Pastor, here’s what’s wrong with “We’ll do anything short of sin to grow the church.”

This one’s going to get me in trouble. “We’ll do anything short of sin to grow the church.” A lot of my friends probably have it in their mission statement. So before you take the guns out, holster them for a second. I know why we say it: we’re committed to working hard, being creative, and reaching people. That’s me too. But taken to the max, it’s a sermon of the serpent. Here’s what I mean, and this critiques me as much as anyone.

What hyper-pragmatism is

Hyper-pragmatism makes “whatever works” the highest test of ministry. If it’s short of sin and it grows attendance, we adopt it, without asking whether the new model still carries what the old one did.

I want to be clear: I’m not throwing stones at pragmatism. I’m more pragmatic than I am anything. My critique is of thoughtless pragmatism. “I’m doing this because they’re doing it. I’m doing this because that trend is happening.” That’s the problem.

The serpent’s question

The ultimate shortcut was offered in the wilderness. The devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and said, “All this I will give you, if you will bow down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9). Same destination, no cross, much faster. That’s the hiss underneath hyper-pragmatism: “Did God really say there was no shortcut?” Jesus refused: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” (Matthew 4:10). The kingdom comes God’s way, even when God’s way is slow.

Step 1 — Admit some things short of sin still shouldn’t be done

Here’s the deal: there are plenty of things short of sin that we just shouldn’t do. Paul put it this way: “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say, but not everything is beneficial” (1 Corinthians 10:23). “Not sin” is a floor, not a strategy. The question isn’t only “Is this allowed?” It’s “What does this cost us, and what does it quietly leave behind?”

Step 2 — Remember why the old things existed

With every new model and every innovation, we can lose our historicity. We forget why we did that thing in the past. Then one day somebody asks, “Are we doing confession anymore?” And it’s like, I don’t really know. Where does it function in our new system? Does it exist? Is it happening?

Some Christian things are slow. Some don’t scale perfectly. They still matter. Confession is one; Scripture tells us to “confess your sins to each other and pray for each other” (James 5:16), and that doesn’t happen in a crowd. So here’s a practical exercise: list the functions your old model carried, discipleship, confession, teaching, care, and check honestly whether the new one still carries them. Then name one slow, unscalable practice your church should keep anyway.

Step 3 — Measure what matters, like Hybels did

I appreciate Bill Hybels here because he wasn’t just a hyper-pragmatist. He was honest about measuring what matters. He realized discipleship in his cell model wasn’t working the way they’d assumed, because they had scaled a low bar of entry. A low bar allowed for massive span of care, but discipleship just wasn’t happening. If you scale a low bar, you scale low discipleship. He deserves a lot of credit for being able to say, “It did not work. Let’s change.”

That’s healthy pragmatism: launch something, try something, then measure and ask, did that accomplish what we set out to do? Measure your new method the way you critiqued your grandpa’s method.

Step 4 — Know where the line is

Flex is fine. We’ve got to do new songs and new music styles. We’ve got to modernize and try new structures. Models come and go; core things stay. Just don’t worship the model.

Where we get into real trouble is when orthopraxy starts hurting orthodoxy. Now you’re in reconstructionist territory: “We’re meeting in the round, and we’re rejecting the gospel.” Whoa, whoa, whoa. Meeting in the round, cool. Rejecting the gospel, not cool. That’s the line, and you have to watch for it.

What I’m really saying is to myself. Stop and ask: did we miss anything? What should we leave, and what should we bring with us? If we go maximalist on pragmatism, we’ll miss things on the journey. So as we keep learning, don’t forget the historic, the beautiful, the disciplines. Then let’s keep moving forward in Jesus’ name.