As we look at some things that the churches must do in order to be churches that are seeking God, we have looked at how a church must become one that seeks God Himself first and foremost. It must not seek all the church things and the things of self; it must seek the presence of God. This is not something that comes easily if we think God is there to serve us. Even more beyond our strength is what is necessary to seek God. We must seek Him from the heart and with true love or we are not truly seeking Him. What this means is that we must seek God for hearts to seek Him. It means that we must repent of the sin that comes between us and Him. A church that wants to seek God must determine to seek God regardless of the discomfort and change. It must be willing to do things that it is not doing and it must stop things (even good things it thinks) that it is presently doing. As the church seeks God it must realize that the light will shine upon it in ways that require change. Some of those ways are not comfortable.
How people come to believe things and then the ways they hold on to those beliefs is a matter of great interest and speculation. One philosopher has dealt with this to some degree and has held that what we believe is likened to a web of belief. If we think of our beliefs as a web that is held together and each belief is dependent to a greater or lesser degree on other beliefs, we have something of a picture of how we develop beliefs. Another picture of that would be to look at all of our beliefs as resting on pegs which rest on pieces of plywood. The bottom layer of pegs would be larger and smaller in number. Let us think of the bottom layer as having four large pegs. There would be a two foot square piece of plywood laying on that. On top of that piece of plywood are eight pegs and then a larger piece of plywood. On top of that there are sixteen pegs and a piece of plywood. This goes on until one has a piece of plywood at the top with hundreds of very small pegs.
Now what I am saying may sound tedious, dull, or simply inapplicable to a local church. My hope is that you will hang on and see just how applicable this analogy is. The whole pile of pegs we shall refer to our belief system with each peg signifying an individual belief. It is not hard to replace a peg on the top row as it has almost nothing to do with the pegs around it and underneath it. However, as one goes down levels of pegs to pegs that are larger and hold more, it would take more and more to replace those pegs. A peg at the top may be a belief that it is 40 degrees outside and when we are told that it is actually 38 degrees we will believe that and no major change is involved. A peg on the very bottom may be a belief that God created the world. That is a belief that has effects through all of the other beliefs and a massive number of beliefs would have to be changed in order to change that one peg.
What we believe and how we come to have new beliefs can be pictured by those things. It is not hard to convince people of things that require no change. But think of all the beliefs that must be changed or must have some effect if some really foundational belief is changed. Thus we see why people are so resistant to a change in their fundamental belief system. It is not just one belief that must be given up, it is many beliefs and some of those beliefs are very important to them. Coming to Christ requires a whole new belief system in that the very foundational beliefs must be changed and that will influence all the other beliefs in some way too.
For a church to change its way of doing and its way of thinking requires a lot of lower level pegs to change. For a church to do this would require most if not all the people that the church consists of to change. In other words, one cannot just change a document to change something, but the belief systems of the people have to be changed. There are some people that some change will require a massive amount of change. If we look back at the web analogy, all of their beliefs are hanging together and support each other. To them it feels like they will fall from the web and have nothing if they change from one belief to another. There are some beliefs that require so many other beliefs to change that it takes a long time for those basic beliefs to change.
We can also look at the very bottom pegs that uphold the whole stack of pegs as all being centered upon God or centered upon self. If the very foundational pegs are those that are focused on self, then all the beliefs that are above them will also be all about self one way or another. There may be beliefs about God that are on the second level, but those beliefs about God will be determined by beliefs about self which are at the foundational level. On the other hand, if the beliefs about God are the very supporting or foundational beliefs then the beliefs about self will be determined by beliefs about God. What we simply must understand is that our beliefs all fit together to make up some form of system or whole and that some of those beliefs are foundational. That is vital.
The importance of the previous discussion about webs of belief and of differing levels of pegs that support other pegs may seem rather silly to some. It is a rather long analogy to make a point. Our belief about conversion is a belief that is foundational for many other beliefs in the local church. We simply must go to Scripture and prayer in order to get this belief correct. If we view conversion as when a person prays a prayer or walks an aisle, then we will say things in order to get the person to pray a prayer or walk an aisle. The person can do those things from a belief from an upper level of pegs and still retain self as the god of his or her life. If our belief about conversion is wrong then church membership will reflect that as well. If our belief about conversion is wrong then there will be false conversions, false assurances, false membership, false hopes, false teaching, and a false witness to the world. Being Reformed in doctrine will not change those things either if the doctrine is just poured on the top of our pile of beliefs. A God-centered doctrine derived from Scripture must be the foundation of all of our beliefs.
The Scripture tells us that conversion is a person becoming a new creation in Christ (II Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Eph 2:10). The analogy we are using with pegs would then picture this as the foundational pegs being replaced with news ones and all the old ones being replaced or used in a different way. Notice, then, the tremendous difference this makes in the church. If the focus is simply to get people to pray a prayer or walk an aisle that will most likely just have to do with the upper pegs with the bottom ones left alone. If the focus is on a new creation, that has to do with the very bottom pegs that support everything else. The bottom pegs cannot be changed without a massive influence on the ones above them. When a person becomes a new creation in Christ, it is easy to see that this is a person that brings a God-centered focus into the church. When a person becomes a religious person with self as the real supporting pegs that determine all things, it is easy to see that this is a person that will serve self in the church.
We can see, then, how important it is to the true life and practice of the church to be diligent about the nature of true conversion in both how it practices evangelism and in how it receives and retains members in the church. If a church has many unbelievers in it, will God be dwelling there? The Gospel must be proclaimed in such a way that converts are found in the way of discipleship and are expected to be true disciples of Christ. A Christian is nothing more and nothing less than a disciple of Jesus Christ. If a person is not a disciple of Christ, then that person is not a Christian. The Great Commission does not tell us to go out and evangelize, but it tells us to make disciples. That is a very important point in evangelism. We are not to evangelize in a way where discipleship is an option, but to evangelize in a way where a person is not even considered a Christian if s/he is not a disciple. Perhaps it should teach us that those who profess a faith must be thoroughly instructed in the doctrines and practices of Christianity to see if they are true followers in Christ.
True evangelism cannot be separated from the rest of the Scripture on discipleship and becoming new creatures in Christ. To go back to the analogy, the only way a person will become a true believer is if the bottom and foundational pegs of belief are changed. If our evangelism is focused on the upper pegs, we are not looking for the person to become a new creature in Christ and so one that is following Christ. We would also be practicing evangelism in such a way that people who express some belief in Christ will come into the church as an unbeliever. The church would then be greatly diluted and weakened when this happened.
If churches truly want to seek revival, then one step would be to go back and study the doctrine of conversion. Churches must begin to look at membership as something truly important rather than just a formality and a number to turn in to others. Seeking revival in truth is not just something that is attached to some high levels of the pegs; it is something that must be at the roots of the church. God will not dwell with those who have sin in their hearts and He will not dwell in the hearts of unbelievers. The effort must be for the church to be reformed (that is used in the older use of the word which referred more to the turning of a church to God in all of its ways) from the bottom up. A church cannot seek revival in truth unless it is seeking it from the bottom up. The very foundational beliefs of the churches must be built around God, His Word, and true discipleship. If our evangelism is not built on God Himself, His Word in truth, and be done in the context of discipleship, then the church will be built upon the foundational beliefs of self. Self will be king, the Word of God will be twisted to self, and self-centered people will be called believers based on self as well. True revival in the church will only happen when instead of using God and the Bible for the reasons and purposes of self, we seek to submit to God and bow to all He says in the Bible. That is the difference between a true church that is filled with new creatures and one that is ruled by self.
God Loves... Himself 
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