Any healthy church must have some level of inward focus. Those in the church should be discipled. Hurting members need genuine concern and ministry. Healthy fellowship among the members is a good sign for a congregation.
But churches can lose their outward focus and become preoccupied with the perceived needs and desires of the members. The dollars spent and the time expended can quickly become focused on the demands of those inside the congregation. When that takes place the church has become inwardly obsessed. It is no longer a Great Commission congregation.
In my research of churches and consultation with churches, I have kept a checklist of potential signs that a church might be moving toward inward obsession. No church is perfect; indeed most churches will demonstrate one or two of these signs for a season. But the real danger takes place when a church begins to manifest three or more of these warning signs for an extended period of months and even years.
- Worship wars. One or more factions in the church want the music just the way they like it. Any deviation is met with anger and demands for change. The order of service must remain constant. Certain instrumentation is required while others are prohibited.
- Prolonged minutia meetings. The church spends an inordinate amount of time in different meetings. Most of the meetings deal with the most inconsequential items, while the Great Commission and Great Commandment are rarely the topics of discussion.
- Facility focus. The church facilities develop iconic status. One of the highest priorities in the church is the protection and preservation of rooms, furniture, and other visible parts of the church’s buildings and grounds.
- Program driven. Every church has programs even if they don’t admit it. When we start doing a ministry a certain way, it takes on programmatic status. The problem is not with programs. The problem develops when the program becomes an end instead of a means to greater ministry.
- Inwardly focused budget. A disproportionate share of the budget is used to meet the needs and comforts of the members instead of reaching beyond the walls of the church.
- Inordinate demands for pastoral care. All church members deserve care and concern, especially in times of need and crisis. Problems develop, however, when church members have unreasonable expectations for even minor matters. Some members expect the pastoral staff to visit them regularly merely because they have membership status.
- Attitudes of entitlement. This issue could be a catch-all for many of the points named here. The overarching attitude is one of demanding and having a sense of deserving special treatment.
- Greater concern about change than the gospel. Almost any noticeable changes in the church evoke the ire of many; but those same passions are not evident about participating in the work of the gospel to change lives.
- Anger and hostility. Members are consistently angry. They regularly express hostility toward the church staff and other members.
- Evangelistic apathy. Very few members share their faith on a regular basis. More are concerned about their own needs rather than the greatest eternal needs of the world and community in which they live.
My list is not exhaustive. You may have some items you could add. Have you ever been a part of an inwardly obsessed church? What signs were evident that led you to know the church was inwardly obsessed? Do you affirm some of the items on my list?
Posted on May 2, 2012
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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72 Comments
we are experiencing an aged congreation who does not have the ambition or calling to do outreach. You could count the families less than 50 years on your fingers. we really do need a revival . We have a young pastor who is working real hard and brings very good sermons but it seems to fall on deaf ears.
A very worthy read. The next dilemma of course is that we need to take care that this list doesn’t trigger the next error… which is to spend too much time focussing on the problem instead of the Solution (Philippians 4:8). To the people here who are wondering how to turn this back to the positive, the simple answer is to remember: Jesus is the solution. As a start, my suggestion is to look at four things: PRAYER, STORY, KINGDOM, and FAMILY. First up, pray – get your own spiritual passion up again. Next, go back to the basics of telling the story of Jesus – stick to the gospels for a while. Tell your personal story. Then get some people to tell their story of how they became a believer. Deliberately STIR UP faith. As you do, suddenly a lot of the petty things will start sorting themselves out.
Oh, and remember (and teach) that this Christian thing we’re in isn’t a democracy. It’s a kingdom. We’re servants of a King. We didn’t vote Him in. We can’t vote Him out. It’s also a family, and a family needs to find different ways of getting along than a corporation would. Grace and Honour trump Offence.
Alas, I recognise at least half of these in my own church. And I would add, appointment of leaders based on longstanding membership rather than love for the body of Christ.
Recently, though, God seems to be doing a new work in our church. The newer members are seen doing informal bible studies on the lawn after church together, and it stabs at the harder hearts of the older members. Though the style of the music is rigid and the content at times focused more on stirring emotions than teaching, encouraging, etc., my proud musician’s heart is humbled when I see that God uses it to his own glory despite the shortcomings of our music team.
I’m not the pastor here, and I can’t point to solutions for the culture as a whole. But I know that the solution for me (who moved to the church due to marriage, and initially fought everything I disliked with a misplaced zeal) was to begin praying FOR, not against the church – FOR God to use it in the community, not against its inward focus; FOR a hunger for God in the church, not against the apathy. Especially (and this is the most obvious but also the hardest) FOR the people I was angry with, not against the things they did that I disliked. The more I asked God to bless these people, the easier my time in the church became.
Oy vey, the endless facilities meetings, though! 🙂
Seems like the logical result of taking our eyes off Jesus. What should we expect when leaders insist on running churches like modern businesses instead of allowing Jesus to lead his Church?
Not wanting a projector isn’t necessarily a sign of an inwardly focused church. It could be argued that wanting to having a projector is trying too hard to appeal to a hipper society whose focus is on technology, not the gospel. And I say this as an 18 year old myself. I’m sure projectors can be properly integrated somehow but I’ve found that every church I’ve attended that had a project has fallen short of my expectations for a Christ-centered, Biblical, not-just-Sunday-Christians church while the three I have felt at home in have not had projectors. I’m certainly not saying projectors are inherently bad but I don’t think a resistance to projectors is a sign of inward focus. Personally, I find them distracting and I would resist if my church tried to integrate them. Just my thoughts.
Leslie,
Great post. You are wise to work within the “rather painful” restrictions of the budget makers in your church. When your missionaries return and share their inspiring accounts of God’s favor and exhibit their infectious joy with the congregation, you may see the funding policies change somewhat. It is true that a church’s budget reflects her priorities. It is also true that new priorities can affect the budget allocations. Next time there is an opening on the finance committee, encourage the church to select one of the people who actually went on the mission trip. Then see what happens.
Thank you for the article . . . but I am not sure how to go about sharing it
Anonymous,
I hear your heart and have been right where you are; in fact for 30 years I served in traditional churches. I encourage you to be careful about your decision on whether or not to “get out.” It may well be the right decision, but it is too important a decision to not be certain. If you’d like to talk give me a call at LifeWay or email at [email protected].
Thanks for this! I’ve seen this in churches too many times. It is so important for churches to be realistic with themselves about this inward-focusing tendency. Churches should be regularly saying: this is very common for churches, and it can happen to us, so let’s be proactive in working against it!
Dr. Rainer,
I am a fairly young guy and new to ministry. I can attest to these signs being prevalent in some more seasoned congregations, but I think sometimes we don’t always see this clearly in some of our new churches.
For example, I was involved in a newer church plant in Alabama and I left the church because the church was mostly inwardly focused. The church plant had more desire to be number driven church than spiritually healthy member driven church, big event on Sunday morning focused over making disciples focus, and honed more in on the kind of coffee we served than what kind doctrine was being taught.
After that, the Lord lead me to a solid church plant closer to my college, which had a completely different mindset in its approach to ministry.
Church plants can vary in methodology, theology, and even social conditions, but if they become more concerned about what draws a crowd than what is glorifying to God,than that local church will contract the cancer of consumer christianity.
I know not all church plants are this way, but I think people my age (in the early 20s) can assume that it is just an older congregation problem.
I don’t know if all of this is correct or if it is just my perception, but I think people need to see that young churches face this issue too.
I believe the biggest sign and cause of an ingrown church is isolation from the greater Body of Christ. When my husband and I were seeking a home church, the qualifying factor was, “What is your relationship with area churches?” We were blessed (amazed) to find a pastor who meets weekly with several other pastors in the area (of other denominations!) for prayer and support. “For there the Lord commands a blessing.” Psalm 133
This is a well put together, eye-opening list. One item that may be missing from the list is how the budget affects missions. In general, a church budget reflects the church’s priorities and their faith that HE will meet their needs.
More specifically, I am co-leading an overseas mission trip, taking 30 members from our church. However, in order to get the trip approved by the finance committee, we had to assure them that we could raise ALL of the funds needed ourselves and that NO budget money would be used for our trip. Our team members are exhausted from the fundraisers, but it is the only way we will raise the $30,000 needed to go. It’s rather painful.