A lot of churches don’t grow and haven’t grown in a long time. The people scratch their heads and can’t figure out what is wrong. They love their church and don’t understand why others don’t. They see people come and go, but the attendance just seems to go down. The painful truth is that many of our churches are about a dozen funerals from ceasing to be. Why is it that many churches don’t grow? Of course there are many reasons, but I think the major one is that the world doesn’t see Christ in the church. Jesus’ love and the hope he gives are attractive, but too often non-Christians don’t see Him in our churches. Why is that? How are we covering Him up?
First, of all the world doesn’t know what the church is up to. We have not made clear that we are here to share the wondrous love of Jesus we have found and enjoy. Since they don’t feel the love they come up with all kinds of erroneous motives for the church.
Second, the world doesn’t think the message of the church is relevant. Generally that is at least partly because it we have not made the message clear. So they think, “Whatever they are doing has nothing to do with me.”
Third, we come across to the world as an ingrown culture. To them, we have our own jargon, we exist in our own little world. They think they wouldn’t be welcome, even if they were interested
Fourth, too often we are seen by the world as a people who argue over the strangest things: doctrines they don’t understand; the type of music that is sung in the church; the length of hair, and skirts; and whether or not to wear ties in worship.
Fifth, they see us as people to whom tradition is more important than sharing our message in a relevant way. Tradition can help hold people together, but many times we let our traditions get in the way.
What can be done? How does a church overcome these perceptions? To get past these things the people in the church first have to want to. We must decide whether it is more important to do things the way we like them, or to reassess the things we do and aim our efforts at doing what Jesus told us to do, make disciples, and make the changes necessary to reveal our wonderful Savior to a new generation.
It may sound brutal but it is true is that many of us are flat-out selfish when it comes to our church. We would rather watch our neighbor go to hell than have to change things in their church. Can anyone tell me, what Jesus is going to say about this?
Amen, my brother. You have just described about 75% of the churches in America.
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