Instead of “How many members do you have?” or “How many are you running in Sunday School?” or “What’s your Sunday morning attendance?” or “What was the attendance of your last special day?” or “How many kids were at camp this year?” or “How are the offerings?” biblical questions would look like the following: Are we seeing life-changing conversions of sinners? What percentage of those who have professed Christ have gone on to be baptized and to grow in Christ and serve Him? What percentage of our members are real Bible students? What percentage faithfully, enthusiastically attend prayer meetings? What percentage of our homes are holy and separated from the world? What percentage of our homes are effectually raising their children for Christ? What percentage of the husbands are the spiritual leaders of their homes and are modeling a serious walk with Christ, Bible study, prayer, love for souls, ministry in the church? What percentage of the wives are modest and spiritual keepers at home? What percentage of the children in the homes are properly disciplined and biblically educated? What percentage of the church’s youth are on fire for the Lord, meaning surrendered to Christ and separated from the world from the heart and testing their friends, music, and social media by God’s Word and being transformed by the renewing of the mind by being serious Bible students and seeking to prove the perfect will of God according to the path of Romans 12? What percentage of the members are actively seeking to share the gospel and win people to Christ as the ambassadors God has called them to be? Does the church have an aggressive program to reach everyone in the community and beyond with the gospel? What percentage of the members participate? Is the church holding the line against the world’s music and contemporary Christian music? Is the church being properly educated in this important issue? Is the church seeing men called to preach and is it training men for the ministry? Is the church spiritually stronger today than it was 10 years ago? Is the church starting other sound churches? Is it multiplying itself? If these are the type of questions that preachers are asking, they will have different goals, different plans, different programs, different emphases than most churches today. And they will be laying a foundation to avoid the great collapse that we see on every hand. We live in an apostate age, but we don’t have to be apostate. We don’t have to go with the flow.
(Friday Church News Notes, May 20, 2022, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)