The Fallacy of Felt-Needs Ministry

BY JAMES BEDDOWS

I Thessalonians 5:21,22
In First Kings Chapter Three, we are introduced to a very significant event in the life of King Solomon. Early in his reign, he has a dream in which God says to him, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you." Solomon says in response, "Oh God! Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong."

What Solomon asks for is the very ability that Paul speaks of when he writes in I Thessalonians 5:21,22, "Test all things, hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil." He calls upon God's people to demonstrate the ability to distinguish between that which is of God and that which is not of God; or that which is in accord with God's revealed mind and will and that which is not.

In this message, I particularly want to talk about the need for the spiritually discerning Christian to watch out for man-centered ministry, which in the last twenty years has mushroomed in much of the Christian world, including the supposedly conservative, evangelical church.

Signs of the Time

We live in a world in which the general cry of mankind is, "Meet my needs! I want my needs met." So, there exists today a growing number of resourcesbooks, planning guides, church consultants and so onall designed to help local churches identify the felt needs of people and plan their ministry accordingly.

The argument is very simple: Man is looking for his needs to be met. If a local church is going to grow, it must tailor its ministry to satisfy the felt needs of man.

This strategy is aimed not just to reach the unsaved outside. "Experts" tells us that the local church has to look out for the felt needs of the congregation as well. Many professing Christians today, they say, attend church service with this mind-set: I have many needs, and I expect you to meet them. If you don't, you won't see me again.

Out of context. There are many, I realize, who would say, "What's wrong with that? Didn't Jesus Himself come to meet the needs of man? Didn't He say, 'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest'? Surely the church of Jesus Christ should do what the Savior did."

The problem is, those who quote that invitation omit to define what Christ means when He says: "Come to me." They omit to establish the root cause of the weariness and the burdens that people experience. And they also omit to define the rest that Jesus offers to give. They are interpreting the verse out of context.

I'm not saying that those who advocate this felt-needs approach to ministry do it from an insincere heart. I am not judging their motives. Nor am I being uncaring or callous toward those who have needs. But I simply believe that when spiritually discerning Christians put felt-needs ministry to the test, they will find that it cannot be reconciled with the word of God.

I. It begins with man, and not with God.

To start with, a felt-needs approach to ministry effectively says: "Man is sovereign. He, the creature, can dictate to God, the Creator, for what he wants God to do for him." Such a ministry is based on what man expects from God, not what God expects of man.

The promoters of felt-needs ministry obviously would not put it this way. But the fact remains that it is man's wants that govern and dictate the terms of this approach. Effectively, it is saying that God exists for man to use, not man exists for God to use.

This is the absolute reverse of the emphasis of the ministry in Scripture. If we look at the ministry recorded in the Biblethat of Peter and Stephen and Paul, and that of the King of kings Himselfwe'll find that it always begins with declaring the glory, majesty and holiness of God the Creator. And it always centers upon God who, sitting in His throne, rules and reigns in omnipotent power, and who rightly and properly demands certain responses from His creatures.

We created beings are to serve and worship our Creator, not the other way around.

II. It ignores man's true nature.

As it relates to the unsaved, moreover, the felt-needs approach to ministry fails to take into account that the natural man is totally depraved. In Psalm 51:5, the psalmist confesses: "I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me." What is true of the psalmist is true of all mankind.

To be born in sin means that our nature is mortally and spiritually corrupted. Not one iota of our mind, our will, our emotion, our intellect, our affection, our everything is untouched by sin. Man is radically corrupted at the very core of his being.

This truth is declared again and again throughout the Scripture. Early in the Book of Genesis, for example, God already said that every inclination of the thoughts of (man's) heart was only evil all the time (6:5). And we read in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"

Because outside of Christ man is totally depraved, he is spiritually dead in transgressions and sins; he is unable to respond to God in a sincere fashion. Like the Pharisees, he may be very religious. He may be a good churchgoer and a regular Bible reader; and he may often pray to God and speak of Christ. But unless and until he experiences his new birth by the grace of God, he is spiritually dead.

Now, what does all this say about man's felt needs? Simply this: man in his total depravity cannot identify the nature of his true needs. He is oblivious to his greatest needthe need to recognize his sinfulness, to come to Calvary, to see the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior, to bow the knee before Him, to experience forgiveness of sin, and to become spiritually alive.

Misguided and unbiblical. And what does that say about a church that says, "We are going to reach the unsaved by appealing to their felt needs. We are going to ask all those out there who do not know the Lord to tell us what their felt needs are and we will change all our ministries accordingly"? I'm sorry, I don't think that adds up at all. This approach has lost sight of the true nature of man's greatest and most fundamental need.

If we, as spiritually discerning Christians, test this ministry against the word of God, we simply cannot help concluding that it is not biblical! How can we put all of God's resources to meet the felt needs of those who don't even know what their real needs are?

We are not preaching the gospel of the Bible if go around saying: "Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Do you want peace of mind? Are you fed up with yourself? Do you want a friend? Come then to Christ and He will meet your every need." We are not ambassadors of Christ when we present Him as a fairy godmother or some super psychiatrist. No, we have to go deeper than that.

Blind guides. To preach sin does not mean to make capital out of people's felt frailties, but to measure their lives by the law of God. To convict one of sin does not mean just to make a person feel that he is an all-around flop, but to realize that he has offended the holy God and is therefore under His wrath. To preach Christ means to set Him forth as the Savior who reconciles those who believe in Him with God. And to believe in Christ means to trust Him and Him alone to restore sinners to God's fellowship and God's favor.

How can we put all of Godís resources to meet the felt needs of those who donít even know what their real needs are?
 
It is true that Christ does give peace and joy and strength and the privilege of His own friendship to those who trust him. But the Christ who is depicted as merely one who makes people's life on this earth easier is not the real Christ, but a misrepresented and misconceived Christ. And if we taught people to look to an imaginary Christ, we would be blind guides, and the Bible says, "If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit" (Matt. 15:14).

These are solemn words. These are serious words. But sadly, they do describe the approach many of today's evangelical churches are using to minister to unbelievers.

III. It is based on a wrong view of believers.

For the local church to apply the felt-needs approach to its ministry to believers isn't any more Biblical. True, we believers are no longer spiritually dead. The scripture says in Ephesians 2:4,5: "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions."

But to be spiritually alive does not mean that we are totally free from sin. In Romans 7, Paul speaks openly and honestly about himself in verse 15: "The things I want to do I do not do, and the things that I do not want to do I do." The apostle confesses that he is engaging in a battle with his indwelling sin.

Significantly, in the preceding chapter, the apostle has just explained that believers, having united with Christ, are dead to sin. Hence, sin no longer has dominion over the child of God. But in Romans 7, Paul makes it clear that a remnant of sin is still found in the Christian.

Again, what does this say to us? Because I, though a believer, am still indwelled by sin, it means that in any given day of my Christian walk, I can have a totally false view of what I really need. Here are some examples:

l I feel as though I have been taken for granted and that I need people to appreciate what I have done. This is my felt need. But perhaps what I really need is to come to the word of God or to have somebody take me to the word of God and say: "Look, your real need is to develop the motive of a servant's heart."

l Sometimes, we feel depressed as we go through some financial or other problems. We feel that we need to have a support group to help us, or someone to come along and say, "Everything is going to be all right." Quite possibly, though, we are depressed because we are not submitting to the providence of God in our life, we are not submitting to the outworking of His mind and will. Our real need is to bow before Him and say: "O, Lord, teach me to be content and thankful in all circumstances; help me to learn to live in plenty or in want."

l I am filled with self-pity because someone has wronged me. I feel that I need someone to sympathize with me and say: "Yes, I understand why you feel so bad. It was a terrible thing that he did to you." What I really need, however, is for someone to tell me: "Listen, your real problem is that you've got an unforgiving spirit."

I can give you many other examples, but I think you get my point. Because sin yet indwells us and affects us, our felt needs in any day of our Christian life can be altogether opposite to the will of God.

Conditional promise. Let me come at this from another direction. What scripture, when understood in its context, clearly reminds God's people as to what their greatest need is, and how they can ensure that all their other needs are met? It's Matthew 6:33, of course: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

What are the things that will be added unto, or given to, the Christian who seeks first the kingdom of God? The needs of life. Yes, our God has promised to meet all our needs without exception. But it's a conditional promise. The Christian will find all his needs met when he first pursues the things of God with increasing intensity.

We can label all kinds of things as our felt needs, but our greatest need is to be in pursuit of God. All too often, we don't see this as a need that should consume our whole being. And so, we fail to seek the Lord's kingdom and His righteousness with all of our heart. What happens? We don't experience the fulfillment of the promise, and all kinds of other needs surface. We then give all our energy to all these needs, while we continue to neglect our real needto be in pursuit of our Lord.

Missing the point. Again, what is this saying concerning the local church that organizes its ministry to meet the felt needs of Christians? It is to miss the point of what the Bible says about the nature of Christians. Because we are yet affected by sin, our felt needs today may not be our felt needs tomorrow; more importantly, they may not be scriptural at all. My real and only need is to pursue my Lord.

Going back to I Thessalonians 5:21,22, let me paraphrase what Paul is saying to all Christians in this regard: "Take a look at the ministry that aims at meeting the felt needs of believers and ask: 'Is it Biblical?'" The spiritually discerning Christian, I submit, will conclude: "No, it does not. And I cannot be involved in that at all."

As I close, let me quote what Paul says about his ministry: "We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles" (I Cor. 1:23); and "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Gal. 1:10). Paul does not market his message to suit the consumer; neither should we. o

Rev. James Beddows is pastor of Candlewood Baptist Church, 52 Stadley Rough Road, Danbury, CT 06811.

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