What To Preach To A Dead Church

Student Question.

"What passages of scripture would you preach to a dead church, and what passages would you not preach to a dead church?"

Dr Steven Lawson Reply.

"I think you can preach anything to a dead church. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable.

I've preached to a dead church. You know, I came to realize a few years ago, not my present church, I was Pastoring an unconverted church. That is literally what a dead church is, an unconverted church. They didn't need John 3: 16. They had had that every Sunday. I preached first John and the necessary marks of the new birth, the distinguishing marks of one who is born by God, and a dead church has got to come alive in Christ to begin with. I saw over a hundred adult conversions in one year just among church members coming to faith in Christ. So preaching First John had power. It works in the South, you know, where everyone thinks they are saved; that there are necessary evidences of the new birth, and without these evidences you can be assured you are not saved.

If the church was just languishing, I don't know, I might go to the seven letters to seven churches. And Revelation two and three. There are some some kick in those verses and those letters; from "I have this against you, you left your first love", to, "but I spew you out of my mouth." I mean, that is just kind of a wake-up call right there. And then everything in between, "I have this against you, you tolerate the woman Jezebel", "you have a name, but you are dead" to the church at Sardis. So those Immediately come to mind.

Plus the demands of discipleship from Christ, "Except a man hate his own father and mother, brother, and sister, and yes, even his own life."

I would want to jolt them a bit, off the fence, help them see their lost condition, or just their languishing or backsliding.

A right diagnosis is half the cure.

Help them see where they are."

- Dr. Steven Lawson

Great Preachers Are Disciplined

Great Preachers Are Disciplined
I think the key is discipline. You've got to be disciplined, and that's one thing I think I learned from Athletics and sports that you just have to be disciplined.

• Great preachers are disciplined.
• Great students of scripture, great theologians are disciplined.
• Great theologians are disciplined.
• Great commentary writers are disciplined.

An athlete tells his body what to do. You don't allow your appetites or your tiredness or whatever to dictate to you, you dictate to your body. You push yourself.

And I realised that we run by grace, and not just self-will, but I think that 1 Timothy 4:7 & 8, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. That is a key factor."

- Dr. Steven Lawson 

We Didn't Add Doctrines We Erased Them

"Most attempts to convince the world that Jesus was a "really great guy, not mean and dogmatic like You-Know-Who" (usually meaning Republicans in the religious right) carry their task all the way to the point of hiding or eliminating the exclusivity of Jesus.

"Well, yes, but he didn't mean all that. These are doctrines added later by the church."

Practically the opposite is true - Jesus said it very clearly. It is the church who has often tried to explain it away."

- John Eldredge. Beautiful Outlaw

Why Church Leaders Might Apologize.

"A problem of my leadership has been that I often desired you to join my ideas? affirm my program, my vision and my calling.

Yet I did so incredibly little to affirm you in what you are doing for others in your sphere of life, for family, and at work outside of this structure.

I apologize!"

- A former ministers confession to his congregation after going off salary and working a regular job just as they do and volunteering like they do.

House Church Is Biblical Church

Acts 2:46 - Breaking bread in their homes.

Acts 5:42 - House to house taught and preached Jesus.

Acts 10:2,24 - Feared God ith whole household, invited all relatives and close friends.

Acts 12:12 - Houseof Mary wheremmany were gathered to pray.

Acts 16:32 - Lydias House.

Acts 18:7 - Tutius Justice house? Family and many others there.

Acts 20:20 - Taught house to house.

Romans 16:5 - Greet the church at their house. Prisca & Aquila.

1 Cor 16:19 - Together with the cburch in their house.

Col 4:15 - Greet Nymoja & church in her house.

Phil 1:2 - Philemon & the church at your house.

I like Control - God Should Consult Me!

"I like control.

I like to know where God is going, exactly what he is doing,

the exact route of how he is getting there,

and exactly when we will arrive.

I also like to remind God of his need to behave in ways that fit in with my clear ideas of him.

- Peter Scazzero -

Emotionally healthy spirituality

The Two Signs Of Great Leadership

The most significant discovery unearthed by the leadership literature of the past twenty years is that two signs indicate successful leadership: improving relationships, and the improving stories that are spawned by the improving relationships. Interestingly, these signs of successful leadership constitute two of the three “signs of the Spirit” that were so central to early Christianity.

The early church touted three tests of authenticity, or as it called them, “signs of the Spirit.” First, and the one missing from the leadership literature of the past twenty years, is the Lordship of Christ and the centrality of an apostolic witness.14 For the Christian, everything else pales by comparison to the preeminence of Christ.

The second sign of the Spirit consisted of manifestations in the life of Christians of “fruit of the Spirit.”15 James exhorts us to “humbly accept the word planted in you.”16 The Word of God bears fruit, not when it is comprehended, but when it is lived—implanted and transplanted. And the fruit of the Spirit is proven in relationships. When relationships get worse, things go bad. When relationships get better, things improve. This is true in the corporate world17 just as it holds true when Christians relate to one another in the church.

The third sign of the Spirit was the usefulness of spiritual manifestations to the churches.18 In other words, when relationships get better, there are stories to back up the improving relationships. Relationships, not numbers, show if growth is biblical, healthy, and truly fruitful. Perhaps it’s time to declare a moratorium on statistics in the church. What if the only thing we reported was the answer to this question: “Is spiritual fruit in evidence in your church? Give me the stories, not more statistics.” My dream for the church? God’s people telling more God stories than golf stories. An authentic Great Awakening is when people can’t stop talking about what God is doing.

Leonard Sweet, "What Matters Most"

Greek Hebrew Latin Belong At Foot Of The Cross

"Scriptures are given to lead us to holiness and to Christ, it doesn't mean that we are to set aside our intellect and understand them neither does it mean that those who are interested in learning more about scripture are to forsake study of the text and its original language. These things can be helpful but they must be done while leading us toward holiness, not toward intellectual snobbery, and certainly not in a way that reinforces and elitist hermeneutic. David Alan black puts it best:

'Greek, Hebrew, and Latin all have their proper place. But it is not at the head of the Cross, where Pilate put them, but at the foot of the cross, in humble service to Christ.'"

- Dr. Les Hardin. The spirituality of Paul. Pg 34

Quoting David Alan black. "Using New Testament Greek in Ministry: A practical guide for students and pastors. (Grand Rapids.v Baker, 1993), page 21.

Broken Church- 70-80% Of OUR Kids Never Return.

We are full of it.... we are full of hot air, bologna, theology, hyper-spirituality, and the fact is that we aren't doing anything other than congratulating ourselves on the profundity of our revelations.

Between 70 and 80 percent of evangelicals in America, by the time they are twenty-one, will leave the faith and never return. Did you hear that? We are not even reaching our own children.

It's like we have a broken down car and we're trying to sell it to the world, saying, buy our product.

Our product stinks. We have nothing to sell but our Bible opinions. And how is the world responding to our bible opinions?
But we're going to keep doing it because we've got the "Bible."
But we're not delivering on the life, the love, the power, the truth, the Incarnate....(sigh!) ..... we are not delivering on Jesus as a general rule."
Seventy to eighty percent of our own children should be a terrifying statistic. It should cause us to sit back and say,

"Dear God how many hours, how much money is being poured into this thing called Christianity, and my own children aren't even serving the lord?"
This is broken Saints. It's broken! It's broken, broken, broken! But we're going to have an evangelism outreach, we are going to pass out... [pamplets or flyers]
Oh my!
- Stephen Crosby!

Read this Book as it gets to the real issue below the surface that we never talk about in church.

This insight in how our history, our past, our emotions, and our emotional responses and mechanisms affects us today,  is simply extraordinary.

I found the book to be the typical  slick marketing and packaging  to make a "Program" to sell to churches. So the writing is the usual dumbed own style of language and writing of typical evangelical  programs,

but in no way is this books HELP and INSIGHT shallow.  

He hits  subjects not talked about. 

It is VERY well written.

Every leader should read this book. 

 

The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Peter Scazzero 

The Gospel of Intellectuals and Farmers

"The fourteenth chapter of the book of Acts puts Paul in Lystra. Now Lystra was an uneducated Agrarian community. And Paul's message was identical there as it was in Athens, but not as labored. He expected uneducated farmers to understand the same message that he expected the Greek intellectuals to understand. Now he didn't say it the same way, but he did say the same message."

- Dr James D. Strauss. 1990. LCS Chapel Service.

"A vision is too often "done" to institutions by a leader, making it a passive rather than participatory process. In some ways we need to learn how not to have a vision, even to make things purposely vague, which allows everyone space to shape the vision so that they are not being treated as objects......"

- Leonard Sweet. Nudge.

No Vision!

"A denominational executive always asks his clergy, “So, what’s your vision?” When he saw me one day in an elevator, we chatted and sure enough, “So, Sweet, what’s your vision?” I replied, “Sir, I don’t have a vision.” He was incredulous: “What! How can you possibly say that? You must have a vision. Aren’t you one of the church’s visionaries? You‘re a leader, aren’t you?”

“No, Bishop. I’m not a leader. I’m a follower. I’m following a vision, but it’s not my vision. The vision is Jesus. I grew up singing a hymn I take literally: ‘Be Thou My Vision, O Lord of my life.”

- Nudge. Leonard Sweet 

Eldership Has Been Erased By Leadership

"I don’t believe any doctrine of Holy Scripture should be neglected or defined out of existence. Yet this is precisely what many churches have done to the doctrine of eldership. Even among churches that claim to practice eldership, the elders have been reduced to temporary church board members, which is quite contrary to the New Testament, apostolic model of pastoral eldership. Although such churches may have an eldership, it is not a biblical eldership." --Alexander Strauch, 1995.

Let God "Wow" People

"If I may put it bluntly and clearly, what is needed is not a stunt, but the action of God that will stun people."

--Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"The problems caused by the idea of full-time Christian service, and the view that ordinary occupations are not full time-time Christian service. This  is one of the greatest problems that we have. It's a very old problem."

- Dallas Willard 

Where Pastors Are Made or Marred

"We regarded the Seminary as the key institution in the church, because it's in the Seminary that the future pastors of the church are either made or marred, either equipped and inspired, or ruined."

- John Stott. Interview 

Titanium Rule Of Christians

"The church is filled with too many Golden Rule Christians whose motto is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and not enough Platinum Rule Christians: “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” What is most lacking, however, is “Titanium Rule” Christians, practicing the most powerful command of all: “Do unto to others as Christ has done unto you.”

- Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch 2.0

When Good People Take Risk

"Thucydides tells us that during the plague at Athens those that most displayed their virtue perished with their friends that were ill, for they neglected their own lives in going to visit them."
- Plutarch's Morals. 1st Century Greek Philosopher. 

Ministry In The Moment

"Ministry can’t get-to-the-point without it first being willing to get-to-the-moment."

- Leonard Sweet. AquaChurch 2.0

Sermons Without Ambiguity

"Sermons give the mistaken idea that there is a well-crafted answer to every question, but that’s only because we set up the question to fit our answers. The sermons can unwittingly intimidate people from engaging others with real questions because real conversations don’t happen in outline form."

- Wayne Jacobsen. Beyond Sundays