Eliminating “Cafeteria” Christianity

How many different faith systems exist side by side in your community? Take a wild guess.

I live in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, which to an outsider might look like the most Christian community in the entire world. There are evangelical church plants in every school. Bible verses are on every other BUSINESS sign down the main thoroughfare of the city. There seem to be churches on every street corner.

Yet in the past few months, I have had conversations with people who are Muslim, Mormon, Hindu, agnostic, atheist and Jewish. I have not run into a Buddhist yet, but give me a day or two and God will probably throw that person into my path.

All of these belief systems seem to be growing. But Christianity in my community seems to be shrinking. My area of the world does seem to be a place to where the world and its religions are flocking, but there is something deeper at work, something more troubling.

I think were losing the ability to communicate our faith in Christ effectively to the lost. It’s not because we don’t have snappy, simple presentations of the gospel that you can communicate in five minutes or less. We can stack those tracts to the rafters. I believe it’s because we ARE NOT people of biblical depth, people who can answer the hard questions the world asks, beyond the five-minute presentations we have memorized.

Not too long ago, George Barna’s researchers asked a sampling of Christians about their favorite Bible verse. The overwhelming response: “God helps those who help themselves.” No such verse exists in the Bible.

I also read a lengthy blog and its ensuing posts a couple of weeks ago. The topic was stewardship and why there is no biblical basis for tithing. Not one of the people who posted cited the passages in Leviticus, Deuteronomy or Malachi as the pillars of stewardship in the evangelical church.

We don’t know God’s Word, and when we don’t know God’s Word, we manufacture our own brand of Christianity by picking up the thoughts and feelings of people we know. If that person is a student of Islam, we might collect the notion that if 51 percent of our actions are good and 49 percent of them are bad, then we get a free ticket to heaven. If that person is a Mormon, we might buy the idea that Jesus’ brother was Satan or that the idea of the Trinity is false.

Before long we have a faith that is no faith in Jesus Christ at all. And when someone challenges us with the idea that maybe there are multiple paths to God instead of just the One Way recorded in John 14:6-7, we shrug our shoulders and say “sure.”

Then shallow cafeteria Christianity becomes just another faith staple on the aisles of Americas religious supermarket, where no one experiences any real life change or sees any difference from any other religion.

So as leaders, what can we do about it? Here are a few ideas:

• Make sure every person in your church has access to a Bible. More than 50 percent of the people who come into our church don’t have one when they walk through the door. Put Bibles in the pews or in the hallways and encourage people to take them free of charge.
• Regularly challenge the people you lead to be involved in a systematic method of reading through the Bible. These are a dime a dozen, so there is no reason every believer should not be working through one or two a year. Steve Wiggins at Harvest Bible Chapel in Riverside, Calif., has an especially speedy reading trip through the Bible—one chapter a day. You can follow online here.
• Become students of the Bible yourself. The people you lead and minister to know if you’re a student of the Bible. They know by your life, by your answers and by the counsel you are giving them. Put a Bible in your car or on your electronic device of choice, and whenever you have a spare moment, you can read and digest the Bible.
• Teach from the Bible. The Threads team has given you some great Bible studies that I know many of you have used effectively because you have told us. (Keep it up, ). However, don’t use our books as a substitute for the Bible. Read directly from the Word and always keep it close during your Bible study.
• Get yourself and the people you lead on a scripture memory system. The Navigators Topical Memory System is the best I know about.

Commit the Word to memory and commit to become a person of Biblical depth, and the next time you run into a Buddhist, a Mormon, a Hindu, an agnostic, and the list goes on, you’ll have an answer. You’ll have power. You’ll have the Word in your heart.