Mega-Churches That Are Merely Storehouses

An evangelist from a third world country was having a time of fellowship with the senior Pastor of a chain of Mega-Churches from a Western country. Before they parted company, the evangelist made the following statement: “Your Local Churches are only storehouses, storing people for hell”. It was without doubt that the senior Pastor was very much offended. This incident happened more than 12 years ago.

To some people this might appear a shocking statement, but somehow I have reasons to believe that the evangelist was actually speaking the truth. In fact he had made a prophetic statement. With the present New Age movement Local Mega-Churches are mushrooming all over the world! These Mega-Churches not only have large worship sanctuaries they have ultra modern convention centers as well.

How to build a Mega-Church

If it is your “goal and vision” to build a Local Mega-Church then all you need is money and some imagination and creativity. Here are the steps:

1. Spend plenty of money to rebuild your present Church building and equip it with all the facilities (including facilities for youths and young kids) of a country club. Money spent will be recovered very quickly. People who wish to be members of any country club need to pay costly entrance fees and monthly subscription. They are usually wealthy people. But if they can get to enjoy all these facilities for free in a Church, there is no reason why they should not quit going to the country club. Furthermore, they receive all the blessings that a Church offer.

2. Send out faithful and persuasive Church members to invite people to join your Church. Remember not to ask about people’s religious background – whether they are Christians or not or whether they are members of any other Local Churches or not. Be extremely friendly and do their best to build a good personal relationship with new comers. Give them an impression that your Church is indeed an interfaith religious institution. Do not offend anybody. To lead new comers to say the “Sinner’s Prayer” is not advisable. This might frighten them away. Get them water baptized quickly. Make sure you do not mention “repentance” but encouraged them to treasure their new life in Christ. Whether they believe you or not and whether they need to confess their sins or not are not important issues. The important thing is to ensure them of their salvation – tell them they are now saved by the act of water baptism. Tell them all of them will go to heaven because they are now the Bride of Christ.

3. When the new comers begin to enjoy the fellowship of your Church slowly but firmly persuade them to give tithes. Put some fear in them. Show them the Old Testament Scripture about robbing God (Malachi 3:8). Preach a few sermons on the topic of tithing. If they are slow to take heed tell them their business might fail if they refuse to tithe properly and regularly. Tell them God might punish them and inflict them and their family members with incurable diseases if they continue to rob God.

4. Never preach repentance or end-time prophecies. Avoid teaching “hell” and the new birth. Instead, tell them they are wonderful, they are good people and God loves them as they are. Tell them their spiritual Church family is more important than their physical home family so than people come from broken families will not be offended. Show them genuine Christian love. You must ensure every sermon preached from the pulpit is an “itching ears” sermon or the sermon they love to hear.

5. Get them involved in a Church growth/development campaign. Statistics are made available by organizations specializing in studying the growth pattern of thousands of Churches all over the world with various cultures and customs. This is a good way to understand the behavioral pattern of the Universal Church. From these statistics a principle of growth is derived. Using this principle the Local Church will be able to discover the areas of strength and weakness. Spend time and energy on the weak areas and try to achieve a balance. The ultimate goal is to increase the numerical growth rate. It must be good if you believe Mega-Church means a “mega” number of Christians.

The Biblical New Testament Local Church

The “Church” is an “assembly of people” called out from the present world order to serve Jesus Christ and to be prepared by Him to become the collective instrument of the government which He will establish in the next age. The fact that Church people are Christian people called out from the world order means you can never let the world come into the Church to defile the Church.

The apostle Paul described the Church as “His (Christ’s) body” (read Ephesians 1:22, 23). Seen in this light, the Church is not an organization (much less a social club) but an organism. Each member of this body is directly related by personal faith to Christ, as its Head, and through Him to all the other members.

Here are some of my observations concerning the true Church of Jesus Christ:

1. Over the centuries, the true concept of the New Testament Body of Christ has been corrupted and distorted. The Church as it is known today bears little or no resemblance to the original model established in the New Testament beginning from the Book of Acts.

2. Many of those who consider themselves as members of today’s Local Church have no living, personal relationship with Christ, and are often at enmity with other professing Christians. Only a small minority of those who are currently called Christians are members of the Church which is described in the New Testament.

3. Members of Christ’s Body must remember what Paul said: “Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.’” (2 Tim. 2:19, NKJV, emphasis added). In other words, the true Church has two distinguishing characteristics:

a. God, and God alone, knows all those who are truly His.

b. Everyone who claims to be member of His Church is required to demonstrate it by a life of practical righteousness and holiness.

4. You have probably heard this: “Going to Church does not make you a Christian just like going to a garage does not make you a car.” Only born again believers can be true Christians and therefore you cannot invite non-Christians and non-water-baptized people to be members of the Local Church. By careful study of the Book of Acts you will realize that every believer was born again and water baptized before they joined the Local Church. According to the Scripture unbelievers have the “spirit (unclean) who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). The Church being the temple of God is holy and it must not be defiled by any unclean spirit (1 Cor. 3:16).

5. The Church does not save and the act of water baptism does not save (please read my earlier Posting – “Understanding Water Baptism”). Therefore by going to Church does not make a person a Christian. Similarly by ministering the act of water baptism does not make a person a Christian. A person must repent and believe before he is qualified to be water baptized (Acts 2:38).

6. God ordained three structures to be built for His glory by His people - The Tabernacle of David, The Temple of Solomon and the Church of Jesus Christ. All three are related; but the first two are physical structures and the Church is a spiritual Structure. All three are built by divine pattern with divine provision and for a divine purpose. David got the pattern for the Temple of Solomon by the Spirit of God (1 Chronicles 28:12). Similar the spiritual pattern for the Church of Jesus Christ is given by the Spirit of God. Men are not called to build any Church, whether a mega-Church or a small Church without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit!

The New Testament Salvation

The whole process of the New Testament salvation consists of justification, regeneration, sanctification and glorification in this order. It is beyond the scope of this message to consider salvation as a continuous process. We shall consider salvation in its most basic meaning – the “initiation” act of entering a life of faith in Christ.

Basically, salvation means the translation of a person from the kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of God. Therefore, being “saved” means being “salvaged from sins” rather than being “saved from hell” even though the latter is the result of the former.

Jesus is called the Messiah because He would save the people from their sin:

The angel of the Lord said to Joseph, “And she (Mary) will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

The New Testament makes it plain that the experience of salvation comes to each soul only as a result of personal response to the gospel.

Paul explained that salvation comes to a person through believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth the truth of the gospel:

“That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9, 10).

The born again experience that Jesus spoke about in John 3:3 is further made clear by the apostle John:

“He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in Hin name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:11 – 13, NKJV, emphasis added).

In other words, the active response to the gospel is personally receiving Christ. The result of this response of faith is becoming a child of God, or “being born of God”. Each person must make his own response; no person can make the response required from another person. Each person will be either saved or lose solely by his own response.

Entrance into the God’s Kingdom

Let me summarize the basic facts of the Gospel and the response which each person is required to make:

1. Christ was delivered by God the Father to the punishment of death on account of our sins.

2. Christ was buried.

3. God raised Him from the dead on the third day.

4. Righteousness is received from God through believing these facts.

If you are one of those who are afraid of offending an unbeliever by telling him that he needs to confess his sin, look at it the Scriptural way:

Paul said, “Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death” (2 Cor. 7:9, 10, NKJV, emphasis added).

Conclusion

If you are truly convinced what the Scripture says about the Church, salvation and the born-again experience surely you will also be convinced that the way of building Mega-Churches is entirely of man’s idea without Scriptural basis and is an abomination to the Lord!