#49. Small churches that want to be megachurches

Your tiny, small church, Holy Church of All Ages and Eternity, has got a fever, and no, the only prescription is not more cowbell. I wish, that would be easy. Your church has the megachurch fever. Sadly, success in most American churches is not measured anymore by faithfulness, endurance, loyalty and truth, instead success seems to be measured by how many people are in attendance, regardless of what you have to do get them there. There's nothing wrong with a church that grows into "mega" out of a healthy and Godly growth. What's wrong is when churches grow out of manipulation.

If all you care about is numbers, not really the souls of people, then the list below is for you. But please, don't call your building a Christian church. Just call it a "Sunday morning gathering for uplifting entertainment."

Guide for the Sunday Morning Gathering Uplifting Leader

1.Preach that God wants to make you rich. Nothing gets more people in the building that someone twisting Scriptures to make it sound like God wants to make them rich. "Want a new car? Well God wants that for you too! Just visualize it! See the car! Make the sounds! Vroooom! Vroooom!"

2.Preach that you'll never get sick. This is also a popular way to increase your attendance. Tell people that since Jesus heals, then a believer must NEVER get sick. This implies that a believer then can never die, but don't follow that logic since Peter and Paul are not around anymore. If a person in the church does get sick, then blame their lack of faith.

3.Create more services. Nothing says "Mega-Church" like ambition. Just go ahead and create two more services. Who cares if no one goes except for the worship team? What matters is that your web site says that you have multiple services.

4.Minimize the talk of sin and hell. Better yet, never talk about sin, repentance or hell. Just tell everyone that God wants to make then happy. Tell them that by becoming believers, they will be rich, healthy and can attend a multiple number of services.

5.Tell them that "Love Wins." Yes, I had to go there. Just be like Rob Bell and tell your congregation that it doesn't really matter what they do, or even what they believe, in the end, everyone is going to heaven and they're going to have a big party prepared for them.

Can you think of any other ideas to make a church "mega" while compromising Christianity?

#48. Sermons via sattelite

This is a tough one. There are pros and cons. In my church, for example, many times the sermon is preached by the executive pastor via satellite. I like this for one thing and for one thing only: I can eat the doughnuts and drink my coffee without having to feel guilty. There's no eye contact. The lights are dim and most of the people around me are doing the same thing.

However, when there's a live pastor on stage, I feel guilty with every bite. Is he looking at me? Will he make a general comment about eating during a sermon and look right at me? Will he call me out in front of everyone? No wonder my stomach hates me later!

That's the pro. Now the con, it just doesn't feel the same when the pastor is not there in front of you. Sure, the message may be the best thing next to the Sermon on the Mount, but there's no sense of real community, there's no sense of the closeness that happens when people are together in a room. No matter how great technology may be, nothing can replace human contact and interaction. Executive pastors should trust campus pastors enough for them to preach the message each week, they should not feel the need to control everything. It is God's church. He will grow it.

And well, this probably means that I won't be able to have my coffee and doughnut in peace, but that's okay, I've gotten used to my stomach hating me.

#47. Saying "good luck" to others

Maybe this doesn't happen to you because, either you don't really care, or you never thought about it before. But some of us, from time to time, will regret that we said a particular phrase to another Christian brother or sister. That phrase is, "good luck."

Why do we dreaded sometimes? Well, for starters, it implies that we believe in superstition. It implies that we leave things to "destiny" and not to the sovereign will of God. With this reasoning, we might as well throw an astrological prediction. "Hey, good luck on that test. And by the way, Saturn is the dominant planet for you. Don't go out jogging tonight."

Perhaps you think I'm exaggerating. "Good luck" is just a phrase, you don't really mean to say that you're leaving things in the hands of fate. It's just a nice thing to say to someone, even if they are believers.

However, for those of you who still feel a bit guilty when you say it, I have come up with a list of five alternatives. Instead of saying "good luck," you can say one of these phrases.


1-"Let the will of the Lord guide you in that exam."
2-"Blessings on that test of yours."
3-"An army of heavenly hosts are with you."
4-"Good blessings to you."
5-"Blessed are you when you take that exam."

Can you think of any other phrases? Have you felt slightly guilty too?

#46. Near death experience books

I'm not going to name these books because I happen to be a gentleman, but a few google searches can lead you straight to them. Why don't we like these books, although a large majority of other Christians do?

Well, first of all, their description of heaven is not even close to the few glimpses we have in the Bible. The book of Revelations talks about angels that look strange and majestic. However, in these books of "heaven," there's no majesty and the angels look like something out of a Hallmark greeting card. Plus, what do you do with verses that say, "it is appointed for men to die once and then the judgment?" (Hebrews 9:27)

In these accounts, heaven seems like a place where you can get Krispy Kreme doughnuts and strawberry ice cream. Sure, those things sound delicious to me, but is that really what heaven looks like?

Also, these books seem to create a cult of personality. People flood to these authors as if there's something special to them, some divine revelation that was only granted to them. The Bible should be the source of all revelation. People who preach "new things," are dangerously close to starting their own religion. I mean, that's how the Mormons got started.

What do you think of these books? Are you the type of person that enjoys them? I don't want to sound judging, I'm just doing what the Bible says, test every spirit. Do these books hold up compared with Scripture?

#45. Rob Bell

Unless you've been living under a meteorite, or were stuck in a bunker like that movie Blast from the Past, then you've heard about the Rob Bell controversy. With all that stuff out there in the blogger world, I figure that you should know the real reason why we don't like Rob Bell.

First, let's look at three reasons that we don't really mind about him:

1. He looks that annoying guy from the Verizon Wireless commercials.

Almost like twin brothers, eh? The only reason that guy never got punched in the face is because he was wearing glasses. But I'm willing to bet he got close a couple of times. The first time we saw that commercial, it was kind of funny. But by the hundredth time, it was tired and very irritating. So yeah, the Verizon guy is annoying but that's not Rob Bell's fault.


2. The way he writes

Just because,

Rob Bell writes

like this

with very short lines

and no real paragraph breaks

doesn't mean

that we don't like him.


3. His Nooma videos

Sure, the first couple of Nooma videos were different, they were cool; they were post-modern! But after a while, Bell's metaphors got more and more complicated and he would get "revelation" out anything. Is that an old record player in the corner and a picture of a clown hanging on a wall? Don't worry, Rob Bell will teach you something from there. Seriously, dude, come on. But even that, we forgave.


Why then don't we like him?

Simply put, in his new book, he claims that people get a chance to be saved after they die and that there really is no hell, that everyone gets into heaven. Not only is this doctrine false and deadly, its logic implies that Jesus died in vain. That's why we don't like Rob Bell. Unless he repents and changes his view and accepts the Jesus of the Bible, he is a false teacher.

---

Credits go to my wife, Mrs. Fakuff, for the picture montage.

#44. Outdoing Your Testimony

You know your friend Jim well. You know his testimony. He grew up in a Christian home, but he was saved from the dangers of religion and works-type salvation mentality when he was 16. He never got into drugs or drinking. He was never into any of that partying stuff. However, you've noticed that his testimony has changed a bit since then.

-Jim's testimony: Take 1, this time with 3 girls as audience.

"I remember that I was in such a deep place. I needed a way out. I was so desperate. So I started skipping school and drinking. I drank while I skipped school. I was such a rebel without a cause, such a bad boy. I almost bought a motorcycle and a red leather jacket. And then I got I saved."


-Jim's testimony: Take 2, this time in front of the entire church audience.

"I remember that I was in such a deep place. I needed a way out. I started smoking cigarettes, then I started doing drugs and even drinking alcohol. I was always getting into fights with the kids from the neighborhood. I almost got a tattoo, and then I turned 12 and got saved."


It's obvious that your friend Jim suffers from OYTS (Outdoing Your Testimony Syndrome). It's a terrible condition makes Christians compete with each other to see who has the "best" testimony, which usually means more dramatic. Apparently, these brothers have forgotten that a soul saved from hell, whether from partying or religion, is what truly matters.

Know anyone like Jim?

#43. Churches without refreshments

Remember that time in the Bible where Peter and John fought over the last doughnut? Oh, no, right, that never happened. But our hip churches nowadays are all about turning church into Starbucks. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, except of course, when your motivation to go to church early is to grab the last doughnut before your friend Tom does. Surely, you must be breaking like two commandments right there.

If people leave churches because they don't like the music and for other trivial things, it won't be long until people leave churches because they have better food somewhere else. And while kind of funny, it's really very sad.

Bob: Hey, how's your church?

Tom: Do you mean food-wise?

Bob: Of course I do!

Tom: Oh, well it's pretty amazing! This Sunday is Mac & Cheese Sunday and for dessert I think we're having frozen yogurt.

Bob: Dyn-O-Mite!!

Okay, pardon the Good Times reference, but you get the point. I really hope my prediction is not true. I pray people may fall in love with Jesus and His church and with food.