Coming back from the grocery store, I drove by numerous new car dealerships seeing the bright colored signs offering up low financing, high trade in, etc. I thought about this in reference to the first article I wrote last night and something stood out in my mind.

I noticed that as the gimmicks become more and more extreme to attract the customer away from the ‘competition’, the monthly sales figures still show a decline or stagnation in growth. I go to many automotive sites on the web and see the monthly sales figures of decreasing sales, losses in the hundreds of million dollars, and the announcement of a new gimmick that is really ’shuffling’ the money around to where the same price is paid.

The same thing is happening to the churches that have followed the church growth programs. Yes, the initial spike showed promising signs but the stagnation of the new believers (and the total ignoring of the saints) have caused stagnat church growth, losses of money, and a new gimmick to get the people in the doors. Like the big auto maker that needs an influx of cash to keep operations solvent, why is money and management of money (seminars and estate planning) a critical part of the church environment?

It’s very simple, because the solution is focused more on the dealing with the now than with dealing with the now and the future. The future is pratically not thought about because the belief is present that if we deal with the now, the future will take care of itself. Not so. If this was so true, then why are the gimmicks getting cyclical? Because the future that was thought of to take care of it self one day became the present that is currently struggling.

If you look at many of the seeker-sensitive churches that have implemented church growth practices, what are the sermons about? The present. From God’s opinion about a certain piece of legislation (and call your congressman about it and sign the petition located two feet past the church’s property line before leaving today), God’s perspective on a hurricane, how to increase your potential, etc., the sermons are dealing with what is going on in the now. Where are the sermons that both address the needs of the now while preparing the congregation to stand firm in the faith when the future one day will become the present rainy day that comes to pass?

It is very simple, the quantity of disciples in the successful now was more important than the quality of disciples in the now and the future. The quantity of the cars sold in the successful now became more important than the quality of the vehicles in the now and the future. Bottom-line margins of numbers, money, and profits replaced the more costly means of raising up a well taught disciple who could withstand any amount of pressure, stress, storms, and years of aging. Bottom-line margins of numbers, money, and profits created an atomsphere of rushing out defected disciples to sell the church to the point of breakdown dues to having to go beyond the stress points of normally which in turn created damaged/destroyed disciples.

However, there is one major difference here. Where the automobile manufacturer would normally recall the defective vehicle and replace the mis-engineered part with a part guaranteed to solve the design defect, many of the seeker-sensitive churches fail to recognize a mass problem and never call back their damaged/destroyed disciples and replace bad pragmatic teaching for truthful and accurate Biblical teachings to make the dysfunctional more functional. Why is this? Because another ‘new model’ of Christian is ready to take the place of the destroyed disciple encouraging people to ‘trade in’ their old worn out Christianity/lifestyle for the ‘new thing’ and ‘finance’ themselves into a low down payment of easy believism that is full of hidden charges that the actual cost is masked and the believer recieves in turn an inferior heresy that costs more and fails them in the long run than the real and authentic Jesus who paid the price with his shed blood and never fails you.

Many years ago, Fram Oil Filters used to run an advertisement where they stated something similar to:

You can pay a little now, or pay a lot later.

How true how true……..