Tillapaugh: Review and Resolution

I am half way through Frank Tillapaugh’s book, The Church Unleashed. The first thing I noticed is that his diagnosis of the infirmity in the church in America is spot on. The next thing that I realized is that his book is over thirty years old; that is a sad commentary. Then it occurred to me that another of my favorite twentieth century authors, A.W. Tozer, said essentially the same things Tillapaugh said another thirty years earlier. Two generations apart, two thoughtful men of God identify the same weaknesses in the church. Tozer lamented the emphasis on program over Presence, and Tillapaugh criticized the pastor-centric fortress mentality so prevalent in American evangelicalism versus what he called the unleashed church.

Tillapaugh traced the fortress mentality to the evangelical stance developed throughout the early years of the twentieth century in opposition to religious liberalism. He believed that as mainline denominations drifted away from doctrinal orthodoxy into unbiblical emphases like the “social gospel,” evangelicals retreated into bunkers to defend the true faith. This defensive position became ossified by the time Tillapaugh wrote (1980’s) and was exacerbated by the transition of American society from rural to urban and suburban in nature. In other words, Tillapaugh believed that the church closed itself off from the world, and the world moved away.

This separation resulted in a largely ineffective church, evangelistically speaking. The majority of time, treasure and talent were spent inside church walls on programs meant for members, and the main thrust of what evangelism did exist was to bring people into the church. The Gospel of Jesus Christ was held captive in the church building, and unbelievers were expected to come there to find it. Because the church had become irrelevant to a changed society, Tillapaugh believed it had failed in its prime directive: making disciples.

The corrective according to Tillapaugh is to stop thinking of a church building as the place where people find the gospel and start taking the gospel to where the people are found. The way he proposes to do this is to unleash both the pastors and the laity to minister as they are led by the Holy Spirit, a clear application of the principle found in Ephesians 4. He believed that committee meetings are a place where good ideas go to die, and though structure is necessary, the Spirit must dominate the structure rather than the structure dominating (quenching) the Spirit.

Apparently Tillapaugh’s ideas worked. At the time he wrote The Church Unleashed, the proving ground for the unleashed church, Bear Valley Church in Denver, was a body of thousands working out of a building designed for 300 and doing ministry all over the city to target groups such as street people, international students, singles and more while not abandoning a traditional Sunday ministry to believers. His application of Jesus’ teaching about new skins for new wine was apt: the old church “skins” are no longer functional given the newness of the “wine” he is recommending.

Here I plant my Ebenezer, as the old song goes. The church I now call home (when not snowbirding) has elements of both the fortress and the unleashed church. I am going to work to free the gospel from its captivity there and maximize the good already being accomplished, or else I will find a place where it is already unleashed. I loathe church hopping to find the perfect church (which does not exist in this world), but I believe Tillapaugh is right when he counsels against trying to fight against leadership that resists being unleashed. I want to be like the men of Issachar in David’s day: understand the times and act accordingly. The lost and dying world deserves better than what the typical American evangelical church offers. I plan to see what I can do about that.