A number of years ago a Stand Up For The Truth radio listener challenged me on a show topic. I can’t remember the exact title now since all of the broadcasts I produced were scrubbed, but it was something along the lines of, Who is Church For? How the seeker model created by business guru by Peter Drucker was pushed by Rick Warren, Bob Buford, Bill Hybels, etc., onto their associated churches as a business model for “doing church.” I’m sure the original title was shorter.
The listener wanted to discuss what I had said about whether goats and sheep should worship together in church.
Here was his challenge: “To not permit them to attend is to say that the church is a secret society club rather than a hospital for the sick. Do you tell adulterers they cannot attend? Do you tell drunks they cannot attend? Do you tell liars and thieves they aren’t welcome? Do you tell gossips and those who are self righteous to go away? Homosexuality is sin. All of those other things are sin as well. Homosexuals need a Savior. So do you and I.”
Yes, we do! And while this challenge sounds reasonable, my stance was never about attendance, but something more consequential. You see, the modern church has scolded us for decades into thinking that the assembly should be run as a business model, telling us we have to be an all-inclusive club because we don’t want anyone to feel left out.
As a result of these guilt trips, We began to cater to the desires of the goats because we wanted them to keep coming back. What do you suppose the whims of the goats entail when they come on Sunday mornings? More programs for the kiddos? More experiential songs with smoke machines and redundant poetry to hit you in the “feels?” A Ted Talk-styled presentation by an engaging speaker?
Somehow we’ve lost the meaning of what the ecclesia, or gathering of the Church is about: Worshipping the one True God together, equipping the saints to know God through His Word, and to go forth and share the Truth of Christ to a lost world.
Thanks to the Buford business model adopted by seeker churches around the world, we stopped worshipping as one true body with a common steadfast doctrine. We started teaching people that they needed to “live their truth,” even though there is only One Truth. And we stopped sharing the Gospel as Jesus commanded in the Great Commission. Instead, we invited everyone into a wide tent, hoping that the pastor would share the saving Gospel that day from the pulpit. (Often he did not.)
Matthew 25:30-32 tells us about the final judgement for goats:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”
Again, in Matthew 13:24–43, Jesus teaches us an important lesson about tares (goats) and wheat (sheep). In the story, the workers asked, “shall we go in and pull out the weeds?” The owner said, “No, lest you hurt the wheat,” At the end of things, God will separate the weeds from the wheat and the sheep from the goats.
I’m not suggesting that Christians are to do the separating. The Church doesn’t need to yank out the tares, but to reach them and pray that perhaps God will open their eyes. Yet in the Bible the tares were never invited into the synagogues or early church gatherings. Instead, equipped saints went out into the world and shared the Good News, as we are to do today.
Yes, sinners NEED to hear the gospel message! Where else do you go for a cure but to the church from saints following the Great Commission?
We are the Church. It’s our pastor’s job to equip us. It’s our job to go forth.
We don’t know which ones are the goats and which are the lost sheep, but we do know that found sheep are repentant sinners. Goats can never evolve into sheep, but lost sheep will be found and rescued by their Shepherd.
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