The Church Selling Ideas That Don’t Work

The town is dusty and a tumbleweed rolls down the center of the dirt, rutted main street. A few men sit talking, whittling and having siestas outside of the placard hotel. The saloon is empty and the General Store is bustling. There is a group of people outside of the diner surrounding a covered wagon emblazoned with “Doctor Miracle’s Snake Oil Heals All.” Hopeful and hopeless townspeople, ranchers and hands gather to find a solution to their ails or to set aside some medicine for the children. They have not met this man before but they anxiously listen to his claims and buy his “miracle cure.” He will not come this way again, for soon most will find out that the remedy doesn’t work as people don’t get well and others take ill. Guns will be drawn and promises of “a hanging” will be yelled. The healer will be long gone. A few will experience no cure or coincidental cure but despite fact, they will claim that this “miracle” really works. They will hoard their snake oil and refuse to admit that they have been scammed.

Interestingly this same scene is played out again and again over time. Every time that I drive to Florida, I pass the “Emu Oil Sold Here – Heals Naturally” billboard outside a small shop. There is claimed cure after cure. Healing services that are shamefully centered on the healer are at one end of the spectrum. Conservative and intelligent Christians hate these highly publicized, often caught in trickery, false cure services. They are disgusted by the “healer” measuring his success based on dollars and attendance. They know that what this “healer” sells will not work for the people long term even if a percentage claim that it does.

Isn’t it interesting though, these same Christians sell ideas that don’t work to church members Sunday after Sunday. And those same conservative Christians buy idea after idea that doesn’t work. Sure there are some that still claim that the ideas work but real fact says otherwise.

If the ideas sold by most Christian Leaders worked, why haven’t they worked themselves out of business? If the conferences have changed all the pastors, then why are there still conferences? Why is it that the topic of this year's conference is the same as one held four or eight years ago? The natural answer is, “Well, people are constantly coming to Christ and becoming believers and need to be trained!” Unfortunately, statistics tell a different story. The most productive and spiritually growing portion of the church is the new Christian. They self feed, consume everything they can find and are excited about their faith. But that portion of the church is only about 10% per year if that (lower estimates of 3-5% new growth exist).

Revival after revival, message after message the same “life changing truths” go out. Christian pastors, leaders and teachers will tell you of their frustration at getting “Christians” to attend, learn and adapt to the eternal truths of their Father God. Leaders blame the people and the people blame the leaders and the cycle continues. Why don’t the answers work? Most of the leaders have a plan, a claim and method but if they were judged like snake oil salesmen, they would end up swinging from a tree. If the ideas we propose work, then why don’t they work? How can the church serve up idea after idea with no result?

The problem may sometimes be the false ideas that are taught but I think more often it is not that the truth is not taught. Even the modern, evangelical, conservative Church continues to pursue goals of numerical and sustained growth and deploys strategies to achieve those goals. Very few churches measure themselves as to how successful they are at leading people to a true life of discipleship to Jesus. That measure would require that the leaders step down and the people leave knowing that all was lost.

So many of the ideas that are proposed and the knowledge that is taught will simply not work because they are the wrong ideas and knowledge. Even the right ideas are often spoken by ministries that don’t live by those ideas. When are we as leaders going to wake up and ask ourselves, “What are we doing here? Billions of dollars, thousands of books and we have the same or worse circumstance that we had last year! What are we doing? How effective are we when so few lives, even of those that claim Christ, are really changed year to year? We sell the same ideas and books to the same people year after year and feel good about it. What?”

The Church and its Leaders should be embarrassed by the lack of effectiveness per dollar and hour invested. The Church and its Leaders need a final revival where they all find God and never walk away again. Perhaps it is time to stop selling ideas of church and personal growth and instead teach the truths of God in such a way that people decide to or not to follow. Perhaps it is God’s ideas and not man’s that work.