Six Ways to Give Your People False Assurance

 By Michael McKinley

As a pastor, I interact with a lot of people who struggle to have confidence in the authenticity of their conversion. To their mind, their sin clings closely and their failings are always at hand. Most of the time, I find that these are faithful brothers and sisters who need comfort and reassurance.

But there’s another group of people in many of our churches that are much more worrisome: those with a firm but unfounded belief that they are genuinely converted. Perhaps you know they type. They know the right words. They stay free from scandalous public sin. And they are moral people. But they have no true fruit, no evidence that God’s converting Spirit is at work within them. And oftentimes there is an untreated area of secret sin.

SIX WAYS PASTORS FOSTER FALSE ASSURANCE

These people are hard to reach—it’s like they’ve been inoculated to the gospel. They think they already have what they most need, and so they aren’t looking for anything more! And if there is an area of hidden sin, they’ve long made peace with it.

Sadly, our churches are at least partly to blame for their presence in our midst. Allow me to suggest six ways that we pastors may inadvertently help to foster false assurance in people like this.

1. Assume the Gospel

It’s easy to assume that the people in our churches understand and believe the gospel. After all, they are in church on a Sunday morning. But the fact is, many of our churches have taken the message and the congregation’s understanding of it for granted. As a result, our churches are full of people who may understand some of the implications of the gospel (e.g., how to be a better husband; how to manage your anger) and live moral lives without appropriating the gospel for themselves.

This is spiritually deadly because moral lives might be the evidence of someone’s faith in the gospel, but they also might be the evidence of self-righteousness and Phariseeism. It’s surely right to emphasize that the faith which justifies is never alone, that works always accompany true faith. But we must first emphasize that we are justified by faith alone, and emphasize this over and over again, else the works which you see will not be the works of a saving justification. When the gospel is not made clear, when the Way to heaven and the highway to hell are not clearly pointed out by the preacher, then people will assume that their morality or their church attendance gives them grounds for assurance.

In short, don’t preach moralism. Ever. Preach the gospel every week. And then, with the indicatives of the gospel firmly in place, preach the imperatives that necessarily follow.

2. Give Them a Superficial View of Sin

The Bible teaches us that sin is not just something that we do, it’s who we are in our fallen state. The Scriptures teach us that we are all spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1-2), slaves to sin (John 8:34), guilty of breaking the entirety of the law of God (Jas. 2:10), and condemned to experience God’s righteous wrath (Rom. 1:18). We are sinners through and through.

People with unfounded assurance often misunderstand sin. If sin is merely a matter of external and observable behaviors, then with some effort and discipline they can solve their own problems. But if we can compel them to wrestle regularly with the biblical teaching about their sin, then they will be forced to see their need for the new birth and a salvation that comes from outside of their own person.

3. Treat Church Membership and Discipline Casually

Membership in a local congregation is meant to give believers assurance of their salvation. It’s a corporate seal of approval on someone’s claim to be a Christian. When a congregation examines someone’s profession of faith and way of living and then baptizes that person and admits them to the Lord’s Table, the church is saying, “As far as we can tell, and with the power and wisdom given to us by Christ, you are one of us.” On the flip side of the coin, when a church excommunicates someone, they are taking away that seal of approval. The congregation is telling the individual that his or her actions have undermined the credibility of their profession of faith and the basis of their assurance.

But when a church is promiscuous with its membership, when it allows people who do not attend the church to maintain their membership, it fosters false assurance. How many people are going to hell because their lazily-overseen church membership gave them false confidence?     

4. Teach Them to Base their Assurance on a Past External Action.

As we’ve already noted, the gospel demands a response from us. And churches and evangelistic programs have sometimes found it helpful to present some method for people to express their newfound commitment to Christ. Some offer people with the chance to say a “Sinner’s Prayer.” Others offer them with the chance to walk the aisle on Sunday or fill out a response card. And those external actions may indeed be a genuine response to the converting work of the Spirit.

But they can also be deceptive. It is possible to pray a prayer, walk an aisle, and sign a card and still be completely lost in your sins. So if we encourage people to have assurance based on some sort of external activity that can be performed quite apart from the new birth, we put them in grave spiritual danger. How many people are walking around completely lost, but sure they are going to heaven because they prayed a prayer once as a child?   

5. Don’t Connect Justification and Sanctification for your People.

In a well-motivated effort to magnify the free grace of God, it is possible to teach the truth of justification by faith alone through Christ alone without connecting all of the dots for our hearers. But the teaching of Scripture is that the justifying work of Christ will always produce the fruit of righteousness in the lives of believers, as I said earlier (for just one example, see the logic of Romans 6:1-14).

A disconnect between justification and sanctification is very dangerous for believers. It undermines their understanding of the need for personal holiness and their motivation for loving God with their obedience. But it is doubly dangerous for those who have false assurance, because it encourages them to think that it is possible to live in open rebellion against God and still be righteous in his sight.

6. Teach Them to Ignore the Bible’s Warnings.

The Scriptures are full of dire warnings to those who would embrace sin and/or leave the faith (e.g., Matt. 5:27-30, Heb. 6:1-6). In our efforts to clearly teach God’s sovereign care for his people, it is possible to undermine the force of these warnings by giving the impression that they don’t apply to believers.   

But those warnings are in the Scriptures for a purpose. They are true and they are one of God’s ways of keeping his people from wandering away. A wise pastor will press home the gravity of sin and apostasy and call all of his hearers to endure in the faith.

Mike McKinley is the senior pastor of Guilford Baptist Church in Sterling, Virginia and is the author, most recently, of Am I Really a Christian? (Crossway, 2011).

March/April 2012
© 9Marks

The 10 Warning Signs of an Inwardly Obsessed Church

By Thom S. Rainer 

Any healthy church must have some level of inward focus. Those in the church should be discipled. Hurting members need genuine concern and ministry. Healthy fellowship among the members is a good sign for a congregation.

But churches can lose their outward focus and become preoccupied with the perceived needs and desires of the members. The dollars spent and the time expended can quickly become focused on the demands of those inside the congregation. When that takes place the church has become inwardly obsessed. It is no longer a Great Commission congregation.

In my research of churches and consultation with churches, I have kept a checklist of potential signs that a church might be moving toward inward obsession. No church is perfect; indeed most churches will demonstrate one or two of these signs for a season. But the real danger takes place when a church begins to manifest three or more of these warning signs for an extended period of months and even years.

 1. Worship wars. One or more factions in the church want the music just the way they like it. Any deviation is met with anger and demands for change. The order of service must remain constant. Certain instrumentation is required while others are prohibited.

 2. Prolonged minutia meetings. The church spends an inordinate amount of time in different meetings. Most of the meetings deal with the most inconsequential items, while the Great Commission and Great Commandment are rarely the topics of discussion.

 3. Facility focus. The church facilities develop iconic status. One of the highest priorities in the church is the protection and preservation of rooms, furniture, and other visible parts of the church's buildings and grounds.

 4. Program driven. Every church has programs even if they don't admit it. When we start doing a ministry a certain way, it takes on programmatic status. The problem is not with programs. The problem develops when the program becomes an end instead of a means to greater ministry.

 5. Inwardly focused budget. A disproportionate share of the budget is used to meet the needs and comforts of the members instead of reaching beyond the walls of the church.

 6. Inordinate demands for pastoral care. All church members deserve care and concern, especially in times of need and crisis. Problems develop, however, when church members have unreasonable expectations for even minor matters. Some members expect the pastoral staff to visit them regularly merely because they have membership status.

 7. Attitudes of entitlement. This issue could be a catch-all for many of the points named here. The overarching attitude is one of demanding and having a sense of deserving special treatment.

 8. Greater concern about change than the gospel. Almost any noticeable changes in the church evoke the ire of many; but those same passions are not evident about participating in the work of the gospel to change lives.

 9. Anger and hostility. Members are consistently angry. They regularly express hostility toward the church staff and other members.

 10. Evangelistic apathy. Very few members share their faith on a regular basis. More are concerned about their own needs rather than the greatest eternal needs of the world and community in which they live.

My list is not exhaustive. You may have some items you could add. Have you ever been a part of an inwardly obsessed church? What signs were evident that led you to know the church was inwardly obsessed? Do you affirm some of the items on my list?

Original link here

http://www.christianpost.com/news/the-10-warning-signs-of-an-inwardly-obsessed-church-74292/

Why North American Anglicans are the Way We Are

By the Rev Matt Kennedy,  StandFirm in Faith Blog

In my experience many North American Episcopalians/Anglicans, even from very good orthodox churches, have only a rudimentary concept of what lies between Genesis 1 and Revelation 22 - and, worse, little desire to learn. Here are seven reasons (among many) why we are the way we are:

1. Many life-long Anglicans/Episcopalians have grown up with short devotional/poetic homilies only tangentially related to a biblical text rather than biblical exposition. This has bred a passionless, incurious, passive approach to giving and listening to sermons, engaging in bible study, and reading the bible.

2. Driven by the charismatic renewal movement in the late sixties and the growing severity of doctrinal disputes in the Episcopal Church, many Episcopal leaders began to focus on creating a “spiritual experience” to the exclusion of teaching biblical doctrine and ensuring that people understand what Christians believe and why. This created feeling-focused congregations hungry for mountain-top experiences, too impatient for the long slow work of reading, marking and inwardly digesting the word of God.

3. Many Anglican/Episcopal priests distrust the sufficiency of the word of God for the growth (Mk 4:1-20), health (2 Tim 3:16) and sanctification of the church (Jn 17:17), depending rather exclusively on the liturgy and the sacraments to do the work Jesus assigns to the word. This distrust carries the added benefit of making Sunday morning very easy on the priest. Just go through the liturgy and you’re done. This has created many congregations that consider themselves “eucharistically centered” but in reality have no interest in or desire for God’s self revelation in scripture. The readings and sermon are a prelude to the really important part of worship.

Read it all

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/28746

UPDATED: McConnell Elected as TEC-Pgh Bishop on 6th Ballot: Announced at Approx. 3:20 PM EDT today

In the spirit of the "Dewey defeats Truman" headline in the 1948 presidential election, let me say, my self-styled expertise as a election prognosticator is greatly over-rated. After the deadlocked third ballot,I had predicted R. Stanley Runnells would be elected Bishop of the TEC-Pgh Diocese and I was absolutely wrong! The laity jumped over to Dorsey McConnell rather than the clergy moving to Runnells as I had predicted would happen. As Gomer Pyle used to say: "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise" What do I know. All I can say is: God bless him. Bishop-elect McConnell has his work cut out for him. Time will tell whether the master reconciller he is touted to be, really is so.

UPDATE 4/23/12: Lionel Deimel is not happy with the way things worked out or were managed by the Convention handlers and by TEC Bishop Price. And funny thing, beleive it or not, it seems "conservative" Phil Wainwright agrees with Lionel. And Phil was just estatic over McConnell's election. WOW

Click here http://blog.deimel.org/2012/04/snatching-defeat-from-jaws-of-victory.html

TEC-Pittsburgh Episcopal Election Is Deadlocked After Just Three Ballots

I don't know if you have been following the election in the TEC-Pittsburgh diocese, well, as might be expected, I have! And it is following true to form. It is deadlocked between the conservative and liberals. The more conservative order, the clergy, are supporting the moderate-conservative Dorsey McConnell and the more liberal order, the laity, are supporting the moderate-liberal R. Stanley Runnells. Each has won in their respective order. The most conservative Scott Quinn and the most liberal Ruth Woodliff-Stanley are still in but neither have enough support remaining to swing the election for McConnell or Runnells respectively. The only way this will be decided is if some of the Runnells lay supporters move to McConnell or some of the McConnell clergy supporters move to Runnells. If the two previous TEC-Pittsburgh Standing Committee elections are any indicator --it will be R. Stanley Runnells who is elected. Results of Ballots #1 #2 #3 here http://www.episcopalpgh.org/bsearch/

A Church Divided: Ruling Ends Va.'s Episcopal Battle

From NPR- (with broadcast audio)

On a bright Sunday morning in the tiny town of Heathsville, Va., Jeffrey Cerar surveys the church he's preached in for the past 15 years — its 130-year-old wooden pews, its stained glass windows, its paschal candles, its cross.

"Virtually everything you see here is going to stay; the high altar, the credence table, the hymnals and books of common prayer will all stay," he says. "The Bibles will go with us."

Cerar, rector of St. Stephen's Anglican Church, is leaving, along with his congregation. They're handing the keys over to their theological rivals, the St. Stephen's Episcopal Church. Earlier this year, a judge ruled that seven conservative Virginia congregations that had split with the Episcopal Church must hand over almost everything they own. It's like the end of a marriage, with people moving out and splitting up assets — even its own long, ugly battle.

More here-

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/10/150351713/a-church-divided-ruling-ends-va-s-episcopal-battle

Bomb free Holy Week and Easter in Jos, Nigeria

The Archbishop Jos, Ben Kwashi, is a great friend and supporter of our Diocese and the rector of St James Anglican Church in Penn Hills, Doug Sherman, is a Canon in the Diocese of Kaduna under Bishop Lamino

April 9th, 2012

Amazingly, the symbolic Easter miracle happened here on Good Friday when we had our first rain for about six months. The dust covered trees shone green again, and plants which were thinking about dying began to hope . . . If we were to have another rain now, there would soon be a carpet of green. The speed with which the transformation happens always takes my breath away. New Life just breaks in !

Praise God also for a bomb-free Holy Week and Easter in Jos. Security is high; no motorbikes allowed in town; many roads closed; barriers, and huge bollards around every church, and check points all over. But it is definitely worth it! I usually manage to escape the long lines at check points as I leave very early (around six) in order to play for the 7am service (would be 8am in UK!). Many people come late to church because it takes so long to get from one place to another, but the attendance this morning was quite encouraging – especially considering the effort that it will have taken many of them to come (lack of public transport etc.). The sustained praying that is going on here, together with the prayers of you and so many others around the world are making a big impact. Thank you for praying – please continue!

We are just hearing that there were 1 or 2 car bombs in Kaduna this morning (another State capital, about three hours drive away from Jos, and a city where there have previously been riots and troubles). It seems that the explosions happened close to, but not at, a church, which may mean that those killed were those who unfortunately simply happened to be passing by the wrong place at the wrong moment. I cannot get any first hand information and details yet.

May you know the peace, the joy and the hope of the Risen Christ.

From here

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/2012/04/09/bomb-free-holy-week-and-easter-in-jos-nigeria/