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Stetzer on the “Great Sin” of Unregenerate Church Membership

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Written By Tim Brister

Tim has a missionary heart for his hometown to love those close to him yet far from God. He is husband to Dusti and father to Nolan, Aiden, and Adelyn - fellow pilgrims to our celestial city.

I like Ed Stetzer.  A lot.  He isn’t an appeaser, nor is he a controversialist.  He is a man committed to the gospel and to the mission of the church.  With that said, he said some things we have heard before but must be iterated again, lest we forget that there are real issues sins in the SBC that are not being addressed.  Below is a couple of excerpts from his recent interview at the Baptist Center for Theology & Ministry:

As a convention, we have a great sin that we have not addressed: most of our churches are filled with “members” who are not Christians. This is an unimaginable occurrence by scriptural standards. Members are not prospects. Prospects are lost people in need of a life-changing encounter with Christ. Members are believers in covenant community with each other. We need to get that straight.

Again,  

I think the Southern Baptist Convention is already in decline in many ways. We just don’t recognize it because we have inflated numbers due to how we count. We have gradually lost track of at least 30% of the typical church as they no longer live near the church facility. Also, while our convention churches have remained relatively “flat” in attendance and baptisms have slightly declined, the population has grown tremendously. That’s decline.

[T]here are not 16.2 million Southern Baptists. Truthfully, there are at least 8 million that we are not able to locate. There are 16.2 million people on our church roles and about 5 million of them go to church each week. Spurgeon was attributed with saying, “a faith that won’t get you to church on Sunday, likely won’t get you to heaven.”

I would encourage you to read the rest of the interview.  I am looking forward to hearing him next week. 

3 thoughts on “Stetzer on the “Great Sin” of Unregenerate Church Membership”

  1. Thanks for the post!

    This non-regenerate church membership is directly related to the decline in Church discipline as well as the seeker sensitive movement. I think a lot of the time, we are compromising and deluding the church membership in an attempt to reach the lost.
    This attempt results in several detrimental trends in the church, one of which is unregenerate church members, along with false assurance of salvation. There are issues of retention of church membership as well because of the level of teaching that is required to retain the lost people in the congregation is very low. Therefore we are ending up with churches that have a high turnover rate, teaching is two inches deep and a mile wide, and therefore people are disillusioned and do not see the stark contrast of what the church should be and what the world is.
    It may sound simplistic and maybe general, but the solution is easy, that is a faithfulness to the Word and a faithfulness to the preaching of the word (perferably lectio continuo method, expositional). I think the power of the Scriptures and the working of the Holy Spirit would literally do the work for us. It is by God that people are called unto salvation. We must be faithful in preaching to all, and earnestly call them to Christ, then leave the results to the Lord.
    Some pragmatic solutions to this issue is humbling ourselves as ministers andclearing the roles of the churches, and starting from the ground up. William Carey did this with his second church he pastored and because of that he saw God grow that church and eventually he would be sent from that church (by way of the PBMS) to Bengal, India.

  2. “Also, while our convention churches have remained relatively “flat” in attendance and baptisms have slightly declined, the population has grown tremendously. That’s decline.”

    That is a really good observation. It’s kind of like when an employee doesn’t get a cost of living raise, and the cost of living goes up, it’s actually a pay decrease. If our churches are plateaued and the population is booming, we ARE in fact losing ground. Thank you, Timmy, for being willing to call this what it is…sin. May God grant all of us repentance of this.

  3. DTB,

    Great stuff. If I can remember correctly, Lloyd-Jones, upon inquiry about the decline in membership at his church, stated that he must empty the church before he can fill it. The euphoric pragmatism makes the blessed task of expository preaching and tending to the flock difficult these days. Thankfully, God has given us some great examples of late, I am learning a great deal from their ministry. On an entirely random note (well not exactly), I hope to post a portion of a letter Basily Manly Sr. wrote to his wife in 1846–one year after the start of the SBC where he expressed his discouragement and frustration with the encroaching pragmatism and the way people were measuring success. It is quite telling.

    Scott,

    Actually, Stetzer said it, but I agree with him. 😉

    The important thing to note about the scientific and empirical data is that the answer cannot be found in addressing them as though we can find the answer in more utilitarian approaches or techniques. Rather, the scientific data manifests the symptom to the real problem–a problem profoundly spiritual in nature, beginning with the gospel. The intangibles are not always efficient, but they are essential–and it is the essential matters of our faith that is the handwriting on the wall, not merely the stats. The stats are the spotlights beaming at what has been inconspicuously hidden in the dark. So 8,000,000 AWOL Southern Baptists is a big spot light, but what it points to is much, much bigger.

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