"I'd rather do a little right than a lot wrong". That was the wisdom of days gone by, wisdom lost to this generation. Nowhere is this more painful to watch than in the church world. It seems we have adopted "bigger is better" philosophy completely. It doesn't matter that we do things well, we just do a lot of whatever we do. Our vision is "big", our quality is suspect. With this philosophy, an artist doesn't just paint one great picture, he paint twenty bad ones and feels successful because of numbers. This philosophy is the end of artistic greatness, quality manufacturing, and even successful church or Christianity.
Want a painful example? The command to "go ye" that we evangelical and Pentecostals just love, was actually not a command to go win lost souls. It was a command to go ye and make disciples. In the church world, this misreading of the command has become our "great commission". "Win the lost at any cost" Of course, you have to win a soul in order to make a disciple and that we should do with fervor, but that isn't the command. The command is to make disciples. That is where church and leadership are supposed to invest themselves. They are to bring believers to maturity, to make disciples. Today, leaders seem more concerned with just getting the sheep into the building. And, the discipling that does get done seems to be to just teach the same philosophy. Go ye and collect people!
I once made this statement "I would rather pastor ten people in a shack who have been taught to love God, to know God, and live pleasing to Him than ten thousand in a mega church who don't love God, don't know their God and live as they want to live". Some thought that was a crazy idea. They thought just getting a lot of people in the church, by whatever means, was a better measure of success. This points out a classic error of religion: to do, without knowing why you do. This error has swept across the church for many, many generations greatly affecting the shape of what we now are as a corporate body. We win souls without knowing why, we sing without knowing why, we build without knowing why, etc. The eyes of our understanding remain closed and so, we just do what we do and do a lot of it.
What if you get a lot of people saved, or in the building at least, and never teach a one to worship? God's purpose in saving us was not just so we could escape hell, but that we would worship Him. "God seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth". Of course, we will miss hell if we are saved, but that isn't why God saved us. This salvation plan isn't based on His pity. It is not merely a rescue effort. God's salvation plan is based on His love for us and desire to be loved by us. So, what if you have ten thousand who don't, won't, can't worship God "in spirit and in truth"? Will God say "Well done"? What if you get a sinner saved, dress him up, teach him to say "Amen" but he still sins at will? What have you done, really? Will God say "well done"?
I remember a famous evangelist, ejected from his denomination because he came into deliverance and Holy Ghost baptism saying something he discovered as a result, "The church is full of the meanest people on earth". If that be true, and sometimes it seems that way, it is because we have collected lots of heads and no hearts. We have failed at discipleship, the great "go ye" command. Most of the church messes you can put your finger on, at the heart of the problem is that we have substituted quantity for quality. Discipleship is not story telling, it is not exciting people with the daring adventurous stories of the Old Testament. It is say "this is the way, walk in it".
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