Church leaders urged to bridge gaps

DALLAS—To bridge the spiritual and cultural gaps in churches and ministries, Christians first need bridge gaps in their thinking and realign their thoughts with the Bible, speakers told the Texas Baptist Men fall convention.

John SnyderObvious problems in churches may be symptoms of less-obvious deeper issues, said John Snyder, pastor of Christ Church in New Albany, Miss. He compared American evangelicals to people sitting in a room who look at a nearby wall and notice a crack running through it. While their initial response is to “spackle and paint” the problem, that will not fix the underlying issue, he said.

“If the crack is caused by a foundational problem, you know the crack will just reappear again and again and again,” Snyder explained. Similarly, “if we don’t deal primarily with the spiritual gap, then everything we do becomes shallow, and our efforts become ineffective.”

Dealing with root issues

Snyder acknowledged finding “time and spiritual energy to stop and deal with the root issues that lie at the bottom of our spiritual gaps” can be difficult.

Henry BlackabyBut it’s something the people of God have to do, said Henry Blackaby, co-author of the Experiencing God discipleship curriculum.

“God doesn’t make suggestions,” Blackaby said. God gives commands that serve as the foundation of a Christian’s life and ministry.

“How would you describe your life?” he asked. “Do you diligently seek to understand what Christ has commanded and then diligently seek to practice in your life everything that he has commanded? We call him ‘Lord’ but often do not do anything that he commands us.”

And that’s where gaps form, speakers agreed.

To fix these gaps, Snyder said, Christians and ministries often respond in one of two ways— “conservatism” or “relativism.”

Christian conservatives see a moral decline and think the answer is to erect more rules and standards, but that cannot “fix the nation,” he said. The solution involves more than rules and regulations, Snyder insisted. It requires falling in love with the person of God, with his truth and with his way.

Christian relativism

On the flip side, Christian relativists try to “save the world by relating to the world,” Snyder said. They think they’re not making an impact on people in the world because non-Christians can’t relate to them.

“The question is: When we get everyone to attend our relativistic churches, does God ever attend?” Synder asked. “There is one person you cannot afford to be irrelevant to—it’s God. Everyone else is optional.”

Ministries may need “radical work,” but the work doesn’t necessarily call for “extreme changes,” he asserted.

“The problem with extreme changes is, they’re never extreme enough,” Synder said. “I could grow a soul patch. I could change the way I talk. But if I only change the exterior, I haven’t really done what’s necessary to make a lasting change.”

Christians need to go deeper to find the root issue, which originates in their thinking, “because who you think God to be will determine everything about how you carry out your ministry,” he said.

Many Christians allow a gap to exist between their concept of who God is and what the Bible says about him, he continued. So, they limit God in their minds.

Getting to know God

“Like Job, we all need to be introduced to God in a way that radically alters us,” Snyder said. “Your job is to get to know God. Get to know him better than you know anybody else.”

The good news is there doesn’t have to be a gap, he added, though there often is “a normal gap” in one’s life as God leads them and teaches them by the Spirit.

“Sadly, because we’re not perfect, there is a gap between what he’s teaching us and where we’re at,” he said.

He recommended each Christian engage in the “methodical lifelong task” of “searching through the Bible, getting those truths out and dusting them off … and then finding a way to apply them to my life, my home, ministry and service.”