Can Music and Missions be a "Golden Calf?

Yes

 

Any strategy of man can be a golden calf we exchange for God. Churches that exist due to the "cult of personality" created by a dynamic pastor (example, John MacArthur) may have a golden calf.
I saw this marketing video on Facebook from a church named Eagle Brook. Many were lauding it as wonderful. I find it entertaining as a human marketing scheme, but biblically void. Take a peak. Am I wrong? Is Eagle Brook not creating a golden calf?

 

A church would have to have a very twisted view of missions for it to become a golden calf, because--pay attention--missions is the actual task of the church, given by Jesus in the Great Commission. To say that missions is a "golden calf" is like saying that handling pipes is a failure for a plumber, or learning the piano is a failure for a musician.

Having said that, the SBC approach to missions has serious problems, because much of the money given to the cooperative program and sent to "missions" does not get to actual soul winning and church planting efforts, though there are many laudable such efforts by SBC missionaries.

 

There is also a problem when Cooperative Program money supposedly given specifically to missions ends up paying various administrators large six-figure salaries to be glorified CEOs.

Better to imitate the Christian Missionary and Alliance churches, whose mission board is simply a rotating group of pastors already salaried by their home churches.

 

I think they quite often are.
I see it all the time, great musicians on stage but they have a questionable walk with the Lord. They are good and people like them so they continue to play.

Then you have missions who are not nearly as concerned with true conversion as they are with putting numbers on the church role.

 

Thats too practical an idea.

 

Not just the CM & A board, but this is how the interdenominational "faith missions" boards and independent Baptist boards operate. The board of the mission board I was with was all pastors who got no money for their work there. We did have a headquarters with a director and a staff, but they certainly did not get six figure salaries, and the number of positions was low.

Denominational boards are problematic. They end up ruling the missionary instead of letting him fulfill the great commission in however the Holy Spirit leads. I just read in One Hope and Doctrine, by Kevin Bauder and Robert Delnay, how the Northern Baptist mission board told medical missionary Raphael Thomas to stop doing evangelism and just be a doctor (p. 190). (By the way, I recommend this book.)

 

Nope. This situation is a function of the Baptist distinctive of the autonomy of the local church. Each church has the right to do missions they way they feel led. "Golden calf" indicates worship of some kind. I know many missionaries from these small boards, including some close friends, They are sincere about obeying the Great Commission, and many are doing a great job. Merging boards would not necessarily be more economical--depends on how it was done. Larger boards tend to produce a bureaucracy that hinders rather than helps missions.

The question is, how many of those missionaries are actually doing soul winning and church planting work? 5,000 is great, but only if they are actually obeying the Great Commission.

The term "in charge of" bothers me, too. It is contrary to the Baptist distinctive of "soul liberty." A mission board should not be "in charge of" the missionary, The "field council" is often the tool of the mission board to rule the missionary in the place of the Holy Spirit: where should they go to start a church, how should they evangelize, etc. This is why I completely oppose field councils as denominational, and therefore unbiblical.

In case of doctrinal or moral problems, the mission board can release the missionary, but its main task should be to notify the home church (and supporting churches), who has Biblical authority over the missionary (not the board).

 

So what happens with this is, there the missionary is on the field living frugally and sacrificially--a place he built himself in inland Africa (I know a missionary like this), a tiny apartment or house in China or Japan (the Home Board does provide a house, I've heard, but Japanese houses are small), a hut in the jungle while reaching a tribal people group in Latin America or Indonesia, etc. But not the CEO in the States! He's living high on the hog with a big house, lots of meals at restaurants, and other luxuries because of his great salary.

 

Unless you have a six figure salary--then you are quite rich in Africa. Then you can afford to buy luxuries in the big city, or have stuff sent over. I've been to Africa. I've seen it. But you'll still not be in as much clover as the mission executive in the US with the six figure salary. Just sayin'!

 

The mission board should consider itself to be the agent of the local churches, a ministry that does for the missionary things the typical local church cannot do (international health insurance, extracting them from danger, etc.).

That would be their duty.

Sounds like the right things were done, except for by the church itself.

 

"Would you choose to join that holy train of martyrs and prophets, missionaries and soul winners who have best served God through the centuries and have turned a multitude of souls to Christ? Then prepare for poverty, for the Lord Jesus had not where to lay His head. Paul was in fastings often, and labored with his own hands to provide bread. Prepare for misunderstanding, for those who really follow Christ must love Him so much that all other loves for father, mother, brethren, and houses and land seem but hates! Prepare for persecution, for 'all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution' (2 Tim. 3:12)."
John R. Rice, A Know-So Salvation (Murfreesboro: Sword of the Lord, 1953), 147. Underlining added.