10 Reasons Churches Stall; Part 2

The second part of the recent article written for the FIEC leaders' journal.

A further 5 reasons why churches stall.

1. No life application from the Bible. When preaching, teaching and Bible study become ends in themselves rather than means to an end, something is badly wrong. The aim of no passage of scripture is that we should simply know what it says without the knowledge translating into discipleship and worship. Just as the aim of no Bible passage is that we simply know it (the Devil does that!) but that we follow, obey, submit and worship, so Bible studies and preaching must never exist entirely for their own sake but to see faith, worship and discipleship among the believers

2. A church becomes afraid to ask radical questions. Perhaps a pastor knows that things are foundationally wrong but knows he will be severely resisted (or sacked) if he raises the issue. Perhaps certain activities have passed their sell-by date but have become too dear to those who participate in them to ever deliberately stop them. Churches accrete new activities much more easily than we stop redundant ones and gradually stall under the weight of them. The danger is that people start to equate serving the church with living out the gospel. Few churches regularly evaluate every aspect of church life against their core vision

3. Confusing Christian activities with discipleship. The myriad of opportunities within and without the local church to spend time doing churchy things makes it very easy to believe that doing those activities automatically means we are growing as disciples. This reason for stalling churches is subtle and hard to spot because it may outwardly seem that people are doing good things: attending Christian conferences, going on Christian holidays, sitting on church committees, even ministering or leading in church. All of these can be valuable. The danger arises when we assume that these things are the same thing as living out the gospel. They aren’t

4. Not understanding how to release and encourage everyone in the church to use their spiritual gifts for the building up of the church. This stall can take several different forms: the church (or the leader) that expects the leader to do everything and everyone else to do nothing; the church that thinks that everybody participation is not a matter of identifying and utilising gifts but of exercising a vote at a church meeting; the church that doesn’t want to be challenged out of a cultural comfort zone and that insists that its leaders act as their chaplains for meeting exclusively internal spiritual needs. There are two types of DNA in churches. One type of church says “we exist to have our personal spiritual needs met”, the other “we exist to impact our locality and the world with the gospel of the grace of God in Christ.” The first type is a stalled church

5. Moving into maintenance mode. At some point all churches take decisions that tend towards stalling. No church was stalled at the point that it was founded. At the beginning all churches were adventures in faith and daring risk for God. No one actively decided for comfort over risk, but at some point the mindset shifted from uncomfortable faith and daring passion for the Lord to comfortable mediocrity. From an externals to internals, from a frontier missions mindset to a homely maintenance mindset. One point this can happen for larger churches is when the initial vision is met. If the founding vision was to see 200 people saved and a full building of converts, it is very easy when this is achieved to move into keeping everyone happy and simply building up those who have come in. But that is to betray the founding vision. When it is reached it is time to ask what the next step of faith should be. However this is always uncomfortable, especially if you have a full building with lots of activities that people enjoy and find unthreatening. The mantra of the maintenance mindset is “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” But just like buying shoes for growing children, if structures don’t take account of future growth then fellowships end up stunted and deformed. We need to plan for structures, buildings, teams and leaders to grow at the point where the building is full. Any other decision is by definition a decision to stall sooner or later

One component of leadership is discernment, the ability to bring clarity, vision and sense to situations. The final straw that will lead any church into a stall is when leaders are unable to do so. This might be because they lack skill, opportunity, they face implacable opposition or because they are wounded and isolated. One of the tragedies for sole leaders is when a congregation knows that it only has to dig its heals in enough and it will wear down the ability, capacity and energy necessary to bring vision and change. Stalled congregations are often comfortable being stalled and fiercely resist any attempt to move them out of the rut. The leader ends up drained, permanently discouraged and pulled this way and that by every demand of the congregation.

It is critical for a stalled (or stalling) congregation to ask “how did we get here? Where is the hole in the fuel tank?” But even more crucial is the question “will we look for and follow leaders who can discern, identify, and fix the problem?” The answer to this question will finally determine whether the stall is fixable or fatal.

10 Reasons Churches Stall; Part 1

This is a recent article I was invited to contribute to the FIEC leaders' journal. Part 2 to follow.

Several months ago I was on a train which came to an abrupt and terminal stop. We waited for half an hour before the announcement: “ladies and gentlemen please disembark as there is a large hole in the fuel tank.” This became obvious from the overpowering smell of diesel that hit us as soon as we were outside. I liked being on the train. It was comfortable and they served refreshments. But it wasn’t going anywhere and from inside it was impossible to see why.

Sometimes churches stall and it isn’t always easy to tell from the inside what is wrong. But you don’t necessarily have to know what is wrong to know that something is wrong. When a stall occurs one common option is to look at superficial things like style of services or meeting times. It is rare to find a church daring enough to ask if there might be a more foundational hole in the fuel tank.

Here are five common spiritual reasons churches stall. Five more to come next time.

1. The church forgets who we are and what we are for. 1 Peter says that we are a royal priesthood (who we are) for declaring God’s greatnesses to the world (what we are for). Put simply, the purpose of the church is to go into all the world, making disciples of Jesus, baptising them and teaching them to obey everything He commanded. When we forget that we are the community of disciples for declaring God’s greatness and making disciples mission quickly becomes just one among many activities rather than the defining vision of who we are as a community

2. The majority of believers are no longer thrilled with the Lord and what He is doing in their lives. When questions like “what is God doing with you at the moment” cease to be common currency it is sure sign of creeping spiritual mediocrity. When a large percentage of believers are spiritually stalled, the church stalls too. This commonly happens when people attach themselves to a fellowship because they like the activities and the warm company, but never commit themselves to gospel vision, either because it isn’t explained to them or they have no commitment to it. Woe betide the church that lets people join and take significant responsibility for decisions without being sure that they are wholeheartedly committed to the church’s vision

3. The people get happy with not going anywhere because of the comfort and refreshments on offer. Worse still when people get happy with activities, events, service and even good teaching and preaching but are resistant to challenges to radical living and sacrifice for the gospel. In my view the single biggest cause of stalled churches in the UK is the belief that material comfort can be normative for Christians. It is the opposite of radical commitment to Christ

4. When filler-Christians who have no real commitment to gospel vision out number the core of committed believers who do. A filler-Christian adds up everything else they need and want to do for the rest of the week, sees how many hours are left and allocate a certain number of them to church things. They see church as one among many leisure activities, usually low down the priority list. They are unlikely to see the Christian community as God’s great hope for the world and unlikely to put commitment above self-interest

5. When a large percentage of the church are used to being passive receivers of ministry from other people rather than being active self-feeders on the Word of God. It is remarkably easy to persuade ourselves that we have done the spiritual bit for the week because we have listened to a sermon but with no thought about acting on it. Where people take no personal responsibility for their own spiritual growth a stalled church becomes more likely

Don't Waste Your Life

Thanks Anthony Adams for pointing out the DWYL sermon jam. I am now so old I have no idea what a sermon jam is, but if this is a representative example then I like it. A lot.

Preaching to Bright Pagans 2; Acts 17:29-34

What's wrong with idols? When Paul arrived in Athens he was deeply provoked by them. Most English translations don't get quite the sense of depth of provocation, jealousy for God and anger at the oppression caused by idol-worship. Athens loved its idols. It was well said that you could find a "god" more easily than a man there.

Paul sets up his sermon at the Areopagus entirely to get to this point: God is going to judge the world for worshipping idols, so you have to turn from them. Just remember the flow of his argument:

1. God made the world
2. God created people and nations
3. God is sufficient but we are needy. We should be dependent on him
4. Therefore, since we are his offspring, his creations, we should seek him

And then the climax in v29: since this is the case, get rid of idols. Why does the argument he made counter idols? What is it about them that challenges God as creator and provider? Here are ten reasons why God hates idols and we should hate idols:

• Idols are something we make and control, not someone who makes and rules us
• Idols are gods made in our image, turning on its head the truth that we are made in God's image
• Idols enshrine ignorance about God not knowledge of him
• Idols are an attempt to domesticate God to our purposes and use
• Idols need to be served. They are gods that are dependent on us, turning on its head the truth that we are completely dependent on him
• Idols replace God by offering something that seems to make us independent of him
• Idols don't make us free but enslave us to something that isn't God
• Idols make us think that knowledge of God isn't worth having (Romans 1)
• Idols are the equivalent of adultery, introducing a third person into a marriage to prevent us cherishing our spouse
• Idols give us something we created to worship thereby overturning God's exclusive right to worship

John Stott says that idols reverse the respective positions of us and God, allowing us to create and rule over the divine. In other words they are a physical crystallisation of the primary sin of rebellion against God. In worshipping idols we say "God is dependent on me, I am self-sufficient and no longer dependent on him." No wonder God is going judge the world for idolatry. It is the opposite of seeking him. Idols are the means of fleeing from him to anything - literally anything - else.

When Paul makes this case people laugh at him. I don't think they are laughing at the statement that Jesus is risen from the dead, I think they are laughing at someone telling them to get rid of their whole worldview. Their whole lives are so steeped in idols that they cannot see past it to the truth.

Now, how to apply today. Its fairly easy to see how to do this for non-Christians. But what about for believers? I think the single hardest thing to preach to Christians is absolute total commitment of the whole of life to Christ. Getting people to the point where we actually believe and act as if Christ is king over everything we are and everything we own. Helping people jump off the cliff with no plan B if God doesn't act for us. Most believers treat the "God part" of life as one component alongside others like family, job, leisure activity and the like. We don't tend to look on submitting to God's purposes as the governing factor that defines all the rest. We don't ask "how do I do family, job, leisure, etc, in all ways to honour him? How do I use all my money, my house, my time, my marriage to honour him? How do I take risks with my possessions to honour him?" 

Why don't we? If we explore deep enough the underlying reasons for not submitting every area to him are always an idol of some kind. It always reveals that we trust something else rather than God, whether that is a savings account, ambitions, material things. 

The subtlest idol of all for evangelical believers is trusting in our works of evangelical religion. It is all too easy to substitute God's rule over the whole of life for attending a Christian meeting, or doing Bible study. Both good things, but they are not the same as whole-life discipleship. In fact if I think I am being a disciple because I do evangelical works of religion I have fallen hook, line and sinker for an idol. Jesus told a story of a Pharisee who thanked God for all the things God had done in his life, and then offered those to God for his righteousness. The biggest evangelical idol is "God will accept me because I believe evangelical truth and do evangelical activities not because of Christ alone." 

Why Alarm Clocks?

I frequently treat the alarm clock as my enemy. Especially if I wasn't disciplined to go to bed early enough. The alarm is an intrusion because it calls me from bed to something that I like less than bed. At least that's how it is tempting to think.

Following on from my last post I need to rethink my response to the alarm clock. Acts 17:25 says that God gives life and breath and everything and that He satisfies our needs. There are lots of different kinds of needs that we have, some very pressing and urgent, some even necessary for life itself. Without trivialising any of those I can say with certainty from Acts 17 that our biggest need is to be satisfied in God and satisfied by God. He is the joy of joys, the satisfaction of satisfactions, the delight of delights. 

If you follow this blog regularly you know that I find common evangelical ideas of "quiet time" with God slightly suspect. Because for so many of us we have reduced them to a matter of reading the Bible to educate ourselves about God. Education is OK, but deeply insufficient. I don't want to merely know about God as my end goal, I want to be satisfied in God and delight in Him.

This puts a different spin on my feelings about the alarm clock. If I think it wakens me to a wearisome day of drudgery I will resent it. If I think it wakens me for a time of education about God I will mentally acknowledge its usefulness but may still not enjoy it. If, however, I know that it wakens me to come to Him, enjoy His presence, delight myself in Him and make my heart happy in Him, that makes me feel altogether different about starting the day.

It might even encourage me to be more disciplined about bed time the night before. If I know that ill-discipline dampens my great joy in God I might set an alarm for going to bed as well as one for waking up. Why alarm clocks? I propose that alarm clocks exist for the purpose of exciting joy in God, for wakening anticipation of spending a day with him and for creating time to make our hearts happy in Him.