Thursday, June 24, 2010

For believers only?

Dan Edelen makes the case against viewing worship services as a means of evangelism:
When I consider the state of the American Church, I’ve got to think that our emphasis on encouraging lost people to come to our church meetings has only succeeded in diluting our ultimate effectiveness. As it is said: The good is often the enemy of the best.

The early Church model was to send believers out, beyond the doors of the assembly. They shared Christ out in the streets. When the lost outside responded to the message and became believers, they were brought into the church assembly proper.

Today, though, we have believers bringing the lost into the church assembly with the hopes that the church leaders will convert them.
Dan goes on to give three brief and fairly compelling reasons for not using worship as evangelism.

On the other hand, the Apostle Paul seems to make the opposite case (albeit as an illustration for another main topic) in 1 Corinthians 14:20-25.