How Churches Become Ineffective

Most churches have boiled down their activity and message to an inoffensive middle.

Offensiveness is not always bad. The Gospel, according to the Bible, is offensive. If your church is not offending people who don’t like the Gospel, the Bible, Jesus Christ, and any number of godly things, then your church is ineffective.

The reason most churches are not offensive is because they can’t afford it.

They have mortgages to pay. There are heating and electric bills and general upkeep for giant buildings. Exorbitant salaries for increasingly expanding paid positions must be paid.

As these things increase for a church, adherence to the offensiveness of the Gospel and truth goes out the window.

Some people want more of a thing while other people want less of that same thing. The church, desiring not to lose any cash givers, finds a comfy middle ground where both parties are happy.

Church traditions are merely hundreds of years of doing this.

This is what we’ve always done and this is what we will continue to do because back in 1893 the Jones and Miller families hashed this out until we found this workable solution. Don’t mess with it. This is what people expect. If we don’t give them what they want; they won’t give us what we need: money.

Your church does not perfectly follow the Word of God. If it did, it would be smaller.

Your church knows this, so it has come up with a handy way to make people feel like they are listening to God while scratching ears to get money.

Cynical? Yes. It’s also very true in most cases.

As a pastor, you know what verses your church has no interest in taking seriously. You know you can’t preach on them without losing people. Do you preach on them anyway and take your lumps, or do you compromise? Maybe skip some uncomfortable parts of the Bible?

Why are you doing that?

After years of playing games with people in my church, I began to simply preach what I saw in the Bible. People left. I made a clear statement to the board that I will take pay cuts. Keep doing everything the church needs with money, I will suffer the consequences of my teaching.

I taught what I believed. People left. My salary shrunk. There were many times I could have skipped verses or not preached certain sermons. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk or purposely poke people in the eye (most of the time!), but I was trying to be faithful to the Word.

My church shrunk to the point of non-existence. I’m no longer a pastor. The church is no longer in existence. I find both things to be ok under the circumstances. I tried to correct what the church taught and did with biblical teaching.

People left. People aren’t interested in biblical teaching; they are interested in an inoffensive institution they can use to assuage their guilt.

Cynical? Yes. Unfortunately, also very true.

Try it sometime. Do you have the guts to preach the verses you know your church ignores? It’ll cost you. Is it worth it? Well, you won’t have as much stuff and you’ll have fewer people, but you’ll also have a clean conscience before the Lord.

The church is here to proclaim the Light of Jesus Christ. Men love darkness and hate light. Don’t be surprised when the world hates you, and also don’t be surprised about how much world is currently in your church.

Don’t be an inoffensive, ineffective, worthless church. Proclaim the Word of God, forsake your dependence on worldly things, and speak the truth in love.

Whose Fault is it that Your Church Sucks?

I’ll get some objections out of the way first:

–The problem is that you think the church is yours.

Stop it. I don’t mean it belongs to me as in I possess the church. I mean it simply as the church I go to, whether as pastor or not the pastor. The church I go to is my church. The church you go to is your church. I mean nothing more than that.

–Church’s don’t suck, they are all part of the Body of Christ.

This is possibly true. But I’d maintain that no, not all churches are part of the Body of Christ. I will spare you the details of pointing out who I mean, but to assume that everyone in every church is part of the Body of Christ is not clear thinking.

–You’re not the judge of a church.

Probably true. But also, if you’re fully involved in your church, you get a pretty good sense of whether it sucks or not. Your judgment may still be wrong, but you can get a sense. Some churches legitimately do.

–You shouldn’t use the word “sucks.”

True I shouldn’t, but it’s a good summation of the idea that no one in your church is doing anything, there is little to no life, people who come to the church don’t even come to church, no one cares if a church thing is cancelled, people will do pretty much anything other than come to church, no one will help fulfill a need, there is no light at the end of any tunnel, and the whole exercise seems futile and a waste of time, it’s just a place people go and sit in so they can feel like God is happy with them for a little bit for having done so. That’s what I mean by “your church sucks.” It’s easier to just say “sucks.”

Now, after dealing with those objections, stating the problem as clearly as I can, whose fault is it that your church sucks? Here are the possible answers to this question that I have heard:

–God’s.

God is the one who builds His Church. This is the way He wants it. Nothing you can do. It’s all Him. He predestined before the foundation of the world that your church would be what it is. And, since you’re in this church, God brought you there and put you there: deal with it. It’s His building. What, do you think people determine the success of a church? Not true. Why would God put His church in the hands of people? The solution is to get the power out of your hands and put it back in God’s.

–Satan’s.

Satan is the prince of the power of the air and the god of this age. You better believe Satan wants to see churches fall apart and be terrible. He’s all over the place in your church, making people lazy and fight with each other. If you’re not actively involved in spiritual warfare, Satan will have his way with your church. If Satan can overthrow the church, what else remains to uphold the Gospel? He’s coming at you daily. Spiritual warfare is the solution.

–The people’s.

Every member of a body of believers has a role. If people in your church are not fulfilling the role they were given through the Holy Spirit’s provision, the church will suffer. Love is the basis of edification. Preach on love. Do more fellowship. Do more programs. Do more work days. Give people a sense of belonging. Force people to get involved. Only when each member takes up their part will the church work.

–The pastor’s.

Churches are as healthy as their pastors. If you have bad shepherds, what chance do the sheep have? The pastor’s sin and unfaithfulness will be shown by how well the church is doing. I’ve seen over and over that a church is revitalized by bringing in a better pastor. If your church sucks it’s because your pastor doesn’t have enough faith, doesn’t pray enough, doesn’t do discipleship enough, doesn’t emphasize grace enough, doesn’t counsel enough, doesn’t preach the word enough, doesn’t visit people enough, doesn’t take holiness seriously enough, etc.

–The building’s.

You need to update your building. It looks old and dated. You need to use more technology; people are accustomed to being in nice buildings with technological advancements. The church needs to keep up. Attract the youth by having an arcade and a gym. Don’t forget laser lights and smoke machines and top notch concert seating and acoustics. Keep building and expanding: build it and they will come.

Which of those sounds like the reason your church sucks? I’ve heard them all because very few people could resist telling me my church sucked and why it did. I’ve heard all of these. I’m sure there are grains of truth sprinkled about in there.

The people blame the pastor. The pastor blames the people. Some blame God for the very things others blame Satan for. And the building; always with the building.

In the end, I have no idea why your church sucks.

I do know that no one who tells you why it sucks will do anything to help it be better. You will never hear any of them say, “You know, it might be partly my fault. How can I help?”

Personality Driven Churches are Diseased

Pastoral Pro Tip:

If you’re going to pastor a Personality-Driven church,

It really helps if you have a personality that people don’t get sick of real quick.

A church is more than a pastor.

As I look back at the 21 years I was pastor at a church, I’ve identified this as being a prime problem.

The church I pastored was personality driven before I got there. The previous pastor ran the show. If you liked him; you stayed at the church. If you didn’t like him; you left.

I walked into this and this mindset was directed toward me. I tried getting more people involved and had limited success.

But everyone who ever left the church left because they got tired of me. If my personality is the center of a Personality-Driven church, well sir, that there church is gonna have problems.

The more people left because of me, the fewer people were left to do stuff. Toward the end I was the only person doing pretty much everything. There were three other people who bore some burdens, but in the end, it was on me to keep “it” going.

Part of the trap was that there were many aspects of being the only one doing stuff that were nice! I didn’t have to do stuff I didn’t want to do, no one cared if I quit stuff (they weren’t going to do it and probably weren’t coming anyway), I could make decisions quickly, etc.

But all the problems were also all mine. Rarely did anyone lift a finger to help me in any problem. “That’s why you get the big bucks” they would laugh and then go home not to think of church again until next Sunday.

This eventually put me in a death spiral. I really just needed some help. I asked for help. Help never came. I got some sympathy for a few weeks, but never any help. If I wanted something done, I’d have to do it, and take all the blame when it inevitably failed.

I was easy to pick on after a while. Even newcomers learned quickly you could make fun of me and disrespect me. No one would do anything. I lost all confidence.

Many pastors of Personality Driven churches become egotistical jerks. I became a self-loathing, whiny, insecure loser. Two sides of one coin.

One thing I do know is that if you are a pastor at a Personality Driven church, you’re going to get messed up.

I don’t know what the answer is. I couldn’t break the cycle. I eventually just resigned, I couldn’t figure out what else to do. I just knew if I kept going it was gonna turn ugly.

If I do pastor again, which is possible, I’m not doing it alone. I’m not walking back into a situation where everything is up to the pastor. A church that has nothing but the charisma of the Head Guy is a dysfunctional church.

You don’t want to be in a Personality Driven church. If you are, I hope you can change it. You need to. But I apologize for not having any advice in how that change might occur.

I would definitely suggest that you quit as pastor before you hurt people. The Body of Christ is not one giant ear or eyeball. It’s many members all doing their part in one Body. That’s the ideal. Lots of churches don’t want this.

If you’re in a church that doesn’t want all members doing their part, look out. That body will soon be terminally diseased. And, if you’re not careful, pastor, it’ll take you down too.

How to Fix the Church

Yesterday my wife and I were walking our dog, minding our own business, and gossiping about the latest goings on in our lives, when another couple walked toward us with their dog.

As is the custom, dogs must meet, so we stopped and chatted. They were up at their lake cabin for the week. Within minutes we discovered that we had both been pastors. He had been in for 17 years.

“It was brutal,” he said. “I had to get out for the safety and wellbeing of my family.”

We commiserated a little. I told him I had made it 21 years.

“Wow, 21 years is a long time. I’m amazed you made it that long.”

“Yeah, me too.”

This sort of thing happens quite a bit. I meet pastors and the majority shares this story: it was brutal, I had to get out for my own spiritual health, and it was messing with our family.

This couple said their kids both left the church because Christians were such nasty people. They seemed like nice, sincere people who honestly tried to help the church and yet received crap for their efforts.

What’s going on out there that this is the majority experience of pastors?

The response you get from Christians is that it’s the pastors’ faults. The response I get from pastors is that it’s the churches’ faults.

It’s time to stop blaming sides and instead have the body itself work to fix things.

For the church to function it takes all believers, all members of the body, to do their part (Ephesians 4). This is not how the typical church works. Most people just show up and find fault with everything to justify all the times they don’t show up.

The whiniest, most argumentative people in my church over 21 years were always the ones who did the least. Conversely, those who were the most involved rarely criticized at all, and when they did their criticisms were constructive.

There should be a rule: before you criticize the church you must have served faithfully in it for 5 years! I know that’s unreasonable, but the point remains.

For the most part, I ignored the fault finding and arguing of people who didn’t do anything. They were typically wrong anyway, as the best way to know what’s going on in a church is to actually be there and be involved.

The more people involved in a church the less likely it is that the pastor’s faults can hurt people, the less likely a person can just have a problem with the pastor, and the less likely the pastor is hanging out there on his own with no one faithfully standing by.

The loneliness of it is what got me. Just standing by myself taking shots because no one else cared. I was the one who did everything; therefore I was the one who got criticized for everything.

“That’s what we pay you for,” was the flippant response. If anything goes wrong, the church knows who to blame. It’s a brutal place to be in. It ruins people.

People who do the least in church feel guilty about it, and to assuage their guilt, they find fault with what was done. It’s human nature, the church has no monopoly on this.

But it breaks the heart of the pastor. The church should be different. Get involved in your church. If you can’t or won’t, at least shut up. This would help everyone tremendously.

Why Have so Many Pastors Been Resigning Lately?

I have seen a couple statistics that a lot of pastors have resigned in the past year. I don’t know whether the numbers are true or not, is it really more than usual?

Whether it’s true or not, I am one of the pastors who resigned. I can at least tell you my reasons for doing so. Here are some of the current contributing factors that make the pastorate something to resign from!

Material Prosperity
There has been a time of prosperity over the last ten years or so in America and the church and Christians got carried along with it. New churches sprang up and older churches built bigger barns. This is a giant underlying issue that is the root cause of many of the following reasons.

Lack of Disciples
Actual godly Christians are few and far between. Our Church Growth techniques have worked, but what you attract them with, you keep them with. The modern church, although appearing to be huge, has about 33 actual godly Christians. Slight exaggeration, but essentially true! There’s lots of noise and activity along with very little edification and spiritual growth. The modern church looks big and impressive, but it is hollow. It is a giant loaf of bread with lots of leaveny air pockets and very little dough.

Church Now Exists to Entertain
It is unbelievably hard to be a pastor attempting to make disciples and preach the Word in season and out while people leave your church to go places that offer more polished music and kid’s programs. All the hip pastors who will take moral tumbles at some point in the near future, do quite well before the moral failings do them in. Read Jeremiah or Ezekiel to know what this feels like. The consistent preaching of the Word is mocked and rejected while false prophets claiming “Peace, peace” when there is no peace, attract the crowds. The people you’ve sacrificed for in an effort to edify them leave for these pleasure palaces of churches, sucking the joy and life right out of ministry.

“Busy” People
While the 33 godly Christians go to church, all the other people are out being “busy.” Pastors hear people say they are “busy” approximately 754 times a week. It’s probably true too: worldly people are indeed busy in the world. When everything the church offers is rejected because people need to hunt, fish, work, attend youth sports, go on vacation, or skip church for various other “busy” reasons, it creates massive depression. At the same time, people joke about binge watching Netflix. How come so many can binge watch Netflix while being too busy to go to church? Odd.

Pandemics
The Covid pandemic and subsequent response to it has caused people to skip church for “health reasons.” Some of this is legitimate and is not condemned in those cases. However, the amount of people who can’t go to church for “health reasons” who post photos of what they did with their friends all weekend was/is quite large. The excitement in people’s voices when they actually had a legitimate reason to skip church was nauseating. I can attest that the people who skipped church for Covid were largely the same group who skipped it the year before because they were “busy.” Their Facebook profile lets me know they are still busy, just happy to have a legit sounding excuse now.

Financial Freedom
Perhaps another issue, and this one might hurt a little, is that everyone seems to have money coming out their ears right now. The government is handing out money like candy on Halloween. There have always been pastors itching to get out of ministry (for many of these stated reasons) but couldn’t afford it. Perhaps our stimulus money and extended unemployment allowed many pastors to finally take that leap.
Politics
Churches are dependent on money to a frightening extent in our day. Churches have built large buildings and support impressive shows, er, church services. These things cost money. Churches need rich people. This forces the church and their rich people to be mindful of earthly things like politics, which increasingly controls everything. We need lower taxes on one side and we need the government to provide living wages on the other side. Fights ensue. The amount of time I listened to church members argue politics before and after church would make you think politics was our main focus at church. Politics has overtaken the church. This does not create a proper environment for edification.
Pandemic Decisions
To mask or not to mask was THE question and was a recipe for fighting, division, and skipping church. Pastors get sick and tired of making decisions that will guarantee half the church will be mad and leave no matter what is decided. Everyone knows what is best for the church to do and everyone has a different opinion. You hate people if you mask; you hate people if you don’t. You hate God if you cancel church; you hate God if you don’t cancel church. Everyone’s an expert. I got to the point where I felt, “Fine, you people know everything; go for it. I don’t need this.” And I didn’t.
Disrespect
America has always been disrespectful to authority and this trend has gotten worse. The past couple years the disrespect of politicians, police, and various other authorities has been on full violent display. People take this same attitude toward pastors. Unless you are an extrovert, people-pleasing pastor acting like everyone’s best friend and you never take a stand on anything, churches view you as their own private punching bag. I have been shocked at some of the stuff people have said and done to me over the years. Although any one single incident bothers me very little, over the course of 20 years, it does get old. It’s just unnecessary and unhelpful.
Pastoral Futility
People are largely not in the church for spiritual reasons. It’s just another part of the world for most. The world’s junk is brought in and defeats the entire purpose for meeting as a church. The main reason I resigned is because what’s the point? Everything I was doing seemed futile, misunderstood, and easily rejected by the people I was doing it for. It leaves a guy feeling like there’s no reason to continue. Why bother, no one’s listening anyway? The Word of God is not heard over the deafening din of the world’s clamor. I have no interest in trying to yell louder. After over 20-years of being a pastor, I had to get out for my own spiritual sanity, to get me to a place where I could again hear the still, small voice of God.

I resigned last year because in large part the church is made up of people who really don’t want God and I didn’t want to be around that anymore. I don’t know how else to say it: today’s church is not interested in hearing from the Lord. Why talk to walls anymore? I couldn’t find a compelling reason, so I resigned. Was this the right decision? Not according to many, but I will stand before the Lord with it and only His opinion counts as He is my judge.

My hat’s off to all those pastors still slugging it out, faithfully teaching the Word of God week in and week out. Your reward will be in heaven, as it surely will not be here. Fight the fight.

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The Failing Pastor has a new book, How To Not Grow Your Church available on Amazon as an e-book, paperback, or hardcover. CLICK HERE to get your copy because you know you want more!

Why are the Dusty Old Negative Prophets even in Our Bibles?

I was raised in a Christian tradition that undervalued the Old Testament. The most undervalued part of the Old Testament was the prophets. In our church, all the prophets were minor!

I was told once “I don’t know why anyone would even read the prophets.” I am reading a Bible that used to belong to one of my teachers. It has his notes and highlights in it. The Old Testament is light on highlighting! The prophets are empty. I don’t know if he ever read them.

I don’t think my upbringing is uncommon in this regard. Many people have no idea what the prophets are doing in our Bible. “It’s just a bunch of judgments on places that don’t even exist anymore.”

However, once I began reading the Bible regularly, the prophets fulfilled an important role. Israel was going down, they had turned their back on God while going through the empty motions of religion. The prophets were warning that judgment was coming if they didn’t shape up.

The prophets were at best met with silence, and at worst met with imprisonment or death (with the awesome exception of mopey Jonah!). They saw clearly the rebellion of Israel and God’s displeasure. The people consoled themselves with the message of false prophets who said “Peace, Peace” when there was no peace.

Our neglect of the prophets has now resulted in Christianity being in the exact same spot. Sure our churches look nice and we do many God-looking things, but our heart is not in it. This is proved easily just by looking at the inconsistency of people’s attendance at church. People are busy. Spiritual obligations are typically the first to go. People don’t skip work for church, but they have no problem skipping church for work.

Our heart isn’t in it. We’re missing it. Judgment is coming.

This message goes over about as well as the OT prophet’s message! No one likes to listen to prophets. Prophets were called to talk to people who would not listen. They are professional talkers to walls.

We look around in our churches today and see our wealth and happiness, our impressive shows and programs, surely God is blessing us.

If you read the prophets you’ll know this is EXACTLY what Israel said!

The Apostle Paul tells us that whatever was written before was written for our learning. The prophets are not some dead guys warning other dead guys. Their essential message persists into our day.

No one wants to hear warnings and heavy-handed repentance messages. People want the happy and the peace. We’ll continue ignoring the prophets and patting ourselves on our backs for our happy little worship we decide to do, not knowing we’re following exactly the downfall of Israel.

God is paying attention. He’s still the all-knowing, righteous Judge. He’s not sleeping. He’s watching us treasure up wrath against ourselves for the Day of Wrath. The Judgment is coming. I know it’s not happy enough for us, but it’s still coming. I suggest we wake up and get ready.

What is A Fruitful Ministry?

Pastors are praised for having “fruitful ministries.” I’ve often wondered what that means.

Based on how people use the phrase I think it has to do with how big the church gets under their tenure. How many people are coming, how many additions were made to the building, maybe it will get into how many were baptized or “saved.”

The constant of these things is numbers. “Fruitful” means more numbers. Numbers can only represent physical things. A “fruitful ministry” then seems to mean by common usage: more physical things.

I find this disturbing.

It’s one thing for the book of Acts to say “many were added to their numbers.” Acts was written under the inspiration of the Spirit. The Spirit knows the heart and knew when people were saved and truly added to their numbers.

Our estimation of who is saved is suspect. We don’t know the heart of others, in fact, our own heart is deceitful, which you better believe will skew our counting!

Fruitful ministry isn’t about numbers and counted objects. Here’s what I think fruitful ministry is based on how the Bible describes ministry.

–By the way, when I use the word “minister” I’m not using it like the formal word for pastor. I mean anyone who serves someone else for Christ. The one doing ministry, whatever that ministry looks like.

The fruit of the minister
The Bible puts high moral qualifications for someone taking upon themselves an official role in the church. Paul tells Timothy that his growth should be seen by others in the church. If love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance are not increasingly seen in the minister, then that minister does not have a fruitful ministry.

The fruit of the minister’s family
Provided the minister has a family, the family members should be growing in spiritual fruit. One of the qualifications for official church roles according to Paul is that the marriage is sound and the kids are in subjection. If the family of the minister is not growing love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance, then that minister does not have a fruitful ministry.

The fruit of those being ministered to
Fruitful ministry is not measured by how many people showed up to be ministered to. Fruitful ministry is measured by how much spiritual fruit is developed in those ministered to. In other words, if 500 people go to a church and are entertained and fed donuts yet none have gotten anywhere close to edification resulting in fruit, then no fruitful ministry occurred. However, if you minister to one person and that person receives edification resulting in fruit, then that is a fruitful ministry.

The fruit continues to grow
A true sign of fruitful ministry is that fruit continues to grow long after the minister is gone. Growing fruit is a process and is not dependent on a specific person. A pastor who serves faithfully for 40 years and retires should still bring forth spiritual fruit. If all spiritual interest disappears when the official ministry spotlight is turned off, there wasn’t a fruitful ministry. If the one ministering to you leaves and your life falls apart, it’s questionable whether you were part of a spiritual ministry.

True spiritual fruit is dependent upon the Holy Spirit. The Body of Christ and those gifted to serve it by the Spirit are an essential aspect of spiritual growth. But at no point should your spiritual growth be dependent on one individual. If you only “grow” under one specific person’s ministry, you’re probably in a cult more than a fruitful ministry.

A true minister leads people to Christ and the Holy Spirit. You‘ll continue to grow long after the person is gone.

Spiritual fruit doesn’t stop. The new life of Christ doesn’t retire. The Spirit doesn’t finish His work in you at some point down here on earth. You’re never done. Truly saved people are like a cedar of Lebanon and “will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.”

If love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance are not resulting from what you think is your “ministry,” then it’s not fruitful. It might be big, it might be impressive, and you might have people tell you it’s fruitful, but if there’s no spiritual fruit, it’s not fruitful!

I feel a need to add:
The Spirit can work through not-so-spiritual ministers. I’ve learned incredible spiritual lessons from terrible examples! It can happen, but should not be the model. “Well, if God can use Balaam’s ass, guess I’ll be an ass for Jesus.” The desire should be to grow fruit so others will be built up to grow fruit. Do your part. It should also be added: you may grow tremendously and yet be surrounded by people who don’t seem to grow at all. There is nuance in the entire discussion. Be nuanced in your thinking about it, but not for the sake of finding loopholes for immaturity!

The Isms Against Christianity and How to Battle Them

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church during Russia’s communist heydays. He was not a fan. He spent eight years in a gulag for criticizing Stalin in a private letter. His book The Gulag Archipelago is one I’m still trying to read.

He has incredible insights into atheism, Marxism, Leninism, Communism, socialism and life. His first hand witness to the tragedies of these isms is worth our attention.

I’d like to point you to a quote of his I recently saw:

“Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions.”

The hatred of God is not a fruit of these isms; it is the very foundation. It is no shock that the most Communist of nations is also the most atheistic of nations. They go together. Collectivism of the sort that Marx and Lenin came up with, along with other collectivist systems, smacks of the Tower of Babel.

Another quote for us to consider is this:

“Communism is breathing down the neck of all moderate forms of socialism, which are unstable.”

America has begun down the road to hating and rejecting God. It is now cool to be an atheist. This atheism rests upon a hatred of God. People have long hated God, this is no new thing; the isms just have new names. Strong governments are always a sign that the people have turned from God. This isn’t a judgment from on high; it’s reaping what you sow. Remember when Israel asked for a king? Not a good idea. God said they were rejecting Him by doing so.

Unfortunately, the church is heading right down the government trap. We are celebrating OUR politicians and not realizing that the whole political system is never something we are to put our trust in.

The answer to government getting bigger is not to pick a side. The answer is to, as always, promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who happens to be the King of Kings.

God is the Creator of the universe. Humanity is the one part of creation that has volition. Even the rocks would cry out if given the chance. But people? Nope, we’re the dumber than rocks. We enjoy worshiping and serving the creation more than the Creator.

It is this pull within us toward creation rather than the Creation that is the seed of atheism, which then gives rise to socialism and communism and other destructive systems which will inevitably destroy creation and kill people who are made in God’s image.

America is made up of people. People, as a group, will always refuse to worship their Creator. Individuals can be freed from the system through the Gospel. This is always the answer, even though many are bored and disappointed with this answer.

The Gospel means loving enemies, serving, maybe dying, but in all cases denying self for God’s will. It is hard. It is not esteemed by the world. It won’t make the news or get tremendous victories. We suffer with Christ that we may be glorified with Him.

The church doesn’t find this very fun. What’s more fun is to pick a side and go, fight, win! Get on the news for our tremendous world-esteemed wins. The church chucks the Gospel. We are currently doing this. Atheism is growing. Socialism is chasing us down. Worse things will follow, they always do. The church continues to whine about symptoms instead of promoting the cure.

There’s always been a remnant. There remains one today. Have the Gospel given guts to stand for Jesus Christ and not bow the knee to the human decline that surrounds us on the broad road.

Listen to those who’ve come before. Heed the warning. Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Fight the fight until you see Christ. Our victory will be then. Be sober. Be vigilant. We have an enemy who wants to eat you for lunch.

Put on the armor of God and stand!

Blind People Want Blind Pastors

People only see in the Bible what they want to see. People are massively adept at ignoring Scripture.

People will gravitate to those passages that make them feel how they desire to feel about their sin. Some want all grace and love and happy. Some want all judgment, holiness, and heavy dread. Some just want everything on an even keel and will ignore the “extreme” passages.

The Bible speaks of believers being “enlightened.” Having our eyes opened. Not being blind. There’s a reason God uses this imagery concerning us. It’s because we aren’t naturally seeing things for what they are. We aren’t seeing the verses right in front of our faces.

Christians gravitate toward the denominations or churches that are blind in the right spots. Therefore, blind Christians desire blind pastors. Or, as Paul says, people desire teachers who will scratch their ears and tell them what they already agree with.

Just as it was in the days of Jesus Christ dealing with the scribes and Pharisees, the blind lead the blind.

All the while the blind think they are seeing perfectly.

Blindness sounds like this:

“I only believe what the Bible says.”
“I believe what Jesus believed.”
“My supernatural experience proves I believe right doctrine.”
“Anyone who disagrees with me is a heretic.”
“If you don’t go to our church/adhere to our doctrine, you are going to hell.”

I hear such statements, to varying degrees of bluntness, frequently by Christians. It’s scary. If you honestly think you believe exactly what the Bible says, you aren’t believing what the Bible says! If you think you believe absolutely everything Jesus taught, then you didn’t hear His warnings about people who thought they believed everything God said. “We have one father and that is God.” “Your father is the devil.”

Let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall.

There’s a reason the Bible tells us to ask for wisdom: it’s because you don’t have it all yet. If you think you do, welcome to the Job’s Friends’ Club.

The Bible tells us to ask that our eyes might see and our ears might hear. As soon as you think you’ve arrived and see everything; you begin the long, slow decent into massive error.

Doctrinal cliques have a feeling of security and rightness. They also go a long way in making people twice the children of hell.

Make sure the church under your care is not getting uppity about “having right doctrine.” Watch out for the party spirit that assumes we are the people and wisdom will die with us.

Humility is what faith looks like. Knowledge puffs up, even right knowledge. It’s what knowledge does. Keep the humility to continue to know how much you don’t know and keep asking in dependence for more wisdom. He gives to those who ask. If you’ve stopped asking for wisdom because you feel you’re already wise, beware!

Failing Pastor’s Response to Church Buildings and Jesus Statues Being Attacked

Statue Toppling is a thing again.

Iconoclasm is the official name for it, and it’s been around a long time. There is nothing new under the big ol’ sun.

It actually started with people who took the Ten Commandments seriously. “Thou shalt not make any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath.”

It actually reads pretty clear.

But people like images. We like walking by sight. God knew we’d place too much value on our statues. I think He knew they were just one more physical thing we’d fight about.

My opinion about Confederate generals or topplings of Winston Churchill statues does not matter at all. I think it’s highly silly. Inanimate objects should not cause you consternation. They can’t do anything.

They have mouths but they cannot speak, eyes but they cannot see, ears but they cannot hear. You toss one end of the log into the fire to warm yourself, and with the other end you carve an image you worship.

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