归信与教堂的建筑
2004年，我们教会的建筑项目遇到了拦阻。
到那时为止，我们扩展教会的计划进行地缓慢却很坚定。设计图已得到会众的批准，建设计划也已投票通过，资金也筹募好了，并且聘请了专家以便获取必要的建筑许可。并且市政部门也一步步地开了绿灯。但最终却止步在了卫生局这一关。2004年，卫生局表示不能通过我们的污水处理系统。所以我们从市政厅撤回了我们的建设申请。
神的美意
教会对此感到困惑。为何神带领我们走这么远，结果却是计划被否决了呢？神为什么不让福音派教会成长呢，尤其是在新英格兰这个地方？（译注：新英格兰地区曾经是福音兴旺之地，但是现在整个地区基督徒比例只有不到2%，作者在这里感叹这个地方的福音工作很难展开）
但其中最令人困惑的事情是我们的建设动机可主要是为了在社区传福音啊。
这个项目的主体是一个大型体育馆。我们的意象是使用这个名为“家庭生活中心”的场地来组织一些福音项目：儿童基督教篮球和室内曲棍球联盟，青少年救助活动，甚至是成人体育联盟和健身课程。我们希望吸引人们来到这里建立关系，或许获得听到福音的机会。因为我们的社区有许许多多的孩子和各种各样的运动，这个项目看上去似乎是一个切合实际情况传福音的典范。
为何神不祝福我们想展开社区福音事工的一腔热忱呢？
问正确的问题
好的意图并非源于好的神学理论，也不一定有好的结果。我们牧师经常热衷于把人引向基督，因此经常在没有认真地进行神学反思的情况下就有了行动。我们到处觅寻能把人引向基督的办法。我们彼此询问，“你们教会是怎样传福音的？”一首极好的赞美诗歌，合宜的灯光，一个新节目，一个基于某本畅销书的视频系列，社区服务策略，或一个大胆的重组教会计划？或许是一个新设施。
但有时，为了有效地推进传福音，我们必须暂停，后退一步。而不是快速向前问“什么有用?”我们需要靠边停下，问一个更基本的问题：“人是如何得救的？”
神学产生实践
牧师需要这个基本的问题，因为我们的“归信”的神学理论决定我们的传福音实践。
如果归信仅仅是个人对福音所做的意志上的回应，那我们将倾向于努力关注听者的情感和切身需要。我们将把主要精力花在研究什么对人们有用上。然后我们将倾向于把精力放在环境建设和包装上，以便于能与人建立连接并对其产生影响。传道将越来越妥协于迎合人们的思维模式、感受和欲望，目的是为了让他们觉得福音和他们的生活有关。如果归信最终由人自己决定，那么我们就得必须先取悦于人。如果人们有孩子并喜爱运动，那么建立“家庭生活中心”就很好使。
然而，如果归信从根本上是圣灵藉着福音信息本身改变人心的行为，那么我们将会有完全不同的传福音的做法。我们将致力于讲明福音本身，而不是迎合人们的需要。如果真正起作用的是圣灵藉着神的道，那我们就会把大多数的精力花在研习圣经上，以便我们能精确地传讲神的道，而不是评估我们事奉的元素如何才能与人们不同的学习风格相适应。我们将更加努力选择忠于圣经的诗歌，而不是精心策划伴奏以提起人们的好心情。
那建筑怎么办？
这后一种归信观点是否意味着诸如音乐、建筑、或我们的个人魅力就不重要了吗？ 嗯，重要，但也不重要。
目前他们只能算做一个交流的平台。例如，建筑有利于使人们聚集在一起听布道。所以在这个意义上，我们需要确保环境成分的任何形态都不会干扰人们听道。
但关键是：清除干扰不能将归信之恩加在任何人身上。同样，音乐、幽默、同理心、艺术技巧，和教堂的氛围所有这些都有了，也不能把任何人带向基督。只有圣灵藉着福音本身才可以使罪人悔改、信耶稣。所以我们对福音本身的关注，应远远超过我们对外在包装的担心。因为在传福音时，福音本身就是传福音的方法。
此外， 即使音乐很糟糕，讲员没有吸引力，音箱嗡嗡响，教堂装饰也过了时，神带着圣灵能力的福音仍能够改变人心。神用他权能的话语使人归信。
没有体育馆，人数却增长了
当我们教会经历建筑受阻的困惑时，注意到一些奇怪的现象。没有健身房，但教会人数增加了，有更多的人来信耶稣了。我们继续在讲台上、在小组里、在体育场外我们的日常互动中传扬上帝的话语。尽管我们的建筑计划遇到困难，然而在福音事工中圣灵一直在做工，使人归信。我们没有建起体育馆， 然而人们已经来了。
通过神的恩典，我们更改了异象。我们现在更加公开地宣告把释经讲道和传福音作为我们事奉的中心、作为拯救灵魂的中心。我们的建设项目也发生了改变。我们取消了体育馆的计划并设计新的教堂和许多教室。我们想要更多的空间让人们听到并学习能改变人心的道。我们的神学引导我们的建筑计划。我们的“归信”神学也塑造了我们传福音的实践。
在2011年9月11日，我们在新的教堂进行了我们的第一次敬拜。
故事的寓意
这个故事的寓意是什么?如果你持有正确的神学观点，上帝会祝福你的建筑项目，增加去教堂的聚会人数吗?当然不是。我们不能操控至高的主。
难道它是告诉我们教会建造体育馆，或者基督教组织教会垒球联盟，并用它来与不信的人们建立关系是错误的么?全然不是。我将一如既往地支持我们的孩子和年轻牧师们有一个体育馆。和非基督徒建立友谊是好的。
相反，重点是：当我们理解悔改归信是圣灵的工作，是神的道的介入产生的奇迹，我们将会把我们的资源越来越多地用在阐明福音本身上面，而不是将其花在加增福音对非基督徒的吸引力上，及寻找福音与不信者之间所谓的关联上面。
Conversion and Your Church’s Architecture
In 2004, our church building project hit a wall.
Up to that point, our plans to expand the church facility had moved forward slowly but surely. The congregation had approved drawings, voted to build, raised funds, and hired specialists to acquire the necessary building permits. And one by one the town granted our permits, until we came to the Board of Health. In 2004, the Board indicated that our septic system plans would not pass. So we withdrew our application from the town.
GOOD INTENTIONS
It was a confusing time for the church. Why would God lead us so far only to be denied? Why wouldn’t God want an evangelical church to grow, especially in New England?
But perhaps the most confusing thing was that our primary motive for the building was community evangelism.
The project’s centerpiece was a full-sized gymnasium. We envisioned using the space, dubbed the “Family Life Center,” for outreach programs: Christian basketball and floor hockey leagues for kids, teen drop-in times in the afternoon, and even adult sports leagues and exercise classes. We hoped to draw people into the facility, build relationships, and perhaps win a hearing for Jesus. In our community with lots of kids and lots of sports, the project seemed like a perfect example of contextualized evangelism.
Why wouldn’t God bless our sincere desire for community outreach?
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION
Good intentions don’t always arise from good theology, or result in good practice. We pastors often have a zeal to “reach people for Christ” that causes us to leap into evangelistic action without careful theological reflection. We sniff around for what “works” to bring people to Jesus. We ask each other, “What’s your church doing to reach out?” Is it a top worship song, the right lighting, a new program, a video series based on a best-selling book, a community service strategy, or a bold scheme for restructuring the church itself? Maybe it’s a new facility!
But sometimes, in order to move forward in effective evangelism we must pause and take a step back. Rather than speeding ahead asking “What works?” we need to pull over and ask a more fundamental question: “How are people saved?”
THEOLOGY BEGETS PRACTICE
Pastors need to ask this fundamental question because our theology of conversion begets our practice of evangelism.
If conversion is merely an act of a person’s will in responding to the gospel, then our evangelistic efforts will trend toward affecting the emotions and felt needs of the hearer. We will spend the majority of our brainpower puzzling about what makes people tick, and then the majority of our evangelistic energy constructing circumstances and packaging that will connect with and influence people. Evangelism will become more and more concerned with attuning our communication to people’s mindsets, feelings, and desires so that they will perceive the message as relevant to their lives. If conversion ultimately rests with the person, then to the person we must appeal. And if people have kids and like sports, then building a Family Life Center makes great sense.
However, if conversion is fundamentally an act of God’s Spirit changing a heart through the gospel message itself, our practice of evangelism will trend in a very different direction. We will labor to make the gospel itself clear, rather than appealing to “felt needs.” If what “works” is God’s Spirit working through God’s Word, then we will spend the bulk of our mental energies studying the Scriptures so we can express them accurately, rather than assessing how the elements of our services might connect with people’s various learning styles. We will struggle more over selecting songs with biblically faithful lyrics than over orchestrating an instrumental arrangement that will put people in the right mood.
WHAT ABOUT THE BUILDING?
Does this latter view of conversion mean that things like music, buildings, or our personal charisma don’t matter? Well, yes and no.
They matter insofar as they serve as a platform for communication. Buildings, for example, are good for enabling people to gather together and hear a sermon. So in that sense we need to be sure that circumstantial elements don’t distract from the ministry of God’s Word in its various forms.
But here’s the key: removing distractions does not impart converting grace to anyone. Nor can a certain combination of music, humor, empathy, artistic skill, and sanctuary ambiance bring anyone to Christ. Only the Spirit of God, working through the gospel, can convert sinners and enable them to repent and believe in Jesus. So our concern for the message should far surpass our fretting about the packaging. In evangelism, the message is the medium!
Furthermore, God’s Spirit-empowered gospel can change hearts even when the music is lousy, the speaker is unattractive, the sound system hums, and the sanctuary decor is painfully dated. God sovereignly converts sinners by means of his Word.
GROWTH WITHOUT A GYM
As our church worked through the confusion of the building setback, we noticed something strange. The congregation had grown and people had come to faith in Jesus, even without a gym. We had continued to proclaim God’s Word from the pulpit, in small groups, and in our daily interactions outside the facility walls. And despite our building woes, the Holy Spirit had been at work converting people through that gospel ministry. We hadn’t built it, yet they had come.
By God’s grace, our congregational vision refocused. We now became more overt in trumpeting expository preaching and gospel proclamation as central to our mission, and central to saving souls. And our building project changed as well. We scrapped the gymnasium plans and designed a new sanctuary and lots of classrooms. We wanted more space for people to hear and study God’s heart-changing Word. Our theology guided our architecture. Our theology of conversion begat our practice of evangelism.
And on September 18, 2011, we celebrated our first worship service in the new sanctuary.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY
What is the moral of the story? That if you have the right theology, God will bless your building project and increase church attendance? Of course not. We cannot manipulate the sovereign Lord.
Is the lesson that it’s wrong for churches to build gyms, or for Christians to organize a church softball league and use it for building relationships with unbelievers? Not at all. I would still love for our children’s and youth ministries to have a gym, and it’s good to build friendships with non-Christians.
Instead, here’s the point: when we understand conversion as a Spirit-wrought, Word-mediated miracle, we will focus our evangelistic resources more and more on articulating the gospel itself than on enhancing the gospel’s appeal and perceived relevance to an unbelieving world.
作者：Jeramie Rinne
杰拉米·莱尼（Jeramie Rinne）从戈登-康威尔神学院获得道学硕士学位，正在担任马萨诸塞州辛翰市南岸浸信会主任牧师。他经常为九标志期刊撰文，是the Good Book Company出版社的忠心作者，西缅基金会释经工作坊导师。他与妻子珍妮弗和四个孩子住在波士顿南岸区。
翻译肢体：邱晴晴
用圣经视野和实用资源装备教会领袖
进而通过健康的教会向世界彰显神的荣耀
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▼▼▼为了神的荣耀