{"id":154,"date":"2009-02-27T08:14:40","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T14:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.consider.org\/blog\/?p=154"},"modified":"2009-02-27T08:14:40","modified_gmt":"2009-02-27T14:14:40","slug":"does-your-church-want-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/does-your-church-want-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Your Church Want the Bible?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to the MP3<\/a><\/h2>\n

A few Sundays ago at church, my Bible study class was about to begin when a woman came to the door and asked, “What class is this?”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I told her I was teaching about the Bible.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Her immediate response was, “Oh, no,\u00a0 I don’t want that.” She instantly realized that the words had not come out as she intended, as this was not the class she was trying to fine, and it made for a somewhat amusing moment.<\/p>\n

While amusing, it is somewhat of a metaphor for a deeper problem in the church.\u00a0 While this woman’s comments were misstatement,\u00a0 for far too many Christians this is their attitude.\u00a0 Not directly for sure, and if you ask them they would probably say that the Bible is important. \u00a0But however important they may think it is, their\u00a0 knowledge of it is limited to what they have picked up from the pastor’s sermons.<\/p>\n

Some pastors inadvertently encourage these Bible-optional Christians by constantly changing the versions they cite passages from. In fact I have seen some pastors who quote from several different versions each sermon.\u00a0\u00a0 Whatever the benefit,\u00a0 the effect is that it makes it virtually impossible to follow the pastors sermon in your own Bible.\u00a0 The trend towards topical sermons,\u00a0 in which the Bible becomes little more than a smorgasbord of proof texts\u00a0 does not help either. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And after all the verses will be on the power point slides on in the bulletin.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is that fewer and fewer people see any need to bring a Bible to church.\u00a0 Bible study itself is likewise down played either intentionally or unintentionally.\u00a0 At a church I attended a while back the only time the pastor ever mentioned\u00a0 any Bible class was to mention his own.\u00a0\u00a0 Except for children\u00a0 and teens\u00a0 for many churches\u00a0 bible study is just not all that important.<\/p>\n

As Josh McDowell\u00a0 pointed out in his book The Last Christian Generation<\/a>, even with teens active in Youth Groups, \u00a0\u00a0Church is often seen more as \u00a0a place for fun activities than learning about God.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus many of our children are like the seeds sown on stony ground “They sprouted at once because the soil wasn’t deep.\u00a0 But\u00a0 when the sun came up, they were scorched.\u00a0 Since they did not have any roots, they dried up. ” (Mt 13:5-6)\u00a0 As children and teens they spout quickly in church, but when they leave home and enter the hot sun of the world they dry up quickly.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0To see this one only has to consider the stat cited by Thom Rainer<\/a> of Lifeway that \u00a0“70% of 18 to 22 year olds drop out of the church. Many of them are crying for deeper biblical teaching and preaching.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the most frustrating aspects about this is that it is so unnecessary.\u00a0 It is not that we need massive changes to address the problem.\u00a0 Rather what is needed a series of small changes aimed at emphasizing the importance of the word of God, the need to read it, and the need to study it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This changes can be as simple as asking people who brought their bibles to open them to that passage for the sermon.\u00a0\u00a0 It does not mean that you have to make people who did not bring a Bible feed out of place our unwelcome,\u00a0 but there is nothing wrong with encouraging people to bring a Bible to Church.<\/p>\n

Churches should also make it clear that that the study of God’s word is an important priority, whether this is done on Sunday morning in traditional Sunday school,\u00a0 at other times at the church,\u00a0 in small groups at people’s homes, or preferably all three,\u00a0 people should find it easy to find and join a class.\u00a0 For far too many adult Bible study is an afterthought.\u00a0 Something done mainly out of tradition than any real commitment.\u00a0 Simply clearly listing the classes\u00a0 the subjects or age groups, and where they meet on a board should be a minimum.\u00a0 But including them in the bulletin at regular intervals is a nice reminder and particularly helpful\u00a0 for those new to the church, and for classes that do not meet on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

These are hardly revolutionary or difficult changes.\u00a0 There are of course many other things that could be done.\u00a0 But sadly much of the church is not even doing this.\u00a0\u00a0 And it shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity<\/a>: a Faith Based on Fact<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to the MP3 A few Sundays ago at church, my Bible study class was about to begin when a woman came to the door and asked, “What class is this?”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I told her I was teaching about the Bible.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Her immediate response was, “Oh, no,\u00a0 I don’t want that.” She instantly realized that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,7],"tags":[1072,1073,126,314,529],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}