Flunking Out of Church

I can vividly recall one of my first tests in school. It was a new school year, and my second grade teacher was returning the first quiz. I looked at my paper and smiled. I was pleased because I had gotten half the questions right for a grade of 50%. Getting one out of every two was pretty good. I played little league, so I knew that I was batting .500. I felt real smart

Excitement filled me as I went home to show my parents. After I handed them my paper, their expressions led me to believe that perhaps I was mistaken in my excitement. I can still remember the feeling of my stomach churning when my parents told me that a grade of 50% was failing.

Even then I had an internal fear of failing. But my father quelled my fear.

I’ll never forget what my Dad told me.

He said, “I’m proud of you. You are going to have to work a little harder, but I’m proud of you. And I know that you can do it.” These words have never left me, and they never will.

As a pastor, I can handle the occasional criticism. Many times it is warranted and helpful. Sometimes it is silly. But what truly makes me shudder is failing the church. We all fail to some extent – we are fallible beings. So I am not talking about the idea for Super Snail Racing Saturday that falls flat. We all have our flops every now and then. The failure that I truly fear is letting down the entire congregation.

This fear is unwarranted. We should not seek the praises of people, even the people of the church. We need only to praise God and seek His blessings that come from our obedience to His will. The church can only thrive if the entire body is seeking God’s will. But there is a piece of me that still seeks the praises of the church – and I fear the opposite of that praise.

In 2005, there were more than 1,300 staff in my denomination fired from their positions within the church. And this number does not include those who were asked to leave or encouraged to tender a resignation. It only includes forced terminations. While the details of each of these cases are specific to the individual churches, and the culpable parties are unknown, several common themes as to why they were fired are evident.

The ten top reasons for church staff terminations:

1. Control issues (who should run the church)
2. Poor people skills
3. Church’s resistance to change
4. Pastor’s leadership style is too strong
5. Church was already conflicted when the pastor arrived
6. Decline in attendance and/or conditions
7. Pastor’s leadership style is too weak
8. Administrative incompetence
9. Sexual misconduct
10. Conflict with the staff

The odd thing is that each of these reasons can be flip-flopped, and what appears in the next list is perhaps the beginning of a healthy church.

1. God is in control
2. The people of God treat each other like family
3. The leadership carefully guides the church through change
4. The pastor leads like a shepherd
5. The church is unified, even without a current pastor
6. The church is growing because they are winning people to Christ
7. The pastor leads like a spiritual warrior
8. The leadership properly delegates administrative duties
9. The people of the church, particular those who are to be held above reproach, flee temptations
10. The staff is unified in vision

Some hills are worth dying on; others are not even worth fighting over. It is sad to see that so many churches have staff that are not succeeding (regardless of who is to blame). And in many ways the church, in general, is in a state of decline, failing to fulfill the Great Commission.

God does not grade on a curve. But our Heavenly Father wants us to succeed 100% of the time. While we won’t ever achieve perfection, we shouldn’t fear flunking out of church. The only fear that should occupy our hearts is a fear of the Lord. For those who fear the Lord will say, “His faithful love endures forever.”

Growing Church Plants

Ed Stetzer and company at the North American Mission Board recently unveiled some research that shows why some church plants experience higher rates of growth than others. Below is a summary of the ten factors revealed in this research that proved to be the most successful in helping a church plant grow:

Location: Schools prove to be excellent locations for church plants for two three big reasons – visibility, space, and low cost.

Ministry: In general, the best way to reach new families is reaching the children first.

Promotion: In short, the most successful church plants publish their purpose. They let the community know what they are about.

Training: Those churches that provide avenues for discipleship upfront assimilate new members better.

Expectations: The churches in this research study required new members to sign a church covenant.

Finances: Church plants that experienced the most growth were the most serious about becoming self-sufficient and supporting their church planters financially.

Staff: These churches got the right leaders on the bus from the beginning and placed them in the right seat on the bus. In other words, the church planters were involved in the areas of ministry that correctly reflected their passions.

Missions: Those church plants that were the most successful were looking to plant other churches within at least three years after their own initial church plant. These churches were looking outward from the beginning.

Leadership: Successful church plants develop strong leaders from within. They train up their own.

Achievement: The church planters that saw the most success with their churches had a big vision because they saw what God was capable of doing.

What do you think? Is there anything that you would add? Though it wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the article, I would venture a guess that these churches were also highly evangelistic as well. And this evangelistic fire probably was started by the pastor/leaders of the church.

The Name Forbidden

First and foremost, before reading my blog please take a moment to say a prayer for those affected by the Virginia Tech shootings.

Erin, my wife, once dog sat for a week. It was while we were engaged, and I thought that I would be a good fiancé and help her out one afternoon while she was caring for these animals. So I took a pizza and a movie over to the house since we couldn’t go on a date that night.

“Need any help, Honey?”

“Yes, could you give the dogs a treat while I’m cleaning up after them in here. The instructions are on the refrigerator.”

Instructions? Who needs instructions to feed three dogs?

I began to feed the dogs a few treats from the doggie jar on the counter. They seemed to like me.

“You did give the little beagle treats out of the small jar, not the big jar, right?”

“Why? What does it matter?”

Her face told me that I had done something wrong. Bad Sam.

“The beagle is allergic to beef! Did you not follow the instructions?! You can’t give her the treats with beef in them!”

I could see the one-page instruction sheet on the fridge. But I scoffed a little, “What’s the big deal? You don’t need instructions to feed a dog. They’ll eat anything.”

I was about to say something about the ridiculousness of dogs having allergies when I noticed the little beagle happily wagging its tail at me, looking for another treat. Its head had already swollen to the size of a small melon.

One hour later, after a trip to Walgreens for two bottles of Benedryl (yes, the antidote for dog allergies is human Benedryl), the mangy mutt was sleeping soundly dreaming of milk bone heaven.

The point I am trying to make with this story is the way in which we can be lackadaisical with explicit instructions, particularly those from God. And the repercussions of not following His instructions can be damaging.

God has given us explicit instructions for life. They are contained in His Word. One of the biggest commands is the Great Commission – we must be sharing our faith with others. Yet even in my own denomination, the fruit (or lack of fruit) that we are bearing may indicate that we are not following God’s decree in the area of evangelism and discipleship. God’s decrees are wonderful, that’s why we obey them! When baptisms and the spiritual growth of our church members stagnates or declines, churches need to undergo an internal examination to see if they are still in line with the will of God.

We live in a country where the name of Christ is not forbidden. Without a doubt, many areas of society repulse at the gospel message. But faith in Christ is not outlawed. When Peter and John faced the Sanhedrin, they had no idea what would happen to them at the trial. The Sanhedrin told them that the name of Christ would become illegal. They were not to preach the gospel any more.

Their response is one of pure, bold, godly brevity: “We are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

We could all use a little of Peter and John’s boldness. We could all begin to follow God’s explicit instructions of the Great Commission a little more closely. We could all benefit from having a little less gospel apathy.

Picture this - what if God allowed everyone’s head to swell if we did not share Christ with them when He wants us to? Perhaps that might add a twinge of urgency to the situation.

For Advanced Thinkers Only!

There is a club out there that I have no desire to join. In fact, very few I would say truly want to be a part of this club. But those of us who attend semi-scaries seminaries can fall onto its membership roll all too easily. This club’s motto: the gospel is for advanced thinkers only. The only entrance prerequisite: arrogance.

The trap of arrogance lurks around many churches. I too struggle with taking pride in what I know about the Bible. The passionate pursuit of spiritual knowledge can make one puffy. But let us all be reminded that finite humans are infinitesimally small to the Great Creator Almighty. Studying God’s word, hiding His words in our hearts, and soaking in the absolute privilege of reading the Bible are necessities of a strong Christian walk. It is a rare privilege to go to seminary, to be able to learn from the world’s best theological thinkers. But taking pride in these activities is sinful. Perhaps my college minister sums it up best: May our love for God outshine our love for theology.

The church is dead in many areas of the world, particularly in places of Europe. Some regions of the United States are not too far behind. We as Christians know that victory is ours; God promises it us to us. Yet we can spend all our time putting on the armor, and then never fight the battle. We end up studying every little nuance of the pieces of armor, and then never use them. Ephesians 6 isn’t about Christian welfare; it’s about Christian warfare.

In order for us to win the culture for Christ, we have to share the gospel with that culture. Clearly, we all know this truth, but we must put it into practice. Get out there and fight a battle! Undoubtedly, the pendulum can swing too far to either extreme. At one end is the advanced-thinkers-only club. The other end is the become-the-culture club. Neither extreme is healthy in waging a war against the devil’s schemes.

Haggai is an oft overlooked book of the Old Testament. But its message is so simple and so powerful: get off your lazy butt and rebuild the temple! The people had built their own lavish homes while neglecting God’s house. Sometimes we can lavish upon ourselves volumes of theology at the expense of sharing God’s wonderful grace with someone who doesn’t know Christ. Sometimes we can focus so far inward that all we ever do is spiritual navel-gazing.

So if you engage in theological debates with peers on non-essential doctrines at least once a day, spend more time in a theological library than out sharing your faith, spend more time reading Christian blogs than your own Bible, or have read every academic article and journal on the eschatological nuances of dispensationalism, you might be close to joining the advanced-thinkers-only club. So put away the “I” pod of Christian music and have an actual conversation with someone on the bus about your faith. You just might find God using your obedience to save a soul from eternal condemnation.

Church Drop-Outs

Every church has its fair share of members who spread the grass-is-greener syndrome. They are usually in the vocal minority, and they usually like to argue about non-essential matters, such as whether the bulletins need to be tri-fold or bi-fold.

They also have a propensity to “drop out” as soon as their needs aren’t being met at their church. LifeWay Research recently conducted a study on why this group of people play church hopscotch. LifeWay dubs them church switchers.

Not surprisingly, the majority of church switchers left not because they were drawn to another church, but rather because they had a desire to leave their current church. Not surprisingly, the number one reason they left was because “the church was not helping me develop spiritually.” In other words, ask not what you can do for the church, but what can the church do for you. Unfortunately, this attitude is more pervasive than pastors would like to admit.

Let me offer my top 6 warning signs of a church switcher:

1. They are often overheard saying, “Yes, but…my needs are just not being met.”
2. They often cite what “my other church/the church down the road” does.
3. They constantly state things need to change, yet they scoff at any suggestions for improvement from others.
4. They do not bring their Bibles to church.
5. They gossip unapologetically.
6. They complain about their previous pastor.

So, what do we do about this group of people? Brad Waggoner offers some suggestions:

1. Some of these church members may be unregenerate. So we need to preach the gospel to them. New members’ classes can also help to add much needed contact for the purposes of discipleship.
2. The leadership of the church must get the vast majority of the laity involved in the ministry of the church. They must equip the laity for this ministry. Those who have been equipped must then be taught to disciple others.
3. Begin the equipping process from the pulpit, but don’t let it end there.
4. Institute change at the speed of molasses. Get buy-in from key members. And eat the elephant one bite at a time.

What do you think? I will readily admit that I am tempted to ignore this group of people and focus my efforts as a pastor on those who truly desire discipleship. But I don’t think Christ would take such an approach. Do you have any further suggestions or want to add a few “warning signs?”