Items that Hinder Church Growth: Sin

As I consult with and try to help dying urban churches, I have concluded that the main reason urban churches die is due to sin.  It is not that churches die of old age nor spiritual attack from the unsaved public, churches are committing spiritual suicide by refusing to deal with their internal corporate sin.  Let me be clear, churches commit self-murder because of sinfulness and an unrepentant heart.  There appears to be four major sins that are paralyzing and killing urban churches throughout America and the world.

First, there is the sin of partial obedience.  Urbanites fear selling out to Jesus and attempt to walk in partial obedience, which is in reality total disobedience.  These churches do a lot “for” God instead of being in a personal relationship of total obedience “with” Jesus.  Because the emphasis is in doing, these churches measure spiritual growth by what one does rather than whom one is in Christ.  These churches become cultish, exercising a “salvation by works” instead of by faith.  These churches commit the sin of partial obedience, which results in the withheld presence of Christ and leads to spiritual suicide.  In First Samuel 15:12-23, we read: “Early in the morning Samuel got up and went to meet Saul ….When Samuel reach him, Saul said, ‘The Lord bless you!  I have carried out the Lord’s instructions’…Samuel said to Saul, ‘Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.’  ‘Tell me,’ Saul replied.  Samuel said, ‘Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel?  The Lord anointed you king over Israel.  And he sent you on a mission ….Why did you not obey the Lord?’...’But I did obey the Lord,’ Saul said ‘I went on the mission the Lord assigned me….The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.’  But Samuel replied:  ‘Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?  To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams…Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king’ (NIV). God does not honor partial obedience.  Until churches get real with God and walks in full obedience, God will withhold his spiritual blessings and the individual church dies.  Churches are committing suicide through partial obedience, and when the sin is pointed out, like Adam and Saul, the finger of blame is pointed at others.

Second, there is the sin of prejudice.  You simply cannot go to heaven with prejudice in your heart.  For near twenty years now, I have worked with people of all races and cultures and have a real heart for multi-cultural ministry.  My good friend, Rev. Dennis Hall, once asked me what event transformed my life and made me want to be reconciled with people of other races.  I reflected on his question and came to realize that this is how God works in the life of every Christian.  If we allow God to do his work, he removes all prejudices and causes us to seek reconciliation with our brothers and sisters of all races, ethnicities, and cultures.

This is exactly what John is addressing in First John 2:9-11.  “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.  Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.  But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him” (NIV).

If the Church is to ever win this world it must first seek forgiveness for the prejudice that separates it so severely on Sunday mornings, lest the multitudes of churchgoers miss heaven altogether (First John 4:19-20).  Churches are not only segregated by race, culture, and traditions, they are divided by denominational blindness.  I am reminded of the Presbyterian Church down the street that refused to participate with the Baptist church I served as pastor.  One of the elders told me they only participated with three other Presbyterian churches, and that they sure would not participate with a Baptist church.  If we have a personal relationship with Jesus, he will convict us of all prejudice in our lives and lead us to seek forgiveness.  Prejudice knows no racial boundaries and no race or culture has a monopoly on it.  Prejudice is of this world and not of God.  America’s churches have proven this by developing denominational prejudice, often voiced by mean spirited pastors. 

Third is the sin of personal preference.  Urban churches are dying, not for the lack of people, but because the membership holds onto its sin of personal preference.  Humanities carnal nature causes people to develop personal preferences with no biblical basis.  We all have them.  I prefer a certain style of music, preaching, and worship and you have your own preferences.  Urban churches, much more than rural churches, must desire to worship God with people who have dissimilarity preferences and be willing to let go of individual preferences in order to worship with people of other cultures, ethnicities, and social status.  Is God so limited that he can only be praised with hymns, southern gospel, or contemporary praise?  Is God so small that he cannot hear the litanies, the benedictions, and the free prayers lifted in a multi-cultural gathering?  Does God require a traditional organ and piano, or will he accept worship coming from a praise band with flashing lights and a smoke machine?  God is large enough and creative enough to receive worship from all cultures and in a multitude of styles and format.  God has no preference; he only wants to be worshipped – truly worshipped.  Churches that do not truly worship God will die, not because God wills it, but because the church commits spiritual suicide.

Fourth, there is the sin of “religious capitalism.”  In most churches, there is a desire to reach people to grow the church.  The capitalistic mindset seeks to operate the church by selling religion for self-gains.  Capitalism is only bad when it feeds greed, and greed is the root sin imbedded in religious capitalism.  It is the exact opposite of what Jesus modeled in his incarnate life.  Jesus did not reach people to grow the synagogue or the denomination.  Jesus reached out to people to meet their need.  While the ultimate human need is spiritual, Jesus loved all people and met their human need in order to meet their spiritual need.  Through meeting the individual’s need, Jesus touched the spiritual need within the person.  Dying churches, perhaps out of desperation to survive, reverse Jesus’ model at their own spiritual and very real demise.  These churches forget that the greatest need of a person is to have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ; these churches seek people to “come” to their church and help them grow.  The motive is for self-preservation, to bring money in to pay the power bill, mortgage, and pastor.  The need for survival blinds these churches to the model Jesus lived out, a model of true servanthood.  To further complicate the issue, these churches often accept people into their membership who have already helped to destroy other churches, ignorantly speeding their own death – by suicide.

Dying churches must look inward to find the answer to their failure.  It is not the fault of society, of a godless culture, or the changing times.  Churches die because church members allow sin to remain in their lives and slowly poison the church.  Full repentance is the start of revitalization for dying churches.