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Author Topic: Counting Sheep  (Read 4865 times)
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« on: September 08, 2010, 09:52:15 pm »

Something that many people have commented on, here on this discussion board, is how GC churches are motivated by an unusually strong need to draw in more members -- preach the gospel, see people saved, draw them in, and make disciples of them, so that they can go out and continue the process. I have no doubt that we all experienced the pressure to proselytize, in one form or another, back in our GC days.

What I'm wondering about is what distinguishes GC churches from other churches (or even other kinds of groups, for that matter) in this particular regard. I've attended many different kinds of churches myself, and I have yet to encounter one that didn't suffer at least a little bit from that nagging need to bring in more people. In fact, I can recall one lovely group of believers who had grown in number so fast that they couldn't all fit into their church at the same time, so their poor, exhausted minister had to hold THREE services every Sunday... and yet, there they were, holding meetings to brainstorm ways to bring in new members. Too funny. How did they ever get stuck in that mindset?

But back to GC. How did these people take that particular mindset, and ramp it up to another order of magnitude? I'd be interested to hear what the rest of you think.
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AgathaL'Orange
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« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2010, 04:54:06 am »

I think it all centers around the Great Commission.  They want to see more people saved.  My belief is that they do this somewhat dishonestly with a bait and switch.  I also believe that the theology is shallow, very focused on outward appearances, and with little attention paid to elements of the faith beyond obedience and proselytizing. 
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EverAStudent
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« Reply #2 on: September 10, 2010, 09:01:33 am »

There is nothing inapprorpiate about evangelism, not even enthusiastic and energetic churchwide evangelism.  This GC did very well.

What GC did not understand was the proper end goal of evangelism.  Jesus wanted every person to become a disciple and to develop their individual spiritual gifts.  These gifts all result in the church providing for itself encouragement, concern, Bible scholars, educators, administrators, unprompted acts of love and kindness, unreciprocated acts of generosity, counseling to restore strained family relationships, etc.  All of this, if done well, is not tied directly to evangelism but is tied to developing holiness as the goal in life--to become conformed to the image of Christ.

GC tended to think all activities were, or had to be, functionally linked to evangelism.  To GC evangelism (and making evangelists) was the end goal of discipleship.  For that reason they saw the Great Commission as primarily a call to evangelism, hence their name's sake. 

However, the Great Commission begins with a call to evangelize, but evangelism's goal is the training of disciples to become holy and to live holy.  A holy disciple will evangelize, but that is not their sum-goal as disciples, at least, not for most.  It is the lack of understanding by GC that God works everything out in human life to advance a personal holiness (to be conformed to the image of Christ) instead of to advance evangelism that causes GC to become unbalanced.
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