Cheap Grace vs. Saving Grace

WHAT IS CHEAP GRACE?
"Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like a cheapjack's wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut-rate prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! And the essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite.
What would grace be, if it were not cheap?
. . . In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. . .
Cheap grace means the justification of sin [i.e. making the sin alright] without the justification of the sinner [making the person right].
Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.
p. 42

. . . Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance [a turning away of heart, mind and living from the sin], (it is) baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."
p. 43-44

WHAT IS SAVING (COSTLY) GRACE

"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake of one will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.
It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.
It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.
Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. . .
. . . Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "my yoke is easy and my burden light."
p. 45

Dietrich Bonhoeffer,

The Cost of Discipleship (Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.,

WHEN I, LIKE ELIJAH, WANT TO FLEE FROM MY CALLING

Excerpts from Matthew Henry's Commentary on First Kings 19:9-14

The visit God paid to [Elijah] there and the enquiry he made concerning him: The word of the Lord came to him. We cannot go any where to be out of the reach of God's eye, his arm, and his word. Whither can I flee from thy Spirit? Ps. 139:7, &c. God will take care of his out-casts; and those who, for his sake, are driven out from among men, he will find, and own, and gather with everlasting loving-kindnesses. John saw the visions of the Almighty when he was in banishment in the isle of Patmos, Rev. 1:9.
The question God puts to the prophet it, What doest thou here, Elijah? 5:9, and again 5:13. This is a reproof:

1. For his fleeing hither. "What brings thee so far from home? Dost thou flee from Jezebel? Couldst thou not depend upon almighty power for thy protection?" Lay the emphasis upon the pronoun thou. "What thou! So great a man, so great a prophet, so famed for resolution—dost thou flee thy country, forsake thy colors thus?" This cowardice would have been more excusable in another, and not so bad an example. Should such a man as I flee? Neh. 6:11. Howl, fir-trees, if the cedars be thus shaken. 
2. For his fixing here. "What doest thou here, in this cave? Is this a place for a prophet of the Lord to lodge in? Is this a time for such men to retreat, when the public has such need of them?" In the retirement to which God sent Elijah (ch. 17.) he was a blessing to a poor widow at Sarepta, but here he had no opportunity of doing good. Note, It concerns us often to enquire whether we be in our place and in the way of our duty. "Am I where I should be, whither God calls me, where my business lies, and where I may be useful?"

The account [Elijah] gives of himself, in answer to the question put to him (v. 10), and repeated, in answer to the same question, v. 14.

1. He excuses his retreat, and desires it may not be imputed to his want of zeal for reformation, but to his despair of success. For God knew, and his own conscience witnessed for him, that as long as there was any hope of doing good he had been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts; but now that he had laboured in vain, and all his endeavors were to no purpose, he thought it was time to give up the cause, and mourn for what he could not mend. Abi in cellam, et dic, Miserere mei—"Away to thy cell, and cry, Have compassion on me."
2. He complains of the people, their obstinacy in sin, and the height of impiety to which they had arrived: "The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, and that is the reason I have forsaken them; who can stay among them, to see every thing that is sacred ruined and run down?" This the apostle calls his making intercession against Israel, Rom. 11:2, 3. He had often been, of choice, their advocate, but now he is necessitated to be their accuser, before God. Thus John 5:45, There is one that accuseth you, even Moses, whom you trust. Those are truly miserable that have the testimony and prayers of God's prophets against them. He charges them with having forsaken God's covenant; though they retained circumcision, that sign and seal of it, yet they had quitted his worship and service, which was the intention of it. Those who neglect God's ordinances, and let fall their communion with him, do really forsake his covenant, and break their league with him.

At last he perceived a still small voice, in which the Lord was, that is, by which he spoke to him, and not out of the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire. Those struck an awe upon him, awakened his attention, and inspired humility and reverence; but God chose to make known his mind to him in whispers soft, not in those dreadful sounds. When he perceived this,

1. He wrapped his face in his mantle, as one afraid to look upon the glory of God, and apprehensive that it would dazzle his eyes and overcome him. The angels cover their faces before God in token of reverence, Isa. 6:2. Elijah hid his face in token of shame for having been such a coward as to flee from his duty when he had such a God of power to stand by him in it. The wind, and earthquake, and fire, did not make him cover his face, but the still voice did. Gracious souls are more affected by the tender mercies of the Lord than by his terrors.
2. He stood at the entrance of the cave, ready to hear what God had to say to him. This method of God's manifesting himself here at Mount Horeb seems to refer to the discoveries God formerly made of himself at this place to Moses.

• [1.] Then there was a tempest, an earthquake, and fire (Heb. 12:18); but, when God would show Moses his glory, he proclaimed his goodness; and so here: He was, the Word was, in the still small voice.
• [2.] Then the law was thus given to Israel, with the appearances of terror first and then with a voice of words; and Elijah being now called to revive that law, especially the first two commandments of it, is here taught how to manage it; he must not only awaken and terrify the people with amazing signs, like the earthquake and fire, but he must endeavour, with a still small voice, to convince and persuade them, and not forsake them when he should be addressing them. Faith comes by hearing the word of God; miracles do but make way for it.
• [3.] Then God spoke to his people with terror; but in the gospel of Christ, which was to be introduced by the spirit and power of Elijah, he would speak by a still small voice, the dread of which should not make us afraid; see Heb. 12:18, &c.

 The comfortable information God gives him of the number of Israelites who retained their integrity, though he thought he was left alone (v. 18): I have left 7000 in Israel (besides Judea) who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Note:

1. In times of the greatest degeneracy and apostasy God has always had, and will have, a remnant faithful to him, some that keep their integrity and do not go down the stream. The apostle mentions this answer of God to Elijah (Rom. 11:4) and applies it to his own day, when the Jews generally rejected the gospel. Yet, says he, at this time also there is a remnant, v. 5.
2. It is God's work to preserve that remnant, and distinguish them from the rest, for without his grace they could not have distinguished themselves: I have left me; it is therefore said to be a remnant according to the election of grace.
3. It is but a little remnant, in comparison with the degenerate race; what are 7000 to the thousands of Israel? Yet, when those of every age come together, they will be found many more, 12,000 sealed out of each tribe, Rev. 7:4.
4. God's faithful ones are often his hidden ones (Ps. lxxxiii. 3), and the visible church is scarcely visible, the wheat lost in the chaff and the gold in the dross, till the sifting, refining, separating day comes.
5. The Lord knows those that are his, though we do not; he sees in secret.
6. There are more good people in the world than some wise and holy men think there are. Their jealousy of themselves, and for God, makes them think the corruption is universal; but God sees not as they do. When we come to heaven, as we shall miss a great many whom we thought to meet there, so we shall meet a great many whom we little thought to find there. God's love often proves larger than man's charity and more extensive.

 Commentary First Kings 19, Matthew Henry

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc2.iKi.xx.html

The RAsburry Patch: Refute Evolution - Rather Quickly

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A Prayer Amidst the Undulation of Joy and Sadness

Ever is a peril near me,

Ever have I grace to cheer me,

Ever in my woes I sigh,

Ever see I Jesus nigh.

Ever do my sins upbraid me,

Ever Jesus comes to aid me,

Ever woes around me throng,

Ever am I full of song.

Now I seated am in gladness,

Now I fall and lie in sadness,’ ..

Often weary and distrest,

Ever find in Jesus rest.

Thus is grief linked-to my gladness,

Sweet and bitter, joy and sadness

Fill the cup that I must drain

In this life of joy and pain.

But, 0 Jesus, ‘mid life’s sadness,

Grant that faith’s true joy and gladness,

Over sin and grief that quail,

Ever, ever may prevail. Amen.

Kingo: Aldrig er jeg unden Vaade

L 272 HCH 207 tr. C. Doving.

337.  Trinity 11 - Saturday

Book of Family Prayer - Laache. 

Why whining over our crosses tends to ring hallow!

Does anyone really know or comprehend the magnitude of Christ’s Cross and the suffering and sacrifice it brought to Him?  Consider:

• Countless images and pictures can be created depicting the outward appearance of Christ’s sufferings, but not one of the inward pain and bitterness or the invisible causes of them.
• How many people have replicas in all shapes and sizes of the accursed tree, but no replica of the Law that made it so?
• How many have painted, and more will yet paint the blessed Savior bearing His cross to Calvary, yet no one has painted the Christ bearing the sins of the whole world.
• The nails piercing our Lord's sacred flesh has been described with the utmost clarity, but who with equal clarity is able to describe the divine justice that pierced both His flesh and spirit.
• We may give the most accurate account of the spear piercing the Savior’s side, but who is able to give any such an account of the sorrow that pierced His soul.
• How well we may know and taste, yet today, the cup of sour vinegar wine our Savior tasted, but cannot have such knowing or tasting of the cup of God’s wrath which our Lord drank completely to its most bitter end.
• We may with great display and depiction, express the derision of the Jewish leader, but with what might we display and depict the desertion and abandonment of Almighty God forsaking His Son, so that He might never forsake us.

This does not diminish the suffering our crosses bring, but it does make some things quite clear:
Whatever the level of our suffering, it never exceeds our Lord’s suffering.
Whatever we may be suffering through, we are never without our Lord and His resurrection victory assuring us of where the cross always leads.

 

 - pmwl

 

ORIGINAL SIN'S DISPOSITION TOWARD SELF

While the first sin of Adam and Eve has been cast in many different ways as a rejection of God, it was also an act of rejection or hatred toward self.
To grasp this it is important to keep in mind that hatred is always understood as an emotional response toward self - but also as an ACT OF REJECTION.
In their sin, Adam and Eve hated/rejected not just God and His will, but they also hated/rejected themselves and their purpose as God had made them, in favor of an illusion of a "better" them, a better "self", a better “me”.
As a consequence of this Original Sin, each person is born pre-disposed to hate/reject not just God, but themselves and their purpose as God has created them, knit them together in their mother's womb. (Ps 139).
Each person is born hating/rejecting themselves in favor of some other self that is perceived to be better.

Each person is born hating/rejecting their God given purpose in favor of some other purpose that is believed to better reflect and express who they really are.

Inasmuch as each person is born spiritually dead under the power of sin -

• They cannot stop this hatred/rejection of self.
• While they may desperately search for a more favorable self and purpose, their search and discovery can never reach beyond the bounds of themselves and others like them. 
• This limitation enhances and escalates their hatred/rejection of everyone else.

Our sinful nature drives us 24/7 to try and deal with this hatred of self in order to save ourselves from it in primarily three ways:
First - we seek to overcome this hatred of self by appealing to others in the hopes that they will somehow pass favorable and affirming judgment on us, so that we might like, let alone love ourselves.  The evidence offered in our appeals is made via looks, abilities, and possessions, all of which are used in the hopes of influencing the jury of our peers to affirm us.
Second - we seek to save ourselves from this hatred by projecting it on others. This method of coping with our predisposition is perhaps the most often used, especially when the first method fails. When we cannot overcome the hatred of self by appeals to others, we ascend quickly to the judge’s seat. Nothing new needs to be learned here; it is the same hatred. Now it is turned away from us and toward others. Such outward hatred turned toward others is easily sanctified by pointing out all the ways they have rejected us and others by their failing and less than perfect words or behaviors toward us or others. In this means of saving ourselves from the hatred of self, we not only sanctify ourselves, we also comfort ourselves as victims of these hateful people from whom we must isolate ourselves in our private self-made sanctuary where we nurture our victimhood into near saintliness made of hatred.

Third - we seek to save ourselves from this hatred by using others and all things in this world to so intoxicate ourselves with sensual pleasure. The level of sensual pleasure will determine the level to which one is no longer conscious or aware of his or her hatred/rejection of self. Yet like any narcotic, the level of sensual pleasure will have to escalate so that the heart and mind are turned off by the ever increasing feelings/emotional gratification which are pitted against the hatred of self. "Let us eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." (Is 22:13; 1Co 15:32).

While we are born with Original Sin's pre-disposition to hate/reject self, it is a weakness that our Lord uses in us toward His goal of our salvation. 

Without this hate/rejection of self, there can never be a hunger, a thirst for another self, a new and better self.
Here is where the stewardship of the Law serves to turn us from self. Hence the call to “repent”, turn back to God. Sin pre-disposes us to turn from God and ourselves. God’s calling us to repentance, gives us direction and His power to turn to Him. The key in this call to repent is that without the Gospel, without the Word of Christ descending into our personal pits of hatred, so magnificently on display in passion and death of Christ, we can have neither a new or better self. For apart from Christ, all the other selves out there are neither new, nor better;- they are just like us - bound in sin and its self-hatred.
Baptism is our Lord’s personal entry into each of us where He unites this self-hatred to Himself as He received it on the Cross and unites His death in this hatred to us – putting us to death and resurrected us in Himself as a new person.
United to Christ - the self that is bound in sin and hatred is put to death by the power of His death.
United to Christ – we are created as a new self in Christ with the same purpose that Adam and Eve were created with – doing good to all as they had opportunity and ability according to the relationships God has created for them.
United to Christ – our new self in Christ with a predisposition to love/choose Christ and His will for us by believing in Christ and receiving Him through His Word and the sacrament of His Body and Blood.
United to Christ – our new self in Christ resides along side of our old self, in sin with his predispositions to hate self and others. Yet the new self/life we are given in Christ does not live by our ability to overcome the old self – but by faith in Christ whose love/choice of us in forgiveness is greater and will never be separated from us.

• By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 1 John 3:19-21 (ESV)
• Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword … For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35, 38-39 (ESV)
• Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Heb 13:7-8 (ESV)

The quest to love self can only end in defeat. Yet it is a quest that many believers, like unbelievers, set out upon over and over.
How often we are told that before you can truly love someone,- you must first love yourself. Sounds reasonable, but it is a sanctified way of keeping ourselves the issue, not others. Notice that such a quest justifies devoting ourselves to saving ourselves from our own self-hatred.
The reality each of us suffers under is that we cannot turn back, let alone cope with original sin's predisposition to hate ourselves. Any and every attempt to love ourselves will crash and burn when we run into our own faults, failures and sin.
Many Christians are seduced into undertaking this same quest. They believe that because Christ has saved them and they are born again, they can somehow finally achieve the love of self. Such beliefs and arguments that arise in them are all based on the same god talk that Job's friends offered him. It all sounds “godly”, yet none of the talk is God's but rather our talk of what we imagine is godly. Those who pursue this quest will end up as Job ended with his friends – not comforted. For all their words to Job and all their tears and time with him, Job was never comforted by them. Job was not comforted until God spoke and what God spoke never answered any Job’s questions. God’s Word to Job simply reminded him that God was God, his God, and Job was not God, but God’s child. Note that God sternly rebuked Job's friends because in all their god talk - they never spoke of God what was right (Job 42:7-9).
Nowhere in Scripture does the Lord ever give us a command to love ourselves. He does give us a command according to the purpose we were first created with: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself (Mt 22:37-40). How is the love of self defined for the purpose of loving neighbor? Again, the Lord does not leave us to subjectively determine this. He simply says "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Mt 7:12).
The only way to rightly love self is to rightly love/believe in Jesus Christ, whose own kind of love sought and redeemed us when there was no reason to in us.
To rightly love self is to love/to believe in Christ for to believe in Him is to reach by the Holy Spirit beyond yourself that you might receive Him and His redeeming mercies to yourself.
The goal of your life is not to love yourself; Jesus does that for you and for God the Father. Your goal is to believe in Him and from Him, through Him and in Him, be the you He redeemed you to be for sake of those around you.
God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Eph 2:4-10 (ESV)
Grasping the truth that we cannot rightly love ourselves because we are bound in hatred/rejection of ourselves is very freeing for the believer. We may not "feel" good about ourselves, but we can be "glad" that we are loved by someone (Jesus Christ) who is greater than our hearts. “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” 1 Jn 3:19-20.
In Christ we constantly the love of God that sets us free in forgiveness, from living to deal with our hatred and rejection of self, so that we might love/chose the good we are able to do for whoever has need of us.

- pmwl
Updated 2-22-2012

The Law demands wrath for everything. Christ grants mercy for everything.

The Law demands punishment for everything and everyone. But in Jesus Christ is forgiveness of sins for everything and everyone.
The Law demands wrath for everything. Christ grants mercy for everything.
With Christ all works are done, all punishment suffered, all righteousness fulfilled. Therefore he says: “Come, for all things are ready.”
No one has so such terrible and weighty sins that they could outweigh the blood of Christ to carry them away.
No one has so many sins that they could be worth more than the meritorious work of God’s Son.
No one is so corrupt that Jesus cannot cure him.
No one is so deeply fallen that Jesus cannot still and willingly raise him up.
But come to Him with everything that troubles your conscience, your soul. He takes it all away.
What does this mean but to be justified before God.
What does it mean to be justified?
ANSWER: If I believe, God receives me in grace, “accounts to me Christ’s righteousness, frees me from sin and its punishment, and regards me in Christ as if I never sinned.”

Edited - Nils Jakob Laache.
263. Trinity 2 – Thursday – Book of Family Prayer.

When creation is no longer God's creation ....

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" - God Job 38:2 

 

"When we adopt a human-centered approach [to the Scriptures, preaching/teaching/worship] that assimilates God to our own experience and happiness, the world is no longer God's creation; it too, like God, exists for our own personal well-being. Everything that exisits is there for us to consume for our happiness"
Michael Horton
- Christless Christianity p. 56

When the gospel doesn’t need to be denied, because it is beside the point.

It is becoming more and more obvious that many of the ears of today are listening for the spiritual but are unable and therefore unwilling to hear the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. What they would call a spiritual quest is in truth an emotional quest – cast in spiritual terms. The contours of both their spiritual struggles and the solution to them are determined purely by subjective feelings and sensations of peace and wellness. Michael Horton writes in Christless Christianity: “Once you make your peace of mind rather than peace with God the main problem to be solved in your life, the gospel becomes radically redefined.” (p.39). Where the Gospel is redefined, so also must sin and sinfulness also be redefined.
What is forgotten in this quest for peace of mind or sense of wellness, is the very captivity of the mind to sin, which is hostile to God (Rom 8:7; Col 1:21). If I as a sinner cannot make peace with God, why am I so easily deceived into believing I can make peace with myself? At this point, self has become the almighty I must answer too rather than God the Almighty.
The deeper reality of this deception is that where I have made my own peace of mind or peace within the main issue and purpose of my life, there I have made my sinful self the god to whom I and all others must answer. Having made God in my own image, I must go in search of those preachers and pastors who will shepherd not me, but the things I have done, the things and people around me and what they do so that I may have peace of mind and a happy heart.
Horton describe the sad consequence of this quest.  “‘How can I, a sinner, be right with a holy God?” is simply off the radar … Once the self is enthroned as the source, judge, and goal of all of life, the gospel need not be denied, because it is beside the point.’”  (p.40)
How gloriously merciful our Lord is in that He makes us new creations born not of our wills, our works, or ourselves but born of God in Jesus Christ (John 1:12-13; 2 Cor 5:17). We are reborn in peace by and therefore with, Almighty God.
As we have been set free from making peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, we are equally set free from making peace with ourselves. Inasmuch as the Lord Jesus Christ has made full and glorious peace for me with the true God through His passion, death and resurrection, He also gives me His peace in the midst of the hostility of my sinful self, because it has been crucified with Christ.
Our Lord does not call us to make peace with ourselves, but to simply “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” (Col. 3:15).

- pmwl

Barnum & Bailey Lutheran Church

May 12, 2011 by Pastor Riley's Blog

The Church Growth Movement and Lutheran Worship
Ernie V. Lassman
Concordia Theological Quarterly, vol.62, 1 (Jan. 1998).
Do we use worship to evangelize people or do we evangelize people so they can worship? Is worship primarily for believers or unbelievers? Is worship primarily for the “churched or the “unchurched? How one answers this question has significant implications. If worship is primarily for believers who already belong to the Church, then one would expect the worship form to reflect this. This would mean that language, concepts, symbols, and music would have an “insiders” feel. Such an approach would have an “alien” feel to an “outsider,” that is, one who is not yet a believer and a member of the Church, because it would result in a form that reflects knowledge of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. The form/style would be in keeping with Paul’s exhortation to be mature and to put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:ll; Ephesians 4:13; Hebrews 5:14). But if one uses worship to evangelize the non-Christian there could be a temptation to have a format that is lower in its expression of Christianity – the lowest common denominator, so to speak. For example, we hear these days of “seeker services.” For whom are such services designed? If they are designed for non-Christians, there can be no worship format at all since they cannot worship God without faith in Jesus Christ. This is carried out to its logical conclusion in Bill Hybels’ Willow Creek Community Church, which purposefully omits the cross from the building, striving instead to look like a concert hall or movie theater lobby. However, if most of the attendees are already professed Christians, what is the purpose of offering a “seeker service” to them? And if these services are held on Sunday morning, will not such services actually confuse what worship is for the “seeker” and for many members of the congregation?
In addition, the phrase “seeker services” has the sound of revivalism, which is foreign to the Scriptures and to the Lutheran Confessions. Revivalism was one aspect of American Lutheranism as promoted by Samuel Schmucker. Revivalism is a distinct American phenomenon shaped by the culture of the nineteenth century. Speaking of the negative consequences of revivalism Mark Noll says “the combination of revivalism and disestablishment meant that pragmatic concerns would prevail over principle. What the churches required were results – new adherents – or they would simply go out of business. Thus, the production of results had to override all other considerations.” And this is part of the problem for these same forces are loosed in the church growth movement. Thus, a part of our current crisis is “Americanization.”
If one shapes the worship format according to the lowest common denominator, one is not only restricted in the use of the best of Christian expression, but opens the door for secular ideas and concepts to shape the worship service apart from God and his Word. I have been at pastors’ conferences and heard Lutheran speakers say that the problem is our members who resist change because they do not want to grow. Church growth experts tell us we should be more concerned about meeting the needs of the unchurched person than meeting the needs of the very people who believe in Jesus Christ and support the Church with their faithful and regular involvement and monies. It is true that our democratic society is unfriendly to the idea of “outsiders” and “insiders,” yet this is inherent in Christianity. Jesus made the distinction between “outsiders” and “insiders” when He was telling parables. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples (the “insiders”): “The secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables” (Mark 4:ll). And Paul refers to “outsiders” and “insiders” in at least four different texts: 1 Corinthians 5:12-13; Colossians 4:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:5; and 1 Timothy 3:7. The very name “Church,” ekklesia, means “those called out” and implies this outsider/insider tension, as does Paul’s familiar phrase “When you come together” (1 Corinthians 11:18).

http://thefirstpremise.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/barnum-bailey-lutheran-church/