lord's Supper, and the preaching of the Word targeted members of the Body of Christ, not unbelievers, or even inquirers.

Interestingly, the only passage that mentions unbelievers in attendance is 1 Cor. 14:23-24 where Paul refers to an inquirer who "comes in," suggesting an unusual circumstance. And that person, if they hear people speaking in unknown languages will think those people are out of their minds. But (!), if they hear them prophesying (speaking God's Word) "they are convicted of sin." That is, the Holy Spirit does his essential work through the methodology of the Word. (Imagine that!)

Here's what concerns me. When the church changes and/or reduces the content level of the sermon to reach the unbeliever (non- or post-Christian) the believer loses. We're creating a generation of believers who can barely handle the "milk of the Word," an expression found in three NT letters, and will likely never grow spiritually to the point of handling meat. Especially in an environment where the educational hour of Sunday morning (aka Sunday School) is being dropped and the sermon is the only didactic opportunity, trading in the teaching of "The Bible says...." for a presentation of the gospel suitable for the post-Christian leaves the believers spiritually malnourished.

Decades ago a pastor friend told me he wanted to commission a painting. An older and younger shepherd would be standing over the younger's sick, emaciated flock. The caption would show the older shepherd saying, "Maybe you should try feeding them." 

So where does evangelism happen? Uhm...how 'bout we look at the biblical pattern? Doing that we discover it happened in the agora, the marketplace. I chuckled to see that Stanley makes a biblical case for his culturally adapted presentation of the gospel by citing some of the many passages that describe Paul speaking to unbelievers not in a church setting, but in the agora, at Mars Hill, at mob gatherings.... The NT prescribes a gathering of believers where the Word is preached as authoritative for the edification of believers and evangelism happens as those believers go out into the world and both model and proclaim the love and grace of God.

Note: I would frequently present the gospel as I preached. First, I never assumed that just because they attended church regularly they had a saving relationship with God through Christ and his substitutionary atonement. I also wanted believers to hear it again, knowing that each time they heard the gospel they were better equipped to share it with others outside of church. In fact, I drilled into them the concept of substitutionary atonement so they could articulate the essential truth of the gospel: Christ died as our substitute and made possible a relationship with God.

Most of the preachers I know personally, including the one I listen to on Sundays, preach to believers. So all of my carrying on here may be irrelevant. But I'm surprised how many churches are appropriately burdened for the lost but inappropriately changing what they do, and how many preachers are changing what and how they preach.

Preach the Word! Feed his sheep! Serve up the meat!