THE church must put Jesus back at the centre of its message, Agu Irukwu told Baptists recently.
The senior pastor of Jesus House, in London, said some churches were too focused on trying to make Jesus and the cross palatable and acceptable to 21st century society.
“Thank God for advances in theology, thank God for thinkers in the church, thank God for churches that have to be seeker-friendly and all these other nice terms.
“But it seems that the more seeker-friendly we get, the less of Jesus we get so when people come to church they are not sure whether they are in church or at a gathering where someone is giving a motivational speech and the power is not in motivational speaking. The power is in Jesus,” he said.
Irukwu made the comments in an address to the General Assembly of the Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) last night.
Thousands of Baptists from across the UK gathered in London for the General Assembly, which also celebrated 400 years since the founding of the first British Baptist church.
The weekend was spent trying to discern God’s vision for the church going forward.
Irukwu, whose church belongs to the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), said the template for the future could be found in the past, in the early church.
The early Christians, he said, understood complete submission to the Holy Spirit and were not ashamed of the Gospel.
“We are not called to convince. We are called to declare and proclaim. Let the Holy Spirit do the work of convincing. We are just called to declare and proclaim,” he said to applause.
Reflecting on the source of the early church’s phenomenal growth, Irukwu said they were a community of grace and power.
He pointed to their lifestyle of prayer and the way in which they were completely united in the task of sharing the Gospel.
