"Thus too, if our confidence is to begin, and we become strengthened and comforted, we must well learn the voice of our Shepherd, and let all other voices go, who only lead us astray, and chase and drive us hither and thither. We must hear and grasp only that article which presents Christ to us in the most friendly and comforting manner possible. So that we can say with all confidence: My Lord Jesus Christ is truly the only Shepherd, and I, alas, the lost sheep, which has strayed into the wilderness, and I am anxious and fearful, and would gladly be good, and have a gracious God and peace of conscience, but here I am told that He is as anxious for me as I am for Him." Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, IV, p. 86. Third Sunday after Trinity, Second Sermon, Luke 15:1-10
Most congregations define themselves on their websites.
Strangely, many were talked into mission statements years ago, not knowing that the term "mission statement" was a product of Management by Objective, Peter Drucker. This MBO was adopted by the Church Growth Movement as the magical way to transform congregations of all denominations. And they did. They spoke to the Old Adam in all of us, encouraging people to think in terms of organization, management, and numbers.
One chemical engineer at Dow Corning told me that every single department there had a mission statement. I have seen mission statements posted in hospital elevators, near the safety certificates. Congregations often have mission statements on their websites. The mission statements are so generic, bland, and pan-Christian that the same one could be published on a Presbyterian, Lutheran, or Roman Catholic website. Even the Catholics have tried to blend in with everyone, using the Community Church name.
The Lutheran Church in America was conducting mission statement exercises with subsidized congregations long before Missouri and WELS considered it something new to try.
Nevertheless, congregations have found a step lower than the mission statement, the inevitable apostasy from church-as-a-business. The next step downward is worship-as-entertainment. Chicaneries deny it, but the model deliberately followed is entertainment. Every religious TV show is created and produced as entertainment.
The founders of religious TV confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "We are following the entertainment model." Even the more serious types, like Billy Graham, focused on gimmicks to get people to come for the thrill and stay for the sermon. Graham liked popular stars, warning people to come extra early for Johnny Cash, making such a case for the press of the crowd in South Bend than many stayed away.
Congregations proclaim entertainment worship when they boast about their music, choirs, bell choirs, and "excellence in worship" as First VP Huebner says on his website.
The blend of progressive and classic, contemporary and traditional, along with a professional excellence in everything from our worship to our website has attracted hundreds of visitors and new members to Grace Church in recent years.
Coffee shops (Huebner's Soul Cafe) and food courts (Willow Creek) follow, but the worst is yet to come. "Grab a snack and a drink and come inside for the service." Victory of the Cinema, soccer camp.
Entertainers dodge the name Lutheran because they want to blend in with everyone else. A casual reader will find that lapse everywhere, followed by dropping the name church, so that both Lutheran and church are missing - i.e. The CORE.
When Lutherans like Huebner write about their church name Grace, without emphasizing the Means of Grace, they are not confessional Lutherans. The day will come when those ministers are not even Lutheran in their teaching and preaching. Time of Grace is a good example of that trend. Notice how Chicaneries take every opportunity to disassociate their congregation's name from that odious word Lutheran.
I first saw that trend in 1978, when LCA Pastor Sherman Hicks admitted that he never invited prospects to "Grace Lutheran Church" but to "Grace Church."
The purpose of the Christian congregation, following the Biblical example, is simply to provide the Means of Grace in worship and teaching. Pastoral visitation is the only legitimate work of a congregation - beyond the teaching and preaching of the Word.
Everything in a congregation reflects upon the church's belief in the efficacy of the Word or rejection of that efficacy. When trust in the Word alone is missing, the congregation is anxious to make up for God's deficiencies by marketing their appeal, by hiding all those obstacles (like closed communion) that might get in the way of institutional power.
Nothing says more about a congregation than its worship service description and its statement (missing or published) of faith. Three bad signs are:
1. The statement of faith is missing.
2. The statement is generic, pan-denominational.
3. The statement is borrowed verbatim from a Schwaermer church.
Long ago a former pastor admonished me to stay away from inerrancy as the leading principle. Freshly escaped from the LCA, I wanted to start with inerrancy. I see that tendency in many conservative congregations today, and it is understandable. Some even say - "We are not ELCA."
Inerrancy is not the Gospel, but an attribute of the Word. The Gospel Promises should lead the congregation's emphasis, and that statement should help people understand how forgiveness comes to people. I realize that UOJ has messed up the ability of pastors to communicate the Gospel, but if they return to the Biblical doctrine, they will have no trouble ejecting UOJ. Precious few are the laity who understand the mumbo-jumbo of UOJ; the ones who think they do are illiterate.
Many ministers want to point to their beautiful church buildings or brag that they work in a purple palace, in a corner office. F. Pieper has a good corrective about that notion.
"Let us learn more and more to look upon the Lutheran Church with the right kind of spiritual eyes: it is the most beautiful and glorious Church; for it is adorned with God's pure Word. This adornment is so precious, that even though an orthodox congregation were to consist of very poor people let us say nothing but woodchoppers - and met in a barn (as the Lord Christ also lay here on earth in a barn, on hay and straw), every Christian should much, much rather prefer to affiliate himself with this outwardly so insignificant congregation, rather than with a heterodox congregation, even if its members were all bank presidents and assembled in a church built of pure marble. Let us be sure that our flesh, and the talk of others does not darken the glory of the orthodox Church, or crowd it out of our sight." Francis Pieper, The Difference between Orthodox and Heterodox Churches, and Supplement, Coos Bay, Oregon: St. Paul's Lutheran Church, 1981, p. 47.
