A pastor claimed that pastors increasingly avoided teaching repentance and many theological students were gradually losing their will to suffer for the Lord due to the hardships of life.
A few days ago, the Christian Times, an online Chinese Christian newspaper, interviewed Pastor H who has 30 years of experience in South China. From the problems of the changing attitudes of pastors to the pure preaching at the podium, and the changing attitudes of theological students from the beginning of their studying upon graduation, he shared his views.
One of his observations is that in recent years, many pastors are gradually deviating from the truth of the cross of Jesus, trying to lead the Lord’s church and raise believers with utilitarianism as a value orientation.
“In a church, believer A often gives gifts to the pastor, and then the pastor will care more about this believer. In front of others, believer A will also comment that this pastor is very responsible and good. But other believers B, C, D, etc. will think this pastor is bad because he doesn’t care about us, which will cause undue tension at the pastoral meeting caused by the favoritism of that pastor,” he said.
In the past ten years, he has also seen a situation in the church that on the pulpit and in the actual ministry, they have increasingly avoided telling the truth about repentance, and pastors emphasize more that Christians are a group of sinners who are indebted.
During his more than 30 years of pastoral career, he really sees that as some pastors are working in the ministry, they start to want higher positions, more money, and more favor. When they pay visits and hold meetings, they want to stay in the best hotel with the best hospitality. It seems that they no longer want to suffer for the gospel anymore.
When such problems are widespread in grass-roots churches, the pulpit of the church should have preached and taught the truth of confession and repentance, but to the surprise of Pastor H, some church pastors often emphasize that “we are all indebted sinners” when facing the faults of themselves and believers.
“I think the term ‘indebted sinners’ is an attempt to steal the concept when used in this situation. Grace is grace, and sinners are sinners. The true vitality of the church is characterized by true confession, repentance, the exaltation of Jesus, and living the life of Jesus. When pastors feel good and don’t need to repent, the church will have problems. If Jesus is taken away from the ministry, the servants of God will have no value for existence. You can’t use the fact of gratitude to shirk the fact that you should have confessed and repented. If the church only talks about giving and serving but doesn’t talk about the truth of repentance, then the attack, internal conflict, and corruption will continue, humiliating the name of the Lord,” he added.
When talking about how to look at the difficult situation facing the Christian church at present, he believes that the difficult environment is to hone the minds of the Christian church and believers and make us love the Lord more.
“Everything we have experienced has the good will of God. Problems such as the difficult environment and the rise of heresies all have reasons for existence. In recent years, the testimony and influence of Christian groups are declining. However, it is also a good thing that through the hardship of the environment, many church and pastoral believers can be awakened to love the Lord and turn back to the cross taught by the Lord. When Jesus’ disciples were scattered, they were passing on Jesus’ life and testimony everywhere. This influence made unbelievers want to know Christianity. However, the testimony of the Christian community is not very good now, and it is even difficult for the Christian community to get the testimony of unbelievers. Some churches may be growing in number, but the quality of life of believers is declining. They praise the Lord with their mouths. They say that a certain pastor preaches well for a while, and then they judge others with the same mouths. Such Christians cannot glorify the name of the Lord,” Pastor H emphasized.
One of his intuitive feelings is that in recent years, former Christians came to seminary to study theology sincerely, and now many new theological graduates have different purposes. He used to work in a seminary for many years who had been in contact with many groups of theological students who are in school and going to ministries.
“In the past, everyone studied theology believing in full support from Jesus Christ, so they adhered to the principle that my service must come from the Lord. Now the atmosphere is that there is guaranteed employment in the church, and the employment of the church is mixed with some human factors. Therefore, these are two different attitudes. In the past, serving was centered on the truth of Jesus, but nowadays, many people will compromise on many things in order to keep their jobs, and the spirit of serving has been consumed by the hardship of life. At first, many students came to the seminary with the heart of loving the Lord, willing to pay the price for Jesus and do a good job in future ministry. Nowadays, many students are affected by the reality and are slowly losing their willingness to suffer for the Lord,” he warned.
- Translated by Charlie Li
