Dead Church or Living Church And How to tell the difference

Reading: Matthew 28:18-20

18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, [even] unto the end of the world. Amen.

I've always heard people talk about dead churches. The only church I've ever seen that I can say for sure was a dead church is called the Mt. Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church; I won't bother to reveal the location. If I recall correctly, the church was organized as a place for people who didn't want to worship at the other churches in that area. The last time I drove by the grass was almost as tall as the building and someone had parked a truck trailer in the church parking lot. The propane tank the church had rented was gone. The building was closed up.

The congregation was mostly older and most of them had passed away. The pastor was a retired gentleman who drove down from Longview for services. He too had passed away. As I have said, the membership consisted of families from other churches who wanted a church closer to home, so when they were gone there was no one else to keep it active. That's a dead church.

When people talk about dead churches, they're usually talking about churches that still meet. The churches have an active membership. It may be small, but it's active, and by this I don't mean they send 15% to missions and say they've done their duty. I mean it's active in that the Word is preached, the people care for and minister to each other and others where they can, they are interested, and they pursue the great commission to various degrees (we all know that not every one does it). Yet some say these churches are dead. The problem is that I've never heard anyone agree on what constitutes a dead church. Whose standard do you use? What standard do you use?

Many base their idea of a dead church on numbers: how many active members are on the rolls. Others base it on the ability of the church to finance large ministries. Both of these ideas are example of non-Biblical thinking.

The church at Laodicea was a dead church, yet it was apparently large and even wealthy.

Jesus didn't base His success on numbers, and as far as we know, He didn't have a lot of money to work with. He once turned would be disciples away for their insincerity. If we base our life on numbers, then we are forced to conclude that Jesus pastored a dead church.

By the standard of numbers, practically every church today is a dead church when compared with the Bible standard set forth in the Book of Acts. The first church added 3000 members in one day: what church today is not dead when compared to that standard? Even our larger churches don't usually have more than 500 members.

To judge the life or lack of life in any church, it's necessary to forget the standards of man and turn to the ultimate authority: the Bible. As hospitals have equipment to measure whether there is life or death in a human body, so the Bible contains a measurement to judge whether there be life or death in a church of Jesus Christ. That measurement is called the Great Commission.

The Great Commission was given by Jesus to a group of people before He returned to heaven. The identity of that group continues to be disputed by some, but the position of most Baptist churches including ours is that this group of people was the Lord's assembled church. The eleven disciples are named here because they were Apostles, but there's every reason to believe that others where present.

When the President goes somewhere, the news will say something like, "Today President Bush visited Russia." He's the only one named because he's the President, but do you really suppose he was there by himself? Do you think he snuck off in Air Force One by himself? We all know he had other people with him, and that's the case here in Matthew 28. Mathew 28 is very likely the time that the Apostle Paul referred to when he said Jesus appeared to above five hundred brethren at once.

When you look at verse 20 there can be no doubt that Jesus was speaking to the church, now churches. He promised these people He would be with them always, even to the end of the world or the end of the age. None of the people present were going to be alive at the end of the world. Most of them would be dead in just a few years and not one of them is alive (physically) today. What Jesus was doing was speaking to this group in an institutional sense and declaring that He would be with His church to the end of the age.

Now, Jesus charged and commissioned His church (now churches) with His authority. By His authority, they and we were to go. In one place He said Go in the entire world. Get out and move around in your environment, your community: go, travel, put your shoes on and move even to the point of visiting the entire world.

The object of their going was to teach all nations. You can't teach all nations if you're not moving. So, you are to teach all nations (all people) the truth of the Gospel: that God sent His Son to die for the sin of the world and man must repent and believe the Gospel. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried, and He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.

After having taught that truth and had it accepted, you are to baptize these nations. You can't baptize them until you've taught them the Gospel and had the response of repentance and faith. Teach them the Gospel and then baptize them.

Next, you are to teach them all things whatsoever the Lord commanded. What does that mean? It means you've got a teaching ministry. You've got people in your church from 100 years old down to 2 years old, and you've a Bible full of the Lord's teachings. You are to teach them what Jesus taught and commanded.

The fulfillment of those three areas constitutes the heartbeat of lack of a heartbeat in your church.

Are you going, individually? Are you teaching or trying to teach all nations, or all people God gives you the opportunity to meet? I know for a fact from private conversations that many of you are doing that very thing. Some are probably doing it and I don't know about it; naturally, no one brags to me about their service.

Also included here in the process of going is the willingness and determination to support missionaries, and I know this is done regularly. In this area, I detect a heartbeat in most churches. There's always room for improvement, nobody's perfect. It's true that there will always be some people who will never utter the Gospel to another person, but still there's a heartbeat.

A second measurement of life is the command to baptize. Are you baptizing those who have been taught the Gospel? Are they being added to the church? The baptistery of our church is not worn out, but neither is it a stranger to waters of baptism. Again, I detect a heartbeat in many churches. It could be better. We should pray for so many salvations and baptisms that we have to start doing it on Wednesdays and then weeknights. But there is life here.

What is the third measurement of life in a body of Christ? The teaching ministry of the church. This involves everyone from the preachers to the Sunday School teachers. It involves Vacation Bible School, Pine Springs Camp, and ideally every other ministry we can get going. It involves every ministry of the church and its attempts to reach out into the community with its services.

The foremost standard that must be met is the teaching and preaching of the word of God. Is the Bible taught in our church and in our classes? If it is, there's a heartbeat.

Here's our one opportunity to make our overall heartbeat grow stronger. We can't make anyone be saved, and we can't make anyone be baptized. The Bible says God gives the increase. But we can enhance and increase the ministries of any church if and when they need it. In doing that, there is the potential for God to work to increase the salvation and baptisms.

I suggest to you that churches today have come to be considered as little more than places where we go three times a week. I've heard saved people be invited to do something on Sunday or Wednesday evening and they've said, "I can't go with you. We've got to go to church." That sounds like so much fun, but I can't. I've GOT to go to church.

Why has church become little more than a place we've got to go? Why is it that it seems like we're not delighted to get to go to church?

Here's why: at one time, churches were the central point of the community. Everything happened at the church, but now it's different. We live in a modern world where there's so many things going on that there is now a competition between extracurricular activities and New Testament churches. And if you're a parent with school aged children, you know how true that is. We don't like to think we're in competition but you are. If there's something cool happening in the world on Wednesday night and a lost soul (or young saved soul who doesn't "get it") has to pick between that and coming to church, what's he going to pick? It doesn't matter if we have the best teachers and preachers in the world if people don't think we have something they want. They don't have any clue that we have something they need for eternal life. They base their choices on their perception of what we have to offer.

What do we have to offer other than three or four lesson a week? The great majority of our churches including some much larger than us has Vacation Bible School and Pine Springs (Or Bogg Springs) as their only church wide ministry, and most church members don't get to participate in camp. It just doesn't take that many people.

It looks to me like somewhere through the centuries, constant and ongoing church based ministry has been largely abandoned or replaced with yearly efforts like VBS and camp. This is not the Bible example of church ministry. The first church had a daily ministration. They taught every day. They met everyday.

That's not to say that we should meet every day, but perhaps we should consider that there is more to do.

Someone mentioned to me the other day that churches have abandoned BTC - Bible training courses. That's been going on for several years now. Some have told me that it's boring, and I have no reason to doubt them because in the churches I've been in it was quite dry. It's like that because it's not being done the right way. BTC is supposed to be a shared responsibility among all the people in the sanctuary. Those BTC lessons are divided into three or four sections. The week beforehand, some brother or sister is assigned a section and they read it and give the class a few thoughts on it, and then a discussion takes place. It's supposed to be an interactive, fun study where we all participate.

I want you to think about things like this, and understand that I'm not coming at you with any particular ministry. I have no ulterior motives. I'm not trying to get a new ministry started. I do want you to look at the great success you have with VBS and Pine Springs camp ministries. If we have that much success there, how much more could we have if we did more?

Where are the ministries for people? Where are the ministries for the elderly? Where are our revivals? Where are our newspaper ads proclaiming that our preacher will be speaking on this topic all week long, make your plans to join us today. In what direction do we need to go?

What do we do better than anyone else? How do we turn that into a ministry for the glory of God?

Where are our ministries for our young people? How can we develop the teen curriculum so that it piques their interest? What can we do to make young people want to come here?

In the book called Why Men Hate Going To Church, author David Murrow states that only 2 out every 6 men who claim to be Christians attends church. Author Josh McDowell states that between 69% and 90% of young people go on to leave our churches altogether.

We have to conclude that there is a lack of interest, and so we must conclude that their interest must be regained.

For Roman Catholics, 5 January is St Simeon Stylites' Day. Stylite was a fifth-century hermit who showed his devotion to God by spent years sitting on top of a huge flagpole. He just sat there, claiming he was doing it for God.

How would you like to die and meet God with that as your life's work. What did you do for me? I sat on a flagpole.

Turn that around and direct it to today's New Testament church. What did you for me? I went to church. Oh yeah, we faithfully ministered in VBS and camp - ten days out of the year.

Never get locked into the mindset that church is just something we do or somewhere we go with two major ministries a years. There's the potential for so much more. When our time is done on earth or Jesus comes back, we don't want to be caught sitting on a flagpole.

Conclusion: We're alive. By no means are we dead. But there's always room for improvement, always the possibility to serve more. God help us to have the mindset that we are His servants with much to do.

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