I found this link from my friend Steve Addison to an article by David Watson. A really interesting article to consider. Here are some excerpts.
1. What distinguishes a denomination or denomination-like church is the insistence that all related churches and any churches they start adhere to a particular and peculiar perspective and associated practices related to the Bible, as well as their particular church history.
2. All denominations and denomination-like churches exclude or minimize certain passages in the Bible and highlight other passages that support their views.
3. In almost all cases denominations and denominational-like churches will raise their historical extra-Biblical beliefs and church practices to the level of Scripture.
When we look at the attendance records of any given denomination, even in state church countries, we find that a small percentage of the population even attend any particular church. In most cases this number is only 2 to 5 percent, even in countries with state churches. Everyone who wants to go to a particular church is already attending. Everyone else knows something about that church and chooses not to attend and not to be a part of organized and religious Christianity.
So, no matter what denominational stance is comfortable to you, it will only appeal to about 5% of the population, at most. And everyone who is interested is already a member, most of whom only attend on special occasions.
So, what makes us think that any one denomination or even all denominations working for the Great Commission can succeed in reaching the world for Christ? We have had 1600 years of denominational Christianity, and best case numbers of those who call themselves Christian put us roughly at 1/6th of the world’s population. And we know that only about 20% of so-called Christians ever participate in any kind of church on a regular basis.
Another barrier that results from denominationalism is that leaders must go through extensive educational and indoctrinational processes before they are qualified to lead. This bottleneck precludes any hope of completing the Great Commission before another generation dies. All the seminaries, theological schools and Bible schools combined cannot produce enough leaders to finish the task. The denominational education and indoctrination processes make it impossible to fulfill the Great Commission.
When denominations forget their differences and get back to planting the Gospel instead of their doctrines, we may have a chance to complete the Great Commission. When we turn to making Disciples of Christ instead of converts for our denominations, we may have a chance to complete the Great Commission. Until then we will be doomed to repeat the mistakes of our forefathers.
