According to a poll by George Barna, most evangelical pastors believe the Bible speaks to the critical issues of our day. However, less than 10% of today’s pastors are willing to speak to today’s critical issues from their pulpits. The reason given by contemporary clergymen for their ecclesiastical dumbness is their concern that addressing current and controversial issues may result in less attendance at church services and less money in church offering plates. 

In light of the big role George Barna played in fostering the consumer mentality that has captured the contemporary church in America, I found it incredibly ironic that he, of all people, would criticize pastors for failing to address from their pulpits the controversial issues of our day. After all, it was Barna’s research and polling that helped spearhead the seeker-sensitive church growth movement, which taught Christians, in particularly pastors, to peddle the Gospel the same way Hoover does vacuum cleaners. 

When present-day pastors lamentably gauge the success of their churches by the size of their congregations, staff, budgets, and buildings, they are simply accessing their churches in the same way business owners do their companies, which is exactly what George Barna taught pastors to do? So how does he get away with turning around and criticizing pastors for following his advice, by failing to speak out on the critical issues of our day, lest their churches have fewer people in the seats and fewer sawbucks in the offering plates? If you ask me, George Barna is ranting and raving at a monster of his own making.

A few years ago, George Barna and his good friend Bill Hybels, the former pastor of Chicago’s Willow Creek Community Church, which was the flagship of the seeker-sensitive church growth movement, were both forced by Barna’s own research to painfully confess that the church under their seeker-sensitive tutelage had not gained ground and influence in the world, but lost it. Barna’s research incontrovertibly proved that the seeker-sensitive church model is only adept at drawing crowds, not at making disciples. As Focus on the Family poignantly put it: “If you simply want a crowd, the ‘seeker-sensitive’ model produces results. If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it’s a bust.”

Years ago the famous Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote the following about his search for America’s greatness: “I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests—and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning—and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution—and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!" Well, the flame has gone out in our pulpits and today’s America has ceased from being either good or great.

As I've said for years, there is no way to grow a big church in today’s truth-hating world by preaching the pure and unadulterated truths of God’s Word. All true preachers of God's truth today, just like the Apostle Paul, as well as all true preachers of God's truth throughout time, will be persecuted by the world, never popular within it (2 Timothy 3:12). In fact, the Apostle Paul taught that the distinguishing mark of a true man of God was his suffering for the truth’s sake at the hands of the world, not his being seen by the world as a success within it.

According to the Apostle Paul, the true success of a true minister of God is to be gauged by whether or not he is "pure from the blood of all men,” because he faithfully preaches “the [whole] counsel of God" (Acts 20:26-27). Interestingly, Paul immediately proceeded from his characterization of the true minister of Christ to caution the church about a coming influx of false ministers of Christ, who would “enter” the church as "grievous wolves…speaking perverse things" in order "to draw away disciples after themselves" (Acts 20:28-30). Tragically, as George Barna’s research proves and the Apostle Paul himself predicted, many present-day pulpits are filled with charlatans who refuse to preach the whole truth, but instead tickle men’s ears, in hopes of making disciples of themselves rather than disciples of Christ (2 Timothy 4:3-4).