Many individuals take credit for defining insanity as: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." By that definition the church is insane."
Al's sermons on restoring the church are like sermons on mom and apple pie who would disagree? The question is how. Lacking anyone stepping forward I will.
It is not practical to expect a man to deliver two, thirty to forty-five minute, presentations week after week year after year; teach one or two classes a week; be on call 24/7 to the entire membership. Jonathan Winters and Tim Conway while talented were never successful being the "star" in weekly television series. Trying to come up with new material every week was too much to expect. They made good "guest appearance" people but not main character people.
Over the years, in response to a fair number of my emails Al has responded that he is too tired to think. Considering what congregations expect of their preacher most preachers are too tired to think. Their thirty to forty-five minute presentations are the result of being too tired to think. One change the church must make is get back to the biblical use of preachers. Al and most preachers are not gospel preachers; they are the keynote speaker at the weekly assembly.
We claim to follow the New Testament example of Acts 20:7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them… except we change it to "on the first day of the week when we gather together to listen to the preacher speak we take a few minutes to eat the Lord's Supper." At Polly's funeral/memorial service as with most funerals/memorial services the deceased is talked about more than Jesus is talked about during what we claim to be our "remembrance" of Jesus.
"As a convenience" we claim to follow Paul's instructions to the church at Corinth: "Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me" except we change the purpose to collect money we will use mostly on ourselves. We are misusing Paul's instructions. If we can change the purpose of the contribution Paul is writing about we can change the purpose of baptism and other instructions found in the bible.
Church leaders must understand why the majority of their members are absentee members; why the majority elect not to attend the classes; choose not to attend most assemblies; choose not be involved.
David Platt says the question is: "How can we in the church best unleash the people of God in the Spirit of God with the Word of God for the glory of God in the world?"
The church must look at everything it does not only function but form, The question is not "What is wrong?" the question is "What is the best use of our resources?"
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
http://alumcave.blogspot.com/
"Man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe."
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