What Matters Most, Redux
Posted by Bryan
A while ago, I shared my opinions on the most important matters facing God's church. My post was inspired by an invitation to participate in a poll being done by the Southern Baptist Convention's publishing arm, Lifeway Christian Resources. Some of you chipped in here, as well.
Yesterday, I received the next stage of this poll. The twenty most common answers were listed, and I was asked to rank the top 10 in priority from this list of 20. The list of 20 included (as ranked from top to bottom by me for the purposes of efficiency):
- Discipleship: the need for involvement of every believer in being continually transformed into the image of Christ.
- Evangelism: the decline among Christians in personal sharing of the Gospel.
- Prayer: the need for more ongoing, passionate prayer in both personal and church life.
- Missions: the decline in support and organized participation in reaching the lost at home and abroad.
- Leadership: the need for clear, biblical vision and direction by church leaders.
- Community: the rise in individualism among believers to the detriment of biblical fellowship.
- Doctrine: the growing pressure to compromise principles to make truths more palatable to an audience.
- Worship: the struggle to incorporate traditional and/or contemporary modes and styles of worship.
- Marriage and Family: the negative effects on families that result from divorce, adultery, etc.
- Stewardship/Tithing: the missing practice of sacrificial giving and biblical management of God's gifts.
- False Teaching: the groundswell of supposed "Christian" teaching based on non-biblical claims.
- Abortion: the church's lack of an effective response to 30+ years of legalized abortion.
- Apathy/Commitment: the seeming lack of personal interest and support from the pews for the work of the church.
- Denominationalism: growing confusion over how churches should work together while remaining true to biblical identity.
- Post-Modernism: the emerging challenge of how to share truth with those who believe all truth is relative.
- Christian Worldview/Secularism: the widening influence of explicitly anti-Christian culture and negative influences on the
- Relevance of the Church: the seeming inability of the church to answer questions one has living in the "real world."
- Pornography: the onslaught of sexually explicit, violent, and abusive materials and online content.
- Homosexuality: the rising social pressure to accept same-sex behavior and relationships.
A comparative look at my original post shows that 9 of my top 10 concerns made the final list, in one expression or another (in that the final top 20 suggests that some of my specific concerns were generalized into a broader topic heading). Only #10 on my original list goes altogether unrepresented on the Lifeway list, which in itself I find troubling.
I should also confess that in my final list of ranking, I'm pretty equally passionate about items 1-6, because I believe each of these to be "essential church functions, and without any of them, the rest suffers, much like the typewriter with the missing "e." I think doctrine is a subset of discipleship, and while prayer is an element of worship, the "worship" expressed in #8 is really just one part of "whole life" worship. Then, 9-20, while all important, are likewise elemental aspects of one of the earlier already-listed items. True discipleship that involves spiritual transformation, combined with obedience to God's mission and immersion in a life of worship and a strong sense of biblical fellowship and will all go a long way toward eradicating the problems of bad marriages, bad teaching, bad addictions, irrelevance, apathy, and the other matters listed.
So, do you agree of think I'm missing the point because I don't see the trees for the forest? Give your two cents in the comments.
December 13, 2004 1:00 PM