I am continuing a series (I, II, III) of posts on Barna’s book Revolution. In this post I look at what is perhaps a false measure of local church effectiveness, that is, conversions, or as Barna frames it, “the typical churched believer will die without leading a single person to a lifesaving knowledge of and relationship with Jesus Christ.” (p. 32)

I heard John MacArthur tell a parable about a dangerous coastline where there were many ship wrecks. A small but determined group of local people decided to set up a lifesaving society. They scraped together enough money to buy a lifeboat and they set up a temporary shelter. When a wreck occurred, they went out into the stormy seas and rescued people from the sinking ships. Many people that were saved stayed in the area and became a part of the society. After a while the group built a permanent structure and hired staff to do the rescue missions. Soon they met regularly to discuss the important matter of the society, budgets, building maintenance, etc.  Arguments arose and a division occurred. A new small group of determined rescuers departed from the old society and set up a new society further down the shoreline. The old society continued but stopped being in the rescue business. After many years the coastline was dotted with these rescue societies, many of which were no longer in the rescue business.  The parable is a cautionary tale by MacArthur about how the church has often failed to keep its focus (in his view) on its central purpose of leading people to salvation.

I think there is something drastically wrong with both MacArthur’s parable and Barna’s measure.  The problem is in the way in which both define the goal of the Christian life. For them the goal is the salvation of individual souls or conversion. MacArthur includes the local church in the means to that end. Barna dispenses with it in favor of a network of individual revolutionaries. Both are focused on the same outcome and both measure the performance of the local church compared with this outcome.

Yet is this an appropriate measure? Is this the biblical measure? Where in Paul’s letters do we find questions of this nature? Presumably, Paul’s wants the local churches to succeed. He certainly wants individual Christians to succeed. If the measure of their success is that they are leading people to a life saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, how come we do not see Paul making this a priority in his writings. How come we don’t hear him asking the Corinthians or the Galatians or the Ephesians, how many people have you led to the Lord lately? Do you think if we transported Paul from the first century into the twenty first century, he would be asking the same questions that Barna asks on his surveys to determine whether or not the local church is meeting God’s expectations?

I believe we ought to be leading people to a lifesaving knowledge of Jesus. However,  that measure needs to be set in the context of a better measure of local church effectiveness and that is “loving one another”.

It seems to me that Paul’s great burden for his churches was that they would learn to “love one another” despite their racial (no Jew nor Gentile), economic status (no free nor slave) or gender (no male nor female) differences. (Galatians 2:28)

Paul’s goal was to establish colonies of a new human society that would reflect the nature and character of its founding member, Jesus Christ. Loving one another despite differences and difficulties was his goal. It ought to be our goal as well.

That is why the local church is so important to God’s plan to bring the world to salvation. For people to experience Christianity in its fullness they need to enter into a new way of being human. That new way is best lived out in a congregation of new human beings which is the local church.

Granted the local church could be doing a better job at representing a new way of being human and many of the flaws that Barna uncovers are hindrances to accomplishing this vocation. However difficult it is for the local church to do this, it is still the only tangible place in communities where people could actually experience this new way of being human.