To Baptist or Not to Baptist

A few days ago, the Washington Post published a report about churches renaming themselves in order to avoid a perceived stigma that the name “Baptist” carries in the mind of some people. The report focuses on the plight of Baptist Temple Church in Alexandria, Virginia.

Baptist Temple is an old congregation, organized more than 100 years ago. In the days when the church was vibrant and prosperous, more than 900 people worshiped in a sanctuary built for 500 people. Now, the church attendance averages about 30 people each Sunday.

The congregation feared that the church was dying. The pastor of the church, Rev. Todd Thomason, believed that the problem facing the church, a problem that had caused the membership to dwindle, was the name of the church.

In trying to understand the reason the church was failing to attract new members, Rev. Thomason worried that “the word ‘Baptist’ had become indelibly tied to the political religious right and that when combined with ‘Temple’ it sounded like a fundamentalist ‘bring out the snakes’ kind of place.”

A few Sundays ago, 37 members came together after the morning service to decide whether to change the name of the church. After the vote was taken and counted, the result was a split decision. By the majority of one member, the church decided to change its name to Commonwealth Baptist Church. As a result of the vote, the church changed its name while maintaining its Baptist identity.

Many churches of different denominations are changing their names in order to attract people who are reluctant to identify themselves with a denomination. As attendance drops steadily in mainline churches, churches are changing their names in order to attract new people, fill the pews, and market themselves to a seeker generation.

But should churches change their names in order to gain more members? Should churches drop the word “Baptist” from their names? To Baptist or not to Baptist? This is the question of the moment. A new name or a generic name will not by itself attract more people to the church. The problem of dwindling attendance is systemic and there is no magic bullet that will solve the problem.

In what follows, I will submit four reasons many churches are unable to bring new people into their membership. These reasons are my own and do not come from any study conducted by a research firm. These reasons are what I think cause churches to dwindle and die. These reasons also reflect my Baptist perspective on this issue. They come out of my congregational church background and the revivalist movement in which I grew up.

The first reason churches are failing to reach more people with the gospel is the lack of spiritual power. Jesus said: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The work of the church cannot be accomplished by human power. The church needs to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish its work. Many churches and many pastors are using gimmicks and programs to attract people to the church, but unless the church is mightily infused with the power of the Spirit, all human efforts will come to nought.

The second reason churches have been unable to reach new people for Christ is because churches have lost their missionary fervor. Jesus said: “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Today’s church is not willing to go after people. Jesus expected his disciples to go. In the parable of the great banquet, the master told his servants: “Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full” (Luke 14:23).

Instead of going where the people are, churches expect people to come to them. Today’s Christians have lost the fervency of the first disciples, the same fervency that motivated Paul to go “from house to house” preaching the Gospel. Today, only Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons go evangelizing house to house.

The third reason churches are failing to reach a lost world with the good news of Jesus Christ is the lack of costly discipleship in the lives of many Christians. Jesus said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” People want to follow Christ but they refuse to carry a cross. This is cheap grace, the kind of grace that does not please God.

Because of a lack of commitment to the cause of Christ, Christians are willing to conform to the pattern of this world (Romans 12:2) and refuse to become involved in evangelism, ministry, and discipleship. They rely on a paid ministry to do the work they were called to do. These are the Christians who are not aware of their vocation in the world: “You are . . . a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” When people fail to declare the praise of God their Creator and of Jesus their Savior, then no one will believe in this wonderful Savior.

The fourth, and I believe the most important, reason churches are not reaching people for Christ and people are not being evangelized is because churches and their members have been afflicted with the plague of universalism, the doctrine that declares that in the end all people will be saved.

For generations, Christians believed the words of Paul: “There is salvation through no one else; for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Today we hear from some pulpits that we do not have to evangelize the Hindus, the Moslems, and the Buddhists because they will be saved by their faith. Some believe that their religion is as good as Christianity.

A few years ago Emil Brunner was able to talk about “The Scandal of Christianity.” Today, to many Christians, the scandal of Christianity is the Christian attempt at evangelizing Hindus, the Moslems, and Buddhists. When Christians accept as a fact that unbelievers are not “lost,” they also believe they do not need to be saved. If there are no lost people, why then go after the lost?

Evangelism is almost non-existent in many churches. Among Baptists, there are thousands of churches that each year do not add a single new member to their membership roll. Today, almost 50% of Americans are unchurched and yet, some churches are unable to reach even one of them and bring them to personal faith in Jesus Christ.

Ministers must set the example. It is incumbent for pastors to go out and visit the lost and bring them the good news that Jesus saves. If Sunday after Sunday a preacher preaches the gospel from the pulpit but is unable after 52 Sundays to bring one new person to Christ, that preacher cannot expect the church to grow and the members to become evangelists.

I am not against changing the name of a church and dropping the “Baptist” from its name provided that we do not abandon our religious heritage. Baptists have a rich religious heritage and I am proud to be a Baptist. What we need, however, are Christians who are willing to go out into the world and proclaim from the top of their lungs that Jesus saves. And the task of evangelizing the lost must begin with the pastor.

After Baptist Temple Church changed its name to Commonwealth Baptist Church, the congregation asked their pastor to resign.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Church

Tag: Baptists, Evangelism, Discipleship

The Catholic Church and the Evangelization of Christians

Christian Today is reporting that the Roman Catholic Church is defending its right and duty to spread its message to non-believers and to welcome converts, particularly from other Christian churches.

A document published by the Catholic Church says that bringing new members into the Catholic Church through evangelism is an effort to bring new people into the gift of full fellowship with Christ.

This new effort at converting other Christians through evangelism comes after the Catholic Church affirmed in July that Christian denominations outside the Roman Catholic Church were not full churches of Jesus Christ.

If the goal of the Catholic Church is to make disciples for Jesus Christ, and, if the Church desires to be fully obedient to the Great Commission, then the Church should develop a vigorous program of evangelism to reach the five billion people in the world who are not Christians.

Instead of fighting with each other, the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian denominations should join in a common effort to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Catholic Church, Evangelism, Great Commission

Reverse Missionaries

IN THE NEWS

Kevin Sullivan, in an article published in the Washington Post on Monday, June 11, 2007 writes that missionaries from third country nations are discovering that Europe is a fertile mission field for the Gospel.

The following is an excerpt from the article:

COPENHAGEN -- The "Amens!" flew like popcorn in hot oil as 120 Christian worshipers clapped and danced and praised Jesus as if He'd just walked into the room. In a country where about 2 percent of the population attend church regularly and many churches draw barely enough worshipers to fill a single pew, the Sunday morning service at this old mission hall was one rocking celebration.

In the middle of all the keyboards, drums and hallelujahs, Stendor Johansen, a blond Danish sea captain built like a 180-pound ice cube, sang along and danced, as he said, like a Dane -- without moving.

"The Danish church is boring," said Johansen, 45, who left the state-run Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church three years ago and joined this high-octane interdenominational church run by a missionary pastor from Singapore. "I feel energized when I leave one of these services."

The International Christian Community (ICC) is one of about 150 churches in Denmark that are run by foreigners, many from Africa, Asia and Latin America, part of a growing trend of preachers from developing nations coming to Western Europe to set up new churches or to try to reinvigorate old ones.

For centuries, when Europe was the global center of Christianity, millions of European missionaries traveled to other continents to spread their faith by establishing schools and churches. Now, with European church attendance at all-time lows and a dearth of preachers in the pulpits, thousands of "reverse missionaries" are flocking back, migrating from poor countries to rich ones to preach the Gospel where it has fallen out of fashion.

The phenomenon signals a fundamental shift in the power, style and geography of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most of its more than 2 billion adherents now live in the developing world. And as vast numbers of them migrate to Europe, as well as to the United States, they are filling pews and changing worship styles.

Churches in countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, South Korea and the Philippines have sent thousands of missionaries to Europe to set up churches in homes, office buildings and storefronts. Officials from the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a Pentecostal church based in Nigeria, said they have 250 churches in Britain now and plan to create 100 more this year. Britain's largest church, run by a Nigerian pastor in London, attracts up to 12,000 people over three services every Sunday.

Read article by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Charismatic Movement, Evangelism, Missions