More on the Problem with the Church Sign
Francis Schaeffer, in No Little People, taken from his Complete Works, and quoted in Nancy Pearcey’s Total Truth:
“The central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism…(but rather the) tendency to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than the Spirit.”
To this, Nancy adds:
“
Because evangelicals have historically accepted methodological naturalism in the lower-story, in their minds there is no distinctively Christian perspective in fields like marketing and management—and thus they have uncritically accepted whatever methods and techniques the secular world develops” (p. 367).
Total Truth, which I’m debating writing a full-scale review of, takes the concept of the development of a Christian worldview a couple of steps deeper; in fact, I’m tempted to speak of Nancy’s book as describing a Christian “worldlife“, instead of “worldview“.
All of this to further my point that if our growth as a church is attributable first and foremost to a snazzy sign, then we have seriously forgotten what it’s all about.
“Apart from Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Osborne: A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
Schlossberg: Idols For Destruction
