What I am saying in essence (to stir the pot even more) is that church growth is unimportant as a church issue, possibly even potentially destructive.

That’s a bold statement but I agree.

I believe that nowhere in the NT does it mentions the growth of either the local church in question or the universal church. There’s thanksgiving that there’s growth but it’s not a concern. It’s a good point.

Perhaps it’s because of the weak faith of our church leaders. They want to reassure themselves of their faith so they try to generate miraculous growth to confirm that what they’re doing is approved by God. If they had confidence in their faith, they would not care if their church membership dwindled to only a handful, so long as they had sought only the will of God, right?

For the first part of your reply we could head off in the Old/New Convenant discussion direction, or the view on Christ as the effective center of both, but that is not where I was pointing and those are huge discussions in themselves.

You seem to be getting my point in the second part of your reply. As I said in the post, I am not proposing that practical advice is either bad or non-biblical. It is clearly appropriate as part of the mix. But the key phrase here is ‘as part of’.

if they are consistently hearing messages that are more appropriate in Psychology Today, there is a major problem.

There ya’ go! But it is not the extreme of Psychology Today (though from what I hear and read that is not uncommon). That would be obvious and easy to ignore. It is less obvious when the focus slowly slides 99% to life skills and church growth. This material can be very interesting and often very popular, making it very seductive in pleasing people. It also, and this is my concern, can quickly and quietly replace the preaching of the Gospel and the Lord as the focus.

This is happening in many places and is written about widely. My purpose here, other than to make my stand against it, is to challenge anyone reading to evaluate if they are seeing it in their assembly. Is they are, then they will hopefully recognize that there might be a problem.

As to it being a slippery slope, I think it is a big one. As I said, the practical has a rightful and quite biblical place. However, in the modern church that place has often supplanted both the Lord and the Scripture for all practical purposes. The words may be there, but the focus is not. That, to me, is a very sloppery slope. This is particularly the case when the desire for church growth becomes too much of a focus., which is very common today as financial and program pressures on assemblies grow dramatically.

What I am saying in essence (to stir the pot even more) is that church growth is unimportant as a church issue, possibly even potentially destructive. It is the Lord’s issue, and he will take care of it in His own time if we concentrate on Him and the Word. What happens today to one degree or another is often exactly the reverse. Maybe I will start a thread around this in the future, but I would just be repeating the work and words of many others.

But what about books like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes? It would be hard to say that they do not preach a secular type of wisdom: how to live, how a marriage should be, how to spend money, the difference between a wise man and a fool, the unfairness of life, etc… God is mentioned but is not the focus. There is certainly nothing specific to Yahweh or Christ. A Hindu or even an atheist would probably find them relevant.

And although James says that being friends with the world makes you the enemy of God, he does give much very practical advice for his audience. He even gives advice on how to make newcomers to the church feel welcome. Is James too focused on congregation building?

Aside from Ephesians and Colossians, which are highly Christocentric yet both still full of practical advice, the writers of the NT did not focus solely on Christ alone or Scripture alone. Aren’t you saying that preachers need to be more spiritual than the authors of the Bible?

Of course, if they are consistently hearing messages that are more appropriate in Psychology Today, there is a major problem. But I disagree that it has no respectable place in preaching or that it is the first step on a slippery slope.