[This is another post by guest writer Kevin Regal, who also frequently comments under the moniker OFelixCulpa]
John MacArthur is a very good expositor. I am thankful for his decades-long work of producing and distributing excellent bible teaching. I don’t want to take away from that in any way. More narrowly, I’m glad that Grace to You and MacArthur are critical of the mega-church and multi-site-church nonsense that seems now to be sweeping through conservative Evangelicalism.
But I wish one thing were different. I really wish they were on better footing to criticize.
Today I read a post by Travis Allen of Grace to You (“Embracing and Shunning”) about just that. He began by listing several essentials of faithful church ministry and asserting that
The modern love affair with pragmatism leads to compromise on every point. Every. Single. Point.
Well…I agree, but there is a very pronounced lack of clarity on what actually composes pragmatism and why it should be avoided. Perhaps it’s just my personality, but quick, rhetorical criticism of something–even something that truly is bad–is not enough to get me climbing aboard the bandwagon. What can I say? I’m such a suspicious person.
Allen continues saying things that sound great, but I still find it difficult to take them seriously when I consider that I am reading them on the carefully-branded and highly-polished Grace to You blog. Here’s an example:
We want to help you identify and embrace faithful ministers and ministries. Take heart, there are many faithful who have not bowed the knee to Baal. They are too humble to promote themselves, and too busy to care. For them, ministry is not about drawing a crowd or building a fan base. Their single-minded aspiration is to live quiet, godly lives of faithful service in loving devotion to Christ, and to teach others to do the same.
Again, I like it, but…No self-promotion? Quiet service? You’ve got to be kidding me! Where would John MacArthur and the Grace to You organization be if they actually followed those guidelines?!
Some of the first few comments help to tease things out a little further. In comment #7 Lamar Carnes reacts to the criticism by insinuating that it is motivated by jealousy and other such nastiness before going on to admit with one hand that such churches are not perfect and then take back that admission with the other hand by arguing that they are addressing their imperfections in a, well, perfect way. Allen responds in comment #12 with a variation on “no, MINE’s better, so there!” by saying that Grace Church is not perfect but that MacArthur is very (perfectly?) humble about it. He does, however, go on to specify what about the other guys he finds objectionable:
We’re talking about churches and ministries, pastors and leaders, who employ strategies from the church-growth playbook.
That might actually be helpful if there literally was such a universally-recognized church-growth playbook, but, as it is, it really equates to an ‘us/them’ sort of argument (We’re right because we’re us, they’re wrong because they’re them). Certainly both good and bad things might be done in the name of church growth, but apparently the only way to tell which is which is to find out for each thing whether MacArthur is or is not doing it. To many of us looking on from outside, the only difference seems to be that MacArthur uses a slightly older edition of “the” church-growth playbook.
Ryan Day appears to be troubled by the same thought. In comments #9 and #10 he very tactfully asks how MacArthur–who makes very effective use of blog posts and videos and openly celebrates how widely his sermons are circulated–could be considered immune from the charge of pragmatism.
Commendably, Allen granted the validity of the question (comment #11), but the answer he gives is silly. He defends MacArthur by proposing a distinction between ‘practical’ on the one hand and ‘pragmatism’ on the other. To be ‘practical’ is to value efficiency and effectiveness (e.g. using technology like the interenet to spread biblical preaching). To be ‘pragmatic’ is to have an:
end-justifies-the-means mentality that uses numbers/results/stats to baptize a ministry methodology as divinely inspired.
Again, that explanation would only help to distinguish between the two camps if one of them actually affirmed such a mantra. In reality, those ‘pragmatists’ don’t think their means need to be justified any more than Grace to You thinks that it’s purchase of the domain name www.gty.org or its development of an attractive logo need to be justified. All that I can seriously take from Allen’s defense is that the one term (‘practical’) is used to describe us while the other term (‘pragmatism’) is used to describe them.
Apparently Grace to You means to publish a series of critical posts–this one being the introduction; perhaps I will be won over by what follows. Perhaps I will be convinced, but then I already basically agree (that these groups should be criticized). I doubt they have much chance of convincing anyone who does not.
Kevin:
OK, sounds nice. Apart from John MacArthur/ Grace to You being dispensational, and not exactly able to make a coherent case against pragmatism in the first place.
Now, remind me again what’s wrong with mega-churches/ multi-site churches, biblically?
Besides the whole:
*I don’t like mega-churches because…
*They’re too big, cosmopolitan, urban, etc. (take your pick)…
*They’re not done well in my tradition/denomination, etc….
*The ones I’ve encountered didn’t impress me…
…all of which sound pragmatically personal to begin with.
Now, I’m a small church liturgical Presbyterian, who’s no fan of mega-churches to begin with. But I’m not seeing a lot besides anti-mega-church whining here (which I agree with in principle). Nothing biblical yet. And, I remember the study Hybels talked about in the last couple of years, detailing how Willow Creek was a spectacular failure at growing/ discipling their people. So, I’m asking for specific Scriptural areas where mega-churches don’t make it, since the NT is mainly in the business of telling us 1st century church plant horror stories. I can easily see mega-churches as a *uniquely* 20/21st century phenomenon, at least in America.
Thanks for the thoughts, Kevin….
Kenneth,
Thanks for reading and interacting. Actually, I wouldn’t say that MacArthur and GTY’s case is entirely incoherent; they make some good points. What I was attempting to point out is that it seems they are greatly handicapped in making that case because they share some problem assumptions with those whom they are criticizing (hence the pot & kettle pic).
Interestingly, MacArthur seems to be in the same position which the fundamentalist groups from which he came were a few decades ago. Back in those days, they didn’t really like MacArthur, but they couldn’t really give a good reason for their disdain. To most people (including MacArthur), it seemed like he was doing exactly what they were, only more effectively. They had been pushing ‘wow-wow’ for a long time, and when MacArthur came along with ‘mega-wow-wow,’ they–to his surprise–got their feathers ruffled. But they couldn’t criticize the ‘wow-wow’ part of it; to do so would be to condemn a great deal of what they believed Christianity to be about.
Now, MacArthur has done ‘mega-wow-wow’ very well for decades, and some new punks have not been content to stick with that. They want to do ‘multi-mega-wow-wow,’ and they are using the methods and means which seem sensible and effective to do that. Now it is MacArthur’s turn to stew and fret and grumble that these new folks have crossed the lines, but he is just as unable of providing a solid critique of them as his fundamentalist critics were of him. They all have in common the deep-set assumption that true Christian ministry is mostly about building giant impressive organizations with hoardes of loyal followers. That is the end they all have in view, and none of them seem willing to question whether ‘wow-wow’ (or even ‘wow’) has any place in Christian ministry.
So, the problem with the groups being criticized is not a ‘right end, wrong means’ issue. Really it is more that they are using sensible means to achieve ends that are problematic. It is only by some bizarre stretch of interpretation that Christian ministry came to be equated with making big crowds happen. Until that is abandoned, it will be impossible to legitimately critique those who pursue that end in new and creative ways.
What should our ends be? Well, what does the New Testament command? We should be making that (preach the gospel, baptize, teach-which don’t need ‘multi,’ ‘mega,’ or ‘wow’) our end.
Silly, when Jesus said go and make disciples of all nations, he never said “make sure you gather in small numbers & dont stuff it up or your dead”
If ANY denomination is fulfilling the great commision and its responsibilities then its likely to grow and none should despise that, regardless of some mega church weaknessess. Fourty member congregations have much the same problems, its just that there not as obvious.
Bill,
Your appeal to the Jesus’ command is a bit confusing. You write:
Christ did indeed give the command to make disciples, and it is true that he didn’t say anything about small numbers or about “stuffing it up” (whatever that means). He also didn’t say anything about the weather, rodents, or textiles. The fact that he did not say anything about those topics means that it is improper to assume that his words are any sort of statement about them. So, it would be just as incorrect to take his command to mean “nurture many rodents” as it would to take it to mean “kill many rodents.”
As you point out, Jesus’ command does not include “Make sure you gather in small numbers.” In fact it says nothing about “gathering size” at all. It is illegitimate, then, to take it to be commanding either small or large gathering sizes. I must point out, of course, that I never said that it did—that comes from your caricature of my view. So, let’s agree that “make disciples” means “make disciples,” not “gather crowds” (large or small).
Thanks for commenting.
….as per the previous commentator theres little substance here this is nothing but anti-mega-church whining