Task Force Proposals: Part 2

There are a number of Appendices to this document. Take Appendix 5, "Funding the Mission Reflections"

The gist this of this Appendix is this: "The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Funding the Mission" (BRTFFTM) came up with some suggestions for the 2007 Convention, and though that convention didn't do much with them, the suggestions dovetail nicely with the proposals of the BRTFSSG.

One BRTF helps another BRTF!

Buried in this Appendix 5 is the following paragraph:

It is time to grow this church. As a natural outcome of the goals of Ablaze! and the investment of Fan into Flame dollars, this Synod needs to organize a strategy to increase our membership by the 400,000 souls we lost in the last 20 years and stop the bleeding of those for whom our Lord bled and died. It is a disgrace to our faith and practice that we are losing membership.

I have to say this is one of the most straightforward admissions of Church Growth ideology I have seen. Usually the un-scriptural preoccupation with numerical growth is at least thinly veiled behind verbiage like "contacts" and "critical events" and "opportunities" or "life-cycle of a church".

Quite to the contrary, it is a disgrace to our faith and practice that we think WE can grow the church, and not the Lord alone.

Comments

Scott Diekmann said…
Exactly who was talking there, God, or the task force. It sure seems like it must have been God, because He's the one who decides when the Church will grow.
8:52 PM
Michael Paul 白霈德牧師 said…
I agree...it is truly stunning (and disgusting) to me that the Task Force would allow this so blatantly errant understanding to appear in their final document!
10:14 PM
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