Keep Your Family in a Bible-Preaching Church
John Vaughn
Several issues ago, Dr. Mark Minnick featured an article about the importance of preaching on preaching. That article really spoke to my heart so I prepared a sermon for my people called, “The Importance of Preaching.” Dr. Bell heard me preach it at an FBFI meeting in Puerto Rico, and asked me to preach it at all the Regional Meetings and then at the National Meeting this last year. One of the points of the sermon was to emphasize how thankful we should be to be in a Bible-preaching church.
You can survive without a lot of things in your spiritual life, but preaching is essential. A great music program is a wonderful blessing, but Christ-honoring music can be simple and presented by sincere Christians that are not professionals. A strong youth program will help any church, but you may have to do what you can with a handful of teenagers and a volunteer director. The list could go on to name the things that are truly helpful, but not essential. Preaching the Bible is essential. If you don’t have that, you don’t have church.
The pastor of the church I first attended after getting saved is a humble man. He has labored faithfully for many years and like all of us, has had his share of ups and downs. The thing I most appreciate about him is that he is a Bible preacher. I learned more under his ministry than he realizes he taught me, because the Bible itself teaches the Christian. You will learn things listening to the Bible being preached that the preacher is not even saying. People tell me things that they have learned under my preaching that I don’t even know myself.
The Living Word is the voice of the Living God to man today. If you have your family in a church that preaches the Bible, don’t take that lightly. Most of us know someone that has left a good Bible-preaching church to go to a church that had some other attractive feature: buildings, activities, a gym, an exciting youth group, and so on. That is never a wise decision. Often a man will move to take a better job or a promotion in another city giving no thought to the kind of church his family will have to attend.
I’ve heard many times the sad stories of those who have done this. They are sometimes trying to compliment our church by reporting that there is just no good Bible-preaching church where they are. My first thought is, “Then what are you doing there?” My second thought is, “Well, when are you going to start one?” If you know the importance of keeping your family in a Bible-preaching church and you sincerely believe God is calling you to a place where there isn’t one, He must be calling you to be a part of the solution to that problem.
You may think that the sacrifices of starting a new church are too high a price to pay, but you will benefit more from any sacrifice that keeps the family under solid Bible preaching, even if it is in your own living room for a while than from any shallow or dead program that doesn’t feed their souls.
Most folks are getting all the entertainment they need, but very few are getting the preaching they need, and yet churches all over the country are going into the entertainment business. In many large cities, the Megachurch is the best show in town. Church buildings themselves are looking more and more like theaters. Unless it has already happened and I don’t know about it, I suppose it won’t be long before they will be selling popcorn in the foyer.
Don’t give in to this fad. Keep your family in a Bible-preaching church. Don’t be fooled into thinking that a dynamic teacher is worth the compromise either. If a man won’t demonstrate obedience to the Bible in the programs of his church, he is not really teaching the Bible; he is just teaching about the Bible. Nehemiah 8:8 gives us the standard, “So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.”
There are a lot of things that believers can tolerate for a time while a church or leadership is new, but this is something we must get right. We can’t be Biblical without the truth of the Bible. We all make mistakes, but we must not make a mistake here. Keep your family in a Bible-preaching church.
John Vaughn is the President of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International.
(Originally published in FrontLine • September/October 2003. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.)