How to Kill a Church

TGC ^ | JANUARY 11, 2019 | Jared C. Wilson

[Gamecock]

Want to fatten a church for slaughter? The steps are below.

This is a true story.

1. Launch a “church for people who don’t like the church” with a dynamic leader with big ideas and self-help teaching.

2. Care less about biblical depth, discipleship, and leadership character than inspirational messages, excitement, and creativity. Make sure the success is built around the leader’s “brand” so that he and the church are largely synonymous.

3. See the place attract large crowds.

4. See the success go to the leader’s head. Make excuses and accommodations as his short temper, control issues, and lack of accountability begin to take their toll. Accept the loss of numerous quality leaders as the collateral damage necessary to win the attendance war in your city’s ministry marketplace.

5. Continue staking everything on a “killer weekend experience” to the expense of discipleship, community, and mission. Marginalize (or get rid of) anyone who does not get the vision.

6. Watch the leader eventually crash and burn.

7. As the church hemorrhages attendees who were there for “the brand,” fail to learn your lesson and hire a similarly dynamic leader to replace the one who’s fallen. (Make sure he’s at least nice.)

8. Make sure only yes-men ascend to leadership as the new leader tries to rebuild a better version of what crashed the first time.

9. Watch as the new leader drifts further and further away from biblical teaching and more into the world of quasi-spiritual wanderings. Make sure anyone who sees red flags in occasional New Age-type teaching and embrace of heterodox spiritualities can’t do anything about it. When those people leave, don’t care.

10. Watch as liberal theology takes root and slowly drives more and more people out the door. As money dwindles, and staff along with it, take no steps to correct course. Go “all in.”

11. Follow the “new kind of Christianity” all the way to barely-Christianity, and close the doors on what used to be a thriving megachurch.

12. Wonder what went wrong.

This isn’t the only way to kill a church. Some churches dwindle and die through no fault of the leaders. But if you want to kill a church, this is a time-tested way to do it.

[cuban leaf]

Ever see the movie, “Come Sunday”?

Worth a watch. It touches on this stuff.

[chris37]

How to ruin a church.

Put Man in it.

[Mom MD]

Or to sum it up - care more about popularity than sound doctrine.

[Gamecock]

11. Follow the “new kind of Christianity” all the way to barely-Christianity, and close the doors on what used to be a thriving megachurch.

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Not exactly news, but something we see over and over again.

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Because 18,000 22,000 People Can’t Be Wrong!

*Your Best Purpose Driven Life Now

[Telepathic Intruder]

All it takes are a few false prophets.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

There is only one step.

The clergy stop believing in what they are suppose to teach.

[metmom]

Preach the prosperity gospel.

[dfwgator]

Play a lot of “Jesus Is My Boyfriend” songs in Church.

[gaijin]

Feminize it:

Everyone will eventually leave.

You might even get honkies to join a non-feminized faith.

Gosh I WONDER which one THAT is.

[Sans-Culotte]

Bump for later.

[Cottonpatch]

Our small town church just went with the Purpose Driven Life materials
so we are without a church. Many people have left, but the leaders have such control there is no hope for change.
Most there have no use for the Old Testament, thinking Jesus read and preached from the New Testament...unbelievable.
Modern thinking is that God speaks from the pastor now instead of His Word.

[Gamecock]

The scary thing here is that PDL is already way behind the times.

Sigh.

To and fro with every wind of doctrine.

[AppyPappy]

Downplay the value of the Bible because “many people have been hurt by it”.
Focus your outreach towards the people who have been hurt by the church
Design your worship towards “seekers” and “questioners”

I’m watching one go under now. We moved to a Scripture-focused church

[MayflowerMadam]

“care more about popularity than sound doctrine.”

A church we attended about 20 years ago was very fundamental, and we liked everything about it. Sermons were sound, etc. One day I was in choir practice, and one of the songs mentioned the blood of Jesus. The director thought maybe they should replace that phrase because “some people are offended by the blood”.

My mouth dropped open. I stared over at the preacher’s wife down the row, waiting for her to say something. She didn’t.

We never went back.

[FormerFRLurker]

“the attendance war in your city’s ministry marketplace.”

This right there is what is wrong with many megachurches. Too many leaders are focused on making money rather than leading people to Christ. Give me a small neighborhood church where everybody knows everybody else over any megachurch any day of the week.

[dfwgator]

From the Book “Christless Christianity”:

What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city? Over a half century ago, Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse offered his own scenario in his weekly sermon that was also broadcast nationwide on CBS radio. Barnhouse speculated that if Satan took over Philadelphia, all of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am,” and the churches would be full every Sunday . . . where Christ is not preached.

[Gamecock]

One of my favorite quotes.

[dfwgator]

I remember that first time I read the quote, it totally made my reconsider everything I thought I knew about religion.

[Jmouse007]

Rick Warren, Andy Stanley, Joel Osteen, are at the top of this list.

Christless, “church entertainmentanity” incorporated.