Perry Noble » God Scripture Mission Church Church Leadership Wisdom Church Planting

1. The vision is not clear

If people don’t know where a church is supposed to be going, then it will attempt to go everywhere and eventually wind up nowhere.  Want to run an interesting experiment? Ask people this coming Sunday at your church, “What is our vision?” and see if they give you the same answers or different ones.

2. The focus is on trying to please everyone

There is no church on the planet that will make everyone happy every single week, and according to the Scriptures that isn’t really supposed to be our obsession. Too many times we become so concerned with offending people that we actually offend Jesus.

3. Passionless leadership

When leaders do what they do for a paycheck and not because it’s their passion, it’s over.  I’ve said this over on my site before: I want difference makers, not paycheck takers. Also, it’s hard to be passionate about a place when a person’s average stay at a church is two years or less.

4. Manufacturing energy

If a program is dead in a church, then it needs a funeral and the people need to move on. Investing time, energy, and money into something that is dead will not revive it. Celebrate the fact that “that” program had its day and then move on. Also, quit trying to fire people up over events that you would not attend if you were not on staff.

5. Lack of prayer

Many times we work so hard putting our ideas together that we actually think there is no need for the supernatural power of God to be involved. Prayer should not be the good luck charm that we stick at the beginning or the end of what we do. Rather, it should be our constant desperation to see God do the undeniable among us. Intense desperation often brings undeniable revelation!

6. Unwillingness to take risks

When our focus becomes to play it safe rather than to do whatever it takes to reach people far from God, it’s over.  Nowhere in the Scriptures did God ever ask anyone to do anything that didn’t involved an “Oh crap” moment. We’ve got to be willing to embrace the uncertain if we want to see the unbelievable.

7. Disobedience to the Scriptures

Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:48, John 20:21, Acts 1:8, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 19:10… I could go on and on, but we must understand that Jesus didn’t come to earth, live here for 33 years years, give his life for us, and then return to heaven to intercede on our behalf so that we could get in really little circles and talk about ourselves and condemn those who are not as good as us. We are called to reach people for God—period!

8. Selfish Attitudes

Matthew 20:28 says it all. If we are going to be more like Jesus, we’ve got to serve others rather than expecting the church to be our servant all of the time. When a person or group of people refuse to embrace that a call to follow Jesus is a call to serve, then we’ve lost sight of who he is. Eventually, we will make being a Christian all about Jesus following and serving us rather than us taking up our cross and following him!

 

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This article originally appeared on PerryNoble.com

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