ORANGE COUNTY, Calif., Nov. 12 /Christian Newswire/ – First Baptist Church of Dallas recently announced plans to build a $130 million church campus with the intention of transforming the city and setting up a “beacon of truth.” House church leader Ken Eastburn commented saying the building will not be able to accomplish its goal, “I applaud First Baptist Church for desiring to impact their community, but we need to get beyond a consumer mentality when we think about transformation. Expensive church buildings do not communicate the transforming Truth of the Gospel, they enslave people to the consumerism of our culture.”
According to their website, the 1.5 million square foot campus will utilize innovative technology in the interest of environmental friendliness and will include a stone watering tower with a luminescent cross, a 3,000-seat worship center with 7 high-definition screens, a six- floor education building for youth and children’s ministries, two side-by-side gymnasiums, and an outdoor concert space. According to church fundraising experts, it will be the most expensive church building program the United States has ever seen.
“Attractive buildings, entertaining preachers, and concert-like music have become staples in churches around the country in their effort to reach out to the lost,” says Eastburn, “The problem is that these churches are reinforcing the very things that are entrapping people and keeping them from a transforming relationship with Christ. The church cannot curb consumerism by leveraging consumerism.”
End quote. More here.
While I can't endorse Eastburn's The Well, since I don't know about them, the point he makes is right.
So all of you who are just dying to renew your city, listen up. This isn't the way to do it. Its not the way they did it in Scripture. We are not of the world. It is the GOSPEL that saves, not pragmatism and gimmicks. Pagan-friendly "churches" are indeed friendly to the God-haters, but certainly not to God and His Truth.
To borrow from a song: they turn their eyes upon the world, look full into its fleshly ways, and with the things of the world, HIS face grows strangely dim, in the light of the popularity race.
Just think what true Christians could do with $130 million dollars with real mission work. This isn't a need, as I've talked about recently. This is coveting while slapping the holy name of Jesus onto it, justfying their sin. And yeah, I just called it sin, because that IS what it is. Its a love of the world and taking the money of the sheep to look impressive. Its of the flesh and pride, NOT of Christ Jesus nor humility. What was it that Peter said? Silver or gold have I none, but what I do, I give to you....then he proclaimed the paralytic to get up and walk. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe (Rom. 1:16). The real power is in the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit....the third Person in the Triune Godhead that most "Christians" ignore.
1Jn 2:15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, 16 because all that which is in the world: the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
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