I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this quote. I read it online as the report from a television station in a Southern city. A large, new, huge church in that city had made the news because the previous Sunday its leaders had asked a woman to leave the church and take her severely handicapped child with her.

The child, according to the article, had made noises during the service. The kind of noises one might expect a handicapped child to make.

“We’re not set up for handicapped people,” she was told.

The crowning statement came from–according to the article–a staff member who said, “Our church is not about ministry. We’re about worship.”

Pardon me while I throw up.

Where in the sam hill, I want to know, did someone come up with the idea that it’s possible for disciples of Jesus Christ to pick and choose the portions of the Gospel they will abide by?

Where did churches get the idea they may choose to emphasize evangelism or ministry or worship or Bible study or doctrine to the exclusion of all the others?

At what point did we decide it’s all right to subdivide the gospel?

Joe was an Air Force lieutenant, learning to fly jet planes. As a committed Christian, he was quick to share his faith with anyone and everyone he met. His sparkling personality made him an effective witness.

One day he called me. “Can you get someone to follow up with this man? I led him to faith in Jesus and now he needs to be taught the faith and grounded in the Word. But I’m just not into that. My thing is evangelism.”

I said, “Joe, my friend. It doesn’t work that way. The Lord has so made us that the one who introduces us to Jesus is in the best position to disciple us. The weakest one, the least effective person, to disciple us is a stranger.”

Joe saw his role as OB/GYN and someone else as the Pediatrician.

Show me that in the Bible.

This is probably a futile exercise.

We all know churches that bill themselves as big on discipleship or the music ministry, children’s work or youth work, doctrinal studies, and the like.

My friend Ron told me he had started a new church that so far was meeting in a home. I asked, “What are you calling it?” He laughed. “I let them select their own name. They chose ‘Doctrinal Study Baptist Church.'”

Yes, that is laughable all right.

On the day of Pentecost, after Peter and the disciples had presented the gospel and over 3,000 had responded, we read: And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42).

The apostles led them to Jesus, then taught them about Him. Soon, these were going out spreading the word. By Acts 8, they are being persecuted and fanning out across the Roman Empire to bring the news about Jesus to the world.

This is not to say a church cannot find an area that they emphasize. If they find themselves in the midst of a neighborhood that is changing ethnically, that will dictate the kind of ministries they create. They will do “English as a Second Language” classes and start language missions and studies.

But they will not neglect prayer and worship, evangelism and fellowship.

It’s the whole gospel for the entire person.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).

We read about the young Savior: Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men (Luke 2:52). That covers the intellect, the physical, the spiritual and the social. The Lord’s growth was balanced and rightly proportioned.

A church that worships well cannot fail to minister. When we enter to worship we will unfailingly depart to serve. That is, if we have truly worshiped.

Consider this from the Old Testament prophet: “Did not your father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy; Then it was well. Is not that what it means to know Me?” Declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 22:15-16)

The church that tries to worshp without ministering is attempting a new thing under the sun. And may I add, an impossible one.

The church that attempts to evangelize without discipling those who come to Christ is abandoning their commission from Christ. Matthew 28:18-20 leaves no room for discussion on this subject.

I still grieve at the memory of a young pastor who told me that his church was attempting to lead a thousand people to Jesus that year. And how were they doing that? He had printed up the plan of salvation on a card which his members had taken into the community to ask people to pray.

That’s it? That was it.

No presentation of the Gospel message, no story of Jesus, no burden for sin, no call to repent and change their ways and believe the Gospel, no choosing to follow Jesus for the rest of their lives. They were preaching salvation as magic words which a man may say and live forever.

How far we have fallen from the original plan.

And we wonder why so many worldly, carnal people are stepping into eternity thinking they are about to be received into Heavenly realms.

We have done that to them. We have given them false hope. We have assured them of what is not and never shall be, that by “saying this prayer” they can live forever and anything they do thereafter is irrelevant.

God forgive us.

The history of Catholicism tells of one of their evangelists who would crowd the members of a community at the edge of the seashore, then dip a tree limb into the water and sling it around. So long as one drop of water hit a person, he/she was saved.

So shallow a concept of evangelism is that that we non-Catholics shake our heads in amazement and disgust.

Then, we go forth to get people to sign their names on a card or pray some magic words.

If one is an improvement on the other, I fail to see it.

God help us.

God help us to train our young preachers to preach the whole gospel. And to train our people in a thorough presentation of the new abundant life to which Jesus is calling.

God help us to live this new life and to do so to the fullest.