Obey God’s Voice 4

D. THE MESSAGE – NOT THE MORTAR (Part 1)

Church leaders in Western national often compensate for their lack of power and ability to hear the voice of the Lord, by investing millions of dollars in impressive cathedrals and lavish sanctuaries. They think this will impress the world and attract people to their church.

As you study Church history, you discover the more backslidden the church, the more the leaders invested in massive structures which did little to help people or to spread the gospel. These structures likely only served one main purpose – they pandered to church leaders’ and affluent church members’ pride.

Observing how the Church operates, you would be left with the distinct impression that Jesus’ last words were, “Go into all the world and build cathedrals for every creature.” The top priority of most church leaders is to “build a bigger barn.”

1. God’s Priority

What Jesus said was this: “Go ino all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). God puts the priority on the message – not on the mortar. God puts the emphasis on  helping people. Man puts the emphasis on more mortar (buildings).

One cannot help but contrast this behavior of church leaders with our Lord. He chose a stable for His birthplace, lived as part of a poor carpenter’s family in Nazareth, and told us He had come to preach the gospel to the poor. He had no place to lay His head during the years of His ministry. At His death He was wrapped in a borrowed shroud. His body lay in a borrowed tomb during those hours of glorious conquest over death, hell and the grave. For our sakes He became poor.

From whence then do church leaders receive authority to wantonly waste the resources of the Church on gaudy cathedrals and lavish church sanctuaries when two billion people still wait to hear the gospel?

There is no record of church buildings going up until the third century when Constantine, the first “Christian” Roman Emperor, merged church and politics.

Constantine’s influence was spiritually detrimental and disastrous for the Church. Once the Church became respectable and affluent, her power with God was gone. What had been a living organism -  spreading life and blessing everywhere – became a dead organization, proliferating “form without the force” – de void of God’s word and power. Paul admonishes us, “From such turn away” (2 Tim 3:5).

2. The Church In China: An Example

China provides an interesting case study for what can happen when a church is freed from infatuation with cathedrals and elaborate church buildings.

Since before the changes in 1950 God raised up indigenous works that recognized God’s special hand upon China and its culture.

Rather than relying upon the Western way of doing things, they began to see that many aspects of Chinese culture were in harmony with the Scriptures, such s the strength and structure of the Chinese family and the importance placed upon the home as a place of worship.

So even from this time many movements began whereby Chinese believers met in their homes to worship and pray to the Living God as families.

Now too, we can understand why after the changes in 1950 (when all Western missionaries are forced to leave  China) millions of brothers and sisters from all over the country have found spiritual fulfillment not through the Western-style cathedrals, but through an ever-growing network of house churches.

After the changes in 1950, the Chinese Christians began sharing their faith with their relatives and friends. Through “relational evangelism” (that is, evangelism that spreads from relative) an amazing miracle of church growth began to take place in the church in China.

After 120 years of Western missionary activity, there were about two million Christian believers in China in 1952. Twenty years later (1972), when China opened up again to the West, it was discovered there were over twenty million Christians in China. Today (1990) knowledgeable sources place the Christian community in China at fifty to sixty million believers.

Why this dramatic growth? Freed from Western missionary money (which is often a controlling influence) and Western missionary ways of doing things, the Chinese church adapted quickly to methods much more compatible with its culture. Shut out of the cathedrals, they reverted back to the New Testament practice of meeting in homes. The believers then began functioning as a family, with dramatic results in evangelism.

Because the church in China was relieved of the economic burden of massive buildings, they could put their money into helping people and spreading the message. The priority became “spreading the message” – not ‘spreading the mortar” (building more cathedrals).

Next Week

The Message – Not the Mortar Part 2