Agree. But there is always a balance. We need to be theologians and at the same time we must know that we can live with a cold dead orthodoxy.

The balance is theology and paying attention to our inner landscape. We must be abiding in the VINE, live in the Spirit, or else it just becomes a dead, cold orthodoxy.

“How do we counter false ideas? By preaching and teaching true doctrine. But the simple fact remains that we cannot preach what we don’t know.”

This is not true. We counter false ideas by exposing them openly and explaining from the Bible why they are false. As for true doctrine, are you really saying you don’t know what true doctrine is? That is sad, but perhaps it is an attempt to be pious and humble.

[...] world isn’t in much of a better condition than it was when Noll first wrote those words.  Here is a fairly good analysis on the current “evangelical [...]

If you were to look at the church historically, this “discipleship” issue has not been “corrected” since we created the monologue teaching method found in most modern churches. Discipleship should be personal, intentional and transformational. We must recover the “discipline” of disciple making…Jesus spent more time with a few good men to prepare them for their ministry…He used dialogue to do this…

Michael, this is a great post. I believe its relevance extends beyond evangelicals to Christians all over the world, in many different denominations and sects.

Mark Noll’s book was both visionary and prophetic (in the non-supernatural sense).

You gotta read: “Revival and Revivalism” by Ian Murray. This is a much deeper historic look at how the turn of evangelicalism from deeper intellect to popular preaching happened in the 1800s. This book explains much of evangelicalism’s methods today.

Dana

Re. Willow Creek Model’s “failure” –not quite so fast!

I googled the quotes referenced in the blog on Willow Creek’s philosophy of ministry and found the article. It does not appear to prove the point. It may be correct in its assertion that some of their high-dollar activities statistically do not produce as many spiritually mature Christians as other non-high-dollar activities. However, this provides no data to compare Willow Creek’s supposed failure with other church models! An internal relative assessment only provides a relative assessment of internals. ANY undertaking has some statistically better and and some worse efforts, that alone does not tell how good the undertaking is overall. Point being, the worst day of stats at Willow might be better than the best year at an average evangelical church. No data is presented to compare Willow’s “spiritual maturities” vis a vis other churches “spiritual maturities” statistics and models, which is what the article purports to assert! Who’s “spiritual maturity” stats are better than Willow’s, tell me?? That’s the question that needs study to assert the article’s conclusion. I bet you could not name a single evangelical church in the country that has attempted to do a formal analysis of which of their programs produces how much spiritual fruit. I’ll bet it’s the rare seminary as well! And for that analysis it’s deemed a failure?? To me Willow is light years ahead for even asking the question!

Dana

Brothers & Sisters in Christ
1] NEVER USE EMOTION AS THE CRITERION OF VALIDATION
2] NEVER USE EXPERIENCE AS THE CRITERION OF VALIDATION
3] Always use Bible Doctrine as the Criterion of Validation.
4] Your feelings negate the Mind of Christ.
5] Our experiences are so limited when compared to Doctrine they should be seen as they are: inconsequential. Doctrine is the Key. Our interpretation apart from Doctrine is invalid at best and serves Satan at worst by misleading less knowledgeable Christians.
6] The Love of God is in Free Will, His towards us from Eternity and ours back to Him in time by LEARNING BIBLE DOCTRINE DAILY.

“Study to show thyself a workman that needeth not to be ASHAMED, rightly dividing the Word of Truth” you can’t divide what you do not know as epignosis.

all the organizations that deviate from legitimate study/dissemination of the Word FAIL God in every way. HIS Word is for US to learn, not make up silly clubs and such. LEARN DOCTRINE DAILY SO YOU CAN APPLY THE WORD AND LOVE IN THE GOD ORIENTED MANNER HE PROSCRIBES FOR US. Don’t make stuff up and expect it to succeed. We have the Mind of Christ and had better learn it: there is a Test.

God Blesses us and keeps us.

[...] a book that I have not read, but one that I should read.  There was a post the other day on the Reclaiming the Mind blog about The Scandal of the Evangelical [...]

When I was thinking about not being agnostic any more, a friend suggested my wife and I go with her family to their Evangelical church. We agreed. On the way over, my wife asked her, “So, what do you believe here? What do you teach?”

She said, “Well, you know, we believe the Bible and everything is from the Bible. It’s all Bible-based.”

Great music, super preacher, solid portfolio of family and youth support. But there is a difference between “relevant” and “true.” And, in my opinion, too many Evangelical churches make the mistake of focusing on their relevance.