Purpose Driven or Scripture Driven? - Way of Life Literature

nature of the church. No, these groups are already committedto a course of compromise. It is not surprising that the vastmajority of liberal and New Evangelical churches todayreadily fall for the superchurch growth strategy, for theyvehemently reject Bible separation and have long sinceadopted theologies and ministries that do not insist uponcontending for the Faith or for the inerrancy of Scripture.The Biblical counsel we would give to one who might findhimself in such a church is to come out of it and follow theLord’s leading to a solid, Bible-believing, Bible-preaching,separated and militantly fundamental church.The purpose of this report is, however, to exhort andencourage those churches that are attempting to maintain astrong, fundamentalist testimony. Our burden is for churchesthat are trying to stay true to the Lord and have experiencedlittle or no growth through the years as a result of their standfor the truth. The temptation to incorporate some of thetechniques of the dynamic church growth model is great.Who does not want to reach more people, draw a largercrowd or be more effective in ministry? Nevertheless, thequestion that every Bible-believing Christian andfundamentalist pastor should ask is “What must be sacrificedin order to gain more members and become a‘superchurch’?” After observing and evaluating theSaddleback Seminar, we firmly believe that if the “Purpose-Driven Church” model is to be followed, then fidelity to theLord and His Word must be sacrificed in order to gain thenumbers. It is important to note, however, that Warren doesnot say a church must be huge in order for it to be vital orhealthy; rather, he believes that a church’s health can beequated to its dynamic growth.So what are some of the changes that must take place for alocal assembly to adopt the growth strategy of the99