Yesterday afternoon, I sat on a park bench overlooking Taal Lake and volcano with strong cool wind blowing over my face, I reflected on the news I read in Christianity Today News in the morning about a once mighty megachurch had just held its final service before it closed its doors on September 21- just last Sunday.
The New Dimensions Church was once one of Tulsa, Oklahoma's largest congregations with more than 6,000 attendees meeting in multi-acre campus. I remember hearing about its famous senior pastor, Bishop Carlton Pearson on evangelical magazines, TV programs, more prominently, TBN (Trinity Boradcasting). The church used to play host for large charismatic gatherings! I remember reading about Dr. Pearson on the Charisma Magazine dubbed by then editor-in-chief, Jamie Buckingham, as one of Pentecostalism's greatest rising preachers in the early 90s.
How could a church led by such an eloquent, famous and gifted minister die at an early age?
Well, sometime in the late 90s, Mr. Pearson, who was ordained in the conservative Church of God In Christ, the nation's largest black Pentecostal denomination, started preaching a doctrine foreign to everything he had previously learned and believed- The view that all will get to heaven regardless of what they believe or how they live. This is called universalism or universal salvation. It's a minority view, and controversial. Most Christians, even if they disagree on other subjects, unite on the point that salvation is exclusively found by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone.
Among the famous Universalists is William Barclay, a popular 20th-century Scottish scholar whose calm, clear Bible commentaries are still relied on by many Christians. Probably few Barclay commentary fans are aware that in his autobiography he wrote: "I am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God."
Paradoxically, when he started teaching that all people is saved, fewer and fewer continued to attend his church, much less visit. Over the next few years, his congregation fell to just over a hundred, his church buses were banned from the ORU campus, and he lost his south Tulsa church property in foreclosure. He renamed his church New Dimensions. Spurned by the evangelical world, he became popular in the liberal religious establishment. Eventually, his church affiliated with the United Church of Christ. A year ago, the handful of New Dimensions Church folks were received into the fold of All Souls Unitarian Church because they can no longer sustain themselves.
So, last Sunday, Pearson preached his last sermon and closed down New Dimensions Church.
I hope I don't sound judgmental, but this is a bad case of a leader turned lousy and lax about his beliefs that led to a close down of a once mighty congregation.
In the Presbyterian USA thirty years ago, they supported nearly two thousand missionaries on the mission field worldwide. Then they elected some folks to leadership positions that grew deeply entrenched in those positions in the headquarters -- who began to question the need for missionaries, thought extra Biblical stuff and formulated bad theology. During the same thirty year period of time the membership went from near four million down to about 2.2 million where it is today. Do you think there is any connection there, folks?
Then there's this other case where an evangelical denomination has kept itself theologically pure by keeping away from progress, acted unloving and critical of others, and chose to freeze tradition and practices of the 50s for this era's daily consumption thereby becoming irrelevant. That denomination has plateaued in the last several decades. Do you think there is a connection there too?
As part of a generation of young ministers, it would be good for me to learn from this recent event. If we observe history, churches that loose their grip on orthodoxy almost always end up becoming something else other than being a warm local body of Christ. When we wish to be better, let us reflect on the following:
1. Creed - as Christians, our creed is found in the Bible wrapped around our faith the ONE for Whom we're named: Christ. The more passionate we become about Him and our evangelical beliefs, the more fuel we have for serving.
2. Content - "Am I simply tickling people's ears or am I preaching the whole counsel of God?" The written Word of God is our the only source of our message's content.
3. Context - How we communicate our Creed and the Message is important so receivers/hearers of our message will be convinced that what we offer them is not an option.
4. Consistency - our Creed and Message are of no relevance to people unless they are seen lived out.
