From Braggish to Brackish*

Braggish: “brashly self-confident”; cockiness; POMPOUS.
Brackish: “not appealing to the taste”; arousing disgust; REPULSIVE.

I felt like it would be profitable for me to first put a simply definition of the two terms I am referring to in this post. Yes, this is an R.D.S.A. post, and therefore read provocation-ready please (the bathroom is right down the hall if you need to upchuck).
I like high quality H20. There is something truly refreshing to a thirsty body to gulp down some of that fresh-tasting spring water on a hot summer day. On the other hand, I have tasted some water that is not that great. For instance, in other foreign countries I have tasted water that has made me sick for 2-3 weeks (intestinally) because of just a few sips. Why? I speculate that the water I drank might have come from the same source of sewer water. I was disgusted to drink it, and my body repulsed as a response to it. This was classic brackish water.
That same repulsion I am feeling more and more today as I listen, read, and drive by churches today. I see billboards that say, “The way church ought to be” with a plug for their church; I read marquees that say cheesy statements like “Somebody call 911- this church is one fire!”. Again, there is the classic, “The church that is alive is worth the drive.” Now, these may be sounding a little harmless and maybe we should not take them seriously, but I believe that there is an underlying disposition of churches today that is pushing this mentality.
We seem to think that the church that is producing more numbers is having better success, that the church that can generate a bigger crowd is the way it ought to be, and the church which records an increase in baptisms is “on fire”. And all this puts together a self-promotional hoopla for the church to brag on itself. Spare me a moment to share my response to this:

1. Does the Scripture not say, “God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble?” Since when does churches have the right to be so braggish and think that God is being honored? If the true grace of a Christian is humility, then should it not also be the mark of a true church be humility as well? No church has bragging rights. It is Christ who adds to HIS church daily, and He will build his church. This is not about PR, church competition, marketing, or so on. We are about the building up of the Body of Christ, not our own enterprises.
2. As far as baptisms go, there is much that is not being addressed today, so much so that I baptisms have proven to be an illegitimate gage for real growth. By that, I mean that infants are being baptized without discretion, discernment, or evidence of conversion. Even worse, churches are baptizing repeats who are coming for their 3rd or 4th time simply for a “spiritual makeover”. I venture to say that many baptisms today are detached from the testimony of heaven.
3. As far as growth goes, the overwhelming percentage of growth today is not really growth at all, but rather sheep-swapping, otherwise known as transfer growth. For whatever reason (be it church splitting, greater “attractions”, or more legitimate reasons such as biblical teaching and preaching), churches are “growing” as a result of a fellow church dying. It is a lateral movement, not a touchdown. Tom Ascol on the Founders Blog, has written a two-part series addressing the who numbers issue in the SBC. It is a read well worth your time. In addition, there are several books which address this problem plaguing our churches today. Can it be justified as growth when you as a church are benefiting from another church’s defeat?
4. Along the church growth mentality, churches are operating on this capitalistic mentality, that if we offer enough goods and services in the right market, then we will reach more consumers. So what the churches that are “growing” do is simply program more, do more, and facilitate more stuff to appeal to the widest amount of people as possible. I call this the Rev. Sam strategy, taken from Wal-Mart Community Church. Our churches are the one-stop shop for consumer-driven Christians, and they come where they can get what they want in the most convenient way they can get it. There is better entertainment and more attractions to appeal to the checklist. All this to say that we can engineer churches to be nothing more than spiritual malls. Is this how we are to advance God’s kingdom?
5. Lastly, let me say that even if there was a reason to brag, boast, or promote your church in an arrogant way as mentioned in the previous quotes, then none of these would suffice, for they are not a product of real church growth but human ingenuity, performance, and profitability from other “competitors”.

There will come a time (I think soon) where people will want some good fresh water. All this boasting and braggish natures of churches today will be nothing but backwater that arouses disgust in people who are not “seekers” but genuinely a part of the family of God. It’s time that the churches possess the same mind/attitude that is in Jesus Christ and not look higher of themselves than they ought, to look more on the interests of their fellow churches than themselves, to approach the world from the towel and basin rather than the billboard and marquee. This is what I am hoping for. There is a thirsty world out there, and I believe there is a thirsty people within the church. I only pray that they will find freshwater in that basin rather than sewer water. For the sake of God’s Kingdom, let’s not be a part of a church that is braggish, for it will be brackish to Him – and when He spits us out of his mouth, we will wonder why we weren’t humbly serving Him for glory of His name rather than the further of our fame.

For Tom Ascol’s two part series:
Honest Statistics: A Large Convention of Small Churches – Part 1
Honest Statistics: A Large Convention of Small Churches – Part 2