Naïve Triumphalism

There is in Church Growth circles a naïve triumphalism.  A number of years ago Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral was the model for Church Growth, and Robert Schuller’s Credo was the Church Growth cheer, "If you can dream it, you can do it."   The BHAG business goal became the directive for the Church Growth movement.  Do you remember BHAG?  Dream Big Hairy Audacious Goals?  There is a difference between enthusiasm and being filled with the Spirit.  Clergy all over the land were invited to Dream Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

Following that Credo mega-churches were spawned across the land, but the question that needs to be raised is “Is that the model God intends for his Church?”  The Crystal Cathedral dream went into bankruptcy, the building was sold and was purchased by the Roman Catholic Church and renamed Christ Cathedral.  Perhaps that’s what it should have been named from the beginning.  You won’t find the Crystal Cathedral model in Scripture or in the Early Church for the very simple reason that it isn’t there.

It is hard to sort out our faith from the culture in which it has been, by necessity, incarnated.  We are a race of entrepreneurs finding our affirmation in our successes, treasuring our individuality, seeking self-actualization; none of which are biblical values.  What Jesus actually said was, “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16:33), and St. John comments, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him” (I John 2:15).  Having known that for some time doesn’t ward off our sense of mild surprise and disappointment when we discover that love, hard work, and enthusiasm can’t fix everything.

That is not to say that evangelism is not the primary mission of the Church.  Of course it is.  Jesus commanded us saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).  But that is quite different from the BHAG model.

We have the models for Church Growth readily at hand; they just don’t match our cultural presuppositions.  They don’t look like what we call success.   It has taken hundreds of years and thousands of martyrs for the Church universal to grow, and most of that growth follows the models of the early churches in Derbe, Iconium, Antioch, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, and finally in Rome.  What we want is instant mega success, but I suspect that God doesn’t want us to have it because it probably isn’t good for us.