Evangelicals

For the first time in my life I am attending a non-evangelical church. We decided for the time being to attend church with our son’s family where they are actively serving the Lord through being on the worship team and outreach ministries of the church. In some ways I am an evangelical invading a mainline denomination. Some things are different in the worship service. Some of the hymns I never heard before and others are familiar. Our pastor does an excellent job of integrating hymns with worship choruses which I appreciate. Elements of the liturgy have not been a regular part of my past experience. The prayer of confession, the Apostle’s Creed, the Gloria Patri and the Doxology are becoming more meaningful to me each week. (Full disclosure, Pam grew up in a mainline denomination and feels at home with her memories of the past.)

What makes an Evangelical? Short answer might include actively winning souls (evangelizing), interpreting Scripture conservatively, belief in the inerrancy and authority of the Bible, etc.  I was born and raised a Pentecostal, joined the Christian and Missionary Alliance as teenager, where I was mentored into ministry by a beloved pastor, and through various courses of events became credentialed with the Missionary Church, and served as a youth director and senior pastor of four churches under their auspices since 1973, the last 31+ years at the Church of Genesis, a nondenominational, independent “evangelical” church. I guess that makes me a hard core evangelical.

Prior to my teen years there was great judgment imbeded in the way mainline denominations were portrayed.  During the 60’s all kinds of liberal theology and thought began to seep in. The “God is Dead” movement was sweeping society.  Culture was changing at breakneck speed. God was more than ever being compartmentalized from society. Bible reading and The Lord’s Prayer were removed from classrooms, only to name a few.

What did many evangelicals do? In my opinion, we withdrew from society. We abdicated what we claimed to be about. We retreated to our safe havens (churches) and tried to rescue people by getting them into our safe haven.” “Come apart and be separate”was our mandate. A missionary spoke at one of the churches I pastored and questioned the message of the hymn, “Hold the Fort (for I am coming).” He admonished the church to get out of the church and do what God called us to do. It seems to me that judgmentalism caused the Pentecostals to hate Baptists, Catholics and liberal denominations. What was missing was one of the key verses in our “witnessing manual” the Romans Road: “If we confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we shall be saved.” 

Labeling is unnecessary and can be abusive. I believe God expects us to be misional, to make disciples. We all can do better. And evangelicals aren’t the only ones doing it.