"Pastor, we enjoyed visiting your church on Sunday. We might be back in a few weeks, right now we are shopping for a church that we feel like we'd be comfortable in.” If you do much follow-up visitation you've heard this before. Church shopping is a very common thing in the day we live, whether the person is shopping because they are new in the area or because they didn't like the spiritual food they were getting in the place they've left. Whatever the case, they are shopping. At this point we need to examine our approach. Will our Church be a market-based Church or a Bible-based Church? Let me explain the difference. Everyone who is right with God, want's to see his or her church grow. We all want to reach those folks who have visited our churches. (I have met a few idiots, who couldn't handle more than a handlful of folks, and they didn’t want anybody else anyway, this article isn't for you.)
By market-based church, I mean, we change the church (market) to whatever the visitor (customer) wants and is comfortable with, in order to keep them in the church. This is the mainline approach today. About anything you buy today on church growth follows this approach. It is in stark contrast to the Bible-based approach. Historically our Independent Baptist Churches have not been market-based. That is changing fast.
We see our churches becoming market-based when the music becomes major and preaching becomes minor. The market wants singing, not preaching. The market wants that singing to be contemporary and as worldly as a dog's hind leg and in the “Market Church” the people get what they want. I’ve even seen this at camp meetings. Great hymns of the faith are traded in for overhead projectors with worship choruses and as many specials as it takes to get everyone in a “mood” to worship. In the Market Church everyone is dressing down. Putting on your “Sunday Best” isn't necessary. The ladies can come in their pants and the men don't need a tie. Everyone is welcome to come as they are and leave as they are. You can call the preacher by his first name - he's just one of the guys. In the Market Church you'll find the NIV, the NKJV, and the NASV. What do all of these have in common? One word, "NEW". The Market wants something new and easy - who cares if it’s sound?
Everyone wants to be part of a growing church. Do “Market Churches” grow? I think a more accurate word might be “swell”. To many, numbers are the measuring sticks of success. The ironic thing about this is, the same group proclaims success and blessing because of their numbers, but won’t use that same measuring stick to measure the JW’s and Morons. True growth requires the Word of God, and things grown on God’s word rarely grow as fast as things grown by man made methodology. In the last days, Bible-based churches will become harder and harder to find. The Laodicean Church is the “Peoples Church”. An earmark of the last days is “men will not endure sound doctrine”. In fact, they won’t endure much of anything that is sound. Preacher, will you succumb? Will you go with the flow? Will you get a worship leader and start delivering 20-minute sermonettes to a congregation of comfortable compromisers who don’t give a rip about God but just want a little religion? Will you give them what they want? If you do, you’ll be a part of a large group. The culture is changing the Church when it ought to be the other way around. The Bible is the same, it’s just the market that is constantly moving.
Steven E. Mays,
Pastor - Faith Baptist Church, Laurens, South Carolina
BroMays@FaithBaptistTrumpet.org