Many years ago I hear a pastor say, “The Church is not a Country Club for saints, it is a hospital for sinners!” * I think that’s a great saying, one I’ve always loved. These days I’m starting to re-think that proposition.
I am becoming increasingly concerned at how church attendance and church membership has become the goal of many “ministries”. To quote a song I recently heard, “I catch’em. God cleans’em!” Get’em in the door and we’ll get these people saved and turned onto God.
One of my personal favorite ministry programs (and for those who don’t know me, I am usually “death" on programs,) is the Baptists’ F.A.I.T.H. Sunday School outreach program. I love it! We operate under the idea that if we can get the lost coming to church, then we can teach them the gospel and they will become saved. And it has worked that way many times. And each time it has worked a soul that is precious beyond our understanding has been saved from eternal damnation to Our Lord and the Angel’s delight!
The problem is, using this idea we are also creating huge, (even “mega”,) churches filled with large numbers of people who are not practicing followers of Christ. And when the unsaved’s numbers in a church get large enough, pastors cannot lead boldly in areas of personal discomfort and sacrifice in following the Lord. And, often, the pastor who does so, does so at the risk of his job.
When we bring the unsaved into the church, they are coming to have a need (“knowledge of God” or “moral guidance”) fulfilled by the church. The church’s role is to serve these needs. However, when saved believers congregate we are sharing our faith and our purpose to serve God. The first group is coming to “take” when the second is coming to “share”.
Many, many pastors will now tell you that our churches are being battered by “The 80/20 Rule” (20% of the people are doing 80% of the work.) And an increasing part of the unproductive 80% is the lost clamoring that they want less Jesus and more entertainment and more social services and more [fill in the blank].
In many places, and in many people’s minds, church membership has become synonymous with being a Christian. And our pastors are often spending the entire "worship" service trying to get these “christians” saved!
We have to find a way to address this problem! This issue is worthy of our prayers.
* I wanted to give proper credit for this quote and found many churches and ministries using this quote, but never found an attribution. The closest I came to finding the original quote is a similar one from the old “Dear Abby” newspaper column:
"A church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints." -
- Abigail Van Buren
Possibly this is where the quote originated and was later amended into the form quoted, above. ‘Just a long way of saying, “I don’t know where this came from, I just know it didn’t come from me!"
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