Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Preaching: The Heart of a Biblical Church Growth Philosophy - Johnson, JOFMM Spring 2004

Americans love success stories, and huge churches epitomize
success in a massive way. Mega-churches have congregations that
are made up of the young, the popular, and the materially wealthy.
They represent everything you and I wanted to be when we grew
up. And wherever you find the mega-church these days, you will
usually find pragmatism.
Pragmatism is the theory that the importance of any method
must be measured in practical terms by its success or failure. The
pragmatist is somewhat less concerned with the truth or falsehood
of any given proposition or approach than it is with its effectiveness.
The main question is, “Does it work?” In other words, the
pragmatist is driven by methodology, not theology.
Pragmatic approaches to church growth have especially flourished
in America, partly because pragmatism is so deeply rooted in
our culture’s national consciousness; but also because this kind of
pragmatism has been responsible for the rise of a new generation
of mega-churches admired and envied by many American evangelicals...

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