I periodically get mailings from a fairly large, amusing Woodlands church that we visited once years ago, so I wanted to jot down a couple of thoughts about this church, because around the same time I ironically also received a copy of
Westminster Today in the mail, and there couldn't be a more stark day-and-night difference between these two sources. The Woodlands church that sent the flyer is an insanely massive Willow Creek-style establishment, and equally as shallow. The pastors, husband and wife both, advertise various series on life issues and what not, and from our one visit there, it's a church clearly build around entertainment with very shallow teaching. In fact, during our visit a majority of the service was taken up with parading children on the stage for them to donate money - not for the widows and orphans - but rather to finance some sort of structure for the church (the spirit of Tetzel is apparently alive and well...)
On the other side of the coin was the WTS magazine, that was a much more enriching read, particularly Dr. Carl Trueman's article on pg. 6 (the article can be read
here.) One the subject of large, shallow churches, I think that Trueman's comments, on the subject of declaring the whole counsel of God, are particularly appropriate in terms of the aforementioned flier:
This brings me finally to the question: how can I know that my church is teaching the whole counsel of God as Paul understood it? There are various tell-tale signs that such might not be the case: if your minister spends more time talking about politics than Jesus Christ; if he spends more time telling you what you need to do, rather than telling you what God in Christ has done; if he is always focusing on the latest cultural fad rather than upon the priorities of scripture—these are all indicative of a ministry that is probably not preaching the whole counsel of God, however wide-ranging the topics covered may be. It is not breadth of topic but rather narrowness of focus upon God and his revelation that is, paradoxically, a sign that more of the whole counsel is actually being covered.
The only way that we can really be sure about knowing and understanding anything comes from truly hearing what our Heavenly Father has to say about it. For without that, all we can really have is merely conjecture based upon our own ground-based points-of-view. For even what is taken directly from His Holy Scriptures can be nothing more than just our own interpretations of what is meant by this or that without His Counsel.
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