Thoughts on Converts By Jim B. of old truth

A lot has been said in the last couple of days regarding all of the convert-counting that went on at Easter in churches like Oak Leaf. We were glad to have some of the folks from that church drop in to discuss things with us. Even after all of the comments and posts, some still ask "Why are you making such a big deal about churches that do immediate convert-counts?"

We've given lots of answers to that, but allow me to jump right to the one core issue that is at the very foundation of it all. It's a mindset readily encountered in our time, and was articulated in the comments of one Oak Leafer's blog.

While affirming on the one hand that salvation is done by God, Matt Schultz who attends Oak Leaf had this to say just one sentence earlier: "becoming a Christian has been the best thing I have ever done in my life". It is that conflicting (not paradoxical) theology that we are trying to challenge biblically, and in this one (hopefully final) post on the Easter happenings - we'll examine that further. We'll also travel around the blogosphere and see what others are saying about the debate we've been having here.

Matt Schultz who attends Oak Leaf first commented here on Old Truth that we were being hypocritical because Billy Graham also does immediate convert-counts. Matt apparently assumed that we are followers of Billy Graham, and probably never read any of our posts in which we quoted Billy Graham saying you don't need the Gospel to become saved. Matt also quoted the believe in your heart and confess with your mouth passage as though that settles the matter, and anyone who does those things should then be considered 'saved'. Unfortunately for Matt's view, there's a lot more bible than just that one verse, and that kind of verse-isolation has lead to some of the most outrageous boasting of conversion counts, such as the Christian pop singer Carman who is credited with influencing a million salvations at his concerts.
If you are reading this post first, you need to know that the discussions this week started when I posted this page. Michael Lukaszewski pastors Oak Leaf church (one of the churches that I mentioned) and wanted to defend his methodology, so we allowed him to post as many comments as he wanted here on Old Truth (he posted several), one of which I responded to in a post of it's own yesterday. The topic at hand was the 60 people that made decisions for Christ on Easter at his church.
A back-and-forth then occurred when Michael posted on his blog about the debate we were having. Unfortunately, Michael's post didn't give us the kind of credit for good intentions that I gave him in the opening of my first post. Not unlike his previous depiction of us as being "Pharisees", he described Old Truth this time as a "critical blog" and said of his ministry that "whenever God moves there will be critics" (that's us apparently).He also said:
It's been my experience that sites like Jim's aren't interested in discussion, so I wouldn't go there to vent, complain, argue, or discuss. I'm not re-subscribing to his feed.
But Michael has come here and has done all of those things here. In fact, we have 36 comments from him that we've allow posted on our pages. That's why I was so surprised yesterday when I finally posted a polite comment (you can read my copy of it in the comments of yesterday's Old Truth post) on Michael's blog that he wouldn't allow it to be posted. I tried again later in the day, assuming there was a technical glitch and at the same time apologized if my comment would later come through as a duplicate, but still nothing. As he continued to comment here on Old Truth throughout the day, I kept asking him if he intended to post my comment, and he twice avoided answering that question. So I have to assume that a technical glitch was not the reason for my comment not showing up amongst the other 38 that are there on his page right now. Why does he post comments here and not afford me the same courtesy on his blog? Dunno.
As comments from others came in on Michael's blog, later in the day one of his supporters suggested that Michael was celebrating that 60 people "indicated" that they made decisions for Christ. Michael quickly jumped on this line of reasoning, as if to say the 60 were merely "indicated" and not for-sure saved. But that is actually the exact terminology that Michael's youth pastor uses on his blog - "60 saved" he says, and even Michael's executive pastor uses the "saved" word on his own blog, saying the specific number of people that were "SAVED". Note the terminology - "they were saved" he says. And what gives him confidence that this is so? Because they made a decision and raised a hand, with soft music playing in the background, at the end of the service? Anthony's page goes on to say:
We set goals for the first time in our church this weekend. We talk[ed], preached, and blogged about what were hoping to see God do this month. We set goals of 50 people getting saved, 2000 people at the Egg Drop, and 1000 people on Easter.
Did you catch that? It's the same conflicting theology that Oak Leafer Matt Schultz revealed at the top of this page. On the one hand he talks about what "God would do" but then he goes on to say that he and Michael Lukaszewski and the Oak Leaf staff actually made salvation goals. In essence, this is exactly what England's greatest pastor of the 20th century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, warned about on this page. He correctly and biblically articulates that you simply can not plan the work of the Holy Spirit, and talks about the folly of even trying.
Do churches like Oak Leaf really believe as Philippians 1:6 says, that "He who began a good work in you will complete it"? Or do they believe that PEOPLE begin the good work in themselves, with their decisions to follow Christ? Remember, the passage tells us that if He begins the good work, it will be completed (you will be in Heaven one day), so we know that this good work is not begun in the lives of everyone, because we know some will perish for eternity. Furthermore, passages like Romans 9:16 and John 1:12-13 clearly teach that it is not man's decision that initiates salvation. But in Michael's post, he instead says that salvation does "begin with a decision" that humans make.
Some assume that I was just being grumpy on Monday morning and just wanted to pick on other churches. Michael for example wrote on his twitter page: "just one day after easter and the peeps over at old truth are already railing on people meeting jesus. how sad". Nothing could be further from the truth. My intentions all along have not been to rail on people meeting Jesus (which is something that I pray for and work towards DAILY), my intentions were to highlight a conflicted theology that runs counter to the bible, which assumes in practice that man is in control of his own eternal destiny. That my friends, is the theological error called Decisional Regeneration. You can also call it Synergism, or Semi-Pelagianism, and many including myself believe it to be a central cause of the "Seeker-Centered" church methodology. You can read John Macarthur making that very connection on this page.
If I believed that man triggers his own salvation to occur by making a decision of some sort, then I would do exactly what Michael, and Perry, and Gary do: I would count decisions. And I'd trust that count. After all, it's up to people to make this single most important decision of their lives, and if they do it, then we can count it, and pastors everywhere can then rush home to their blogs on Sunday nights and say "X hundred people got saved tonight". That's what I would believe.
But that's not how it happens folks. The Holy Spirit is at work, and He makes the decisions. When He saves, people are converted from death unto life, because he first puts a new heart within them. If and when this happens, we can only guess with a guess that is nearly impossible at first, and a guess that becomes more reliable as the months and years go on.
With that said, my family and I have been praying this week that all 60 of the people that made decisions for Christ at Michael Lukaszewski's Oak Leaf church over this weekend will represent REAL conversions; that should be your prayer too. The sober reality however, is that this will likely not be the case; it generally isn't. Even Michael himself seems to have come around to admitting that in the post on his blog, to some degree at least. Perhaps he will now take the next step and change his practices, if for nothing else, out of concern for falsely assuring an unknown percentage of the decision-makers that are really false-converts, as only the Holy Spirit initially knows.