Nontraditional approaches may be needed

Posted: 11/17/06

Nontraditional approaches may be needed

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

DALLAS—In a “Dr. Phil and Oprah age,” the church doesn’t have to be traditional to be faithful, Ray Brown, pastor of Resurrection Baptist Church in Schertz, told a Texas Baptist group.

In fact, being traditional may result in being unfaithful to the command to “go and tell the world,” he asserted.

“People have choices; they don’t have to come to your church,” he reminded participants during a Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting workshop.

“You’ve got to keep the non-essentials, no matter how much you love them, where they belong—on the non-essentials list. Other-wise, you better tear “Just As I Am” out of every hymnal in your sanctuary,” he said.

“Our job is to save as many people as we can as fast as we can for the glory of God. But sometimes we tell people they are going to hell before we show them the beauty of heaven. We want them to look right and talk right and act right before they become part of our congregation. But that’s like trying to clean the fish before we catch it. We’ve got to start where people are—in our preaching, in our programs—and let them get to know us, so they will trust us when we talk about spiritual things.”

At his church, it has meant becoming “more visual than verbal” in worship services and offering “multiple exposures and presentations of the gospel,” Brown said.

Openness to new technology is important, he insisted. Warning against being a “cassette-tape church in a world where cars have CD-only audio systems,” he urged churches to use new communication methods people are familiar with.

Recently, he was unexpectedly unable to be in the pulpit, so he recorded a short video message.

“More people made more professions of faith that Sunday than they usually do when I preach in person,” he said. “People today can respond to that video image.”

Over the past decade, Resurrection Baptist Church has grown from 250 members to more than 3,000 after adopting a strategy Brown calls “expanding with intent.” It entails finding out what it takes to get people to seriously listen to “the truth that we have about God and being saved.”

That means being open to doing new things in new ways—and sometimes not doing things “the way we’ve always done them.”

Brown grew up in a church that wouldn’t allow women to come to church in pants, but now he leads a church that has a “dress down Sunday” once a month.

He grew up in Sunday school, and his church still has a strong Sunday school program. But he estimates 10 percent of the current members meet once a week in small groups, and “within five years, I think it will climb to 50 percent.”

“If Sunday school works, then use it. But we are finding that small groups are the key to two significant elements of evangelism,” he pointed out.

“First, the small group overcomes the danger of getting lost in a megachurch. If you worship with 3,000 other people and you miss a Sunday, you probably won’t be missed. But if you are in a group of 10 or 12 people, they know when you’re not there and will check on you.”

Brown preaches “lots of how-to sermons (because) on Monday morning those folks are going to deal with lots of stuff and they need to know what Jesus said about how to keep their joy when it’s tough,” he said.

Themed series also make it easier for members to invite non-Christian friends to hear a topic that interests visitors.

Resurrection also stresses doctrinal diversity. “We make sure we are theologically solid on the essentials, but in everything else we are open,” Brown said.

“We have folks who have been sprinkled, but instead of arguing about it, we teach about why immersion is the biblical method. We have charismatics, but instead of arguing about gifts, we make sure folks understand that Paul meant what he said when he wrote, ‘If I speak like the angels and don’t love people, I am nothing.’”

Churches fight “over institutional things, the non-essential things,” he concluded. “You don’t hear about churches fighting about how to help people get saved. We have the best message, the truth, so growth should be normal for our churches. When we aren’t growing, it’s not because the message is not powerful enough. It is because we are doing a poor job communicating it.”