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This week we look at four more symptoms of churches that need revitalizing. As we reflect on these it is helpful to examine our own lives as well. The signs of a sick church are almost always the signs of a sick Christian too.
A maintenance mentality is a sign that a church needs revitalizing. Some churches have only a single concern - to "keep holding on." All they want to do is to keep a pastor, to operate the Sunday school, and to pay the bills. So long as the doors stay open that's all that really matters. Harry Reeder speaks of this as "polishing a monument" rather than "building a movement of God's grace" (p. 13). "They are on a life-support system," he says, "rather than on a life-saving mission."
Having an excuse-ridden and 'victim' mindset is another sure sign of a church that needs revitalizing. Some churches (and people) have a long list of excuses always at the ready to account for the position they are in. Underlying these excuses, Reeder says, "is the assumption that the church is the victim of some outside factor, which keeps it from being greatly used of God... it is doomed to mediocrity or failure because of its circumstances" (p. 13).
True, some churches do find themselves in difficult circumstances. But circumstances in themselves do not prevent the Lord from using people. In fact, adverse circumstances are the very setting in which he loves to work (2 Cor. 12: 9). We need to beware of self-justifying and defeatist attitudes. Harry Reeder is surely right when he says "making excuses is so easy and can become such a habit, that we can fall into self-deception and lose touch with reality" (p. 15, emphasis added).
A further sign of a sick church is a poor reputation in the community. Outsiders are often better judges of the state of a church than are its members. News gets around - especially through disaffected members who have left a church - about its heart condition. "Leaders and members in a church may think that everything is proceeding wonderfully," Reeder writes, "but the real tale may be told in the world around it, and even in other churches" (p. 16). That's why he suggests that pastors and church leaders regularly ask complete outsiders what they know of their church. It takes courage to do so, but the results can be most enlightening. "Remember," he writes, "that reputation is not what we write on our church bulletins, but what people actually think of us!" (p. 17)
Finally, a sure sign that a church is in need of revitalization - and the worst of them all - is distraction from the gospel. "Churches that have grown ineffective in reaching the world around them," Harry Reeder says, "have often done so because they have lost sight of the centrality of God's grace. Something else has become more important than living according to the gospel and sharing it with people who need to be saved. Perhaps the priority has fallen on certain doctrinal distinctives, on the physical condition of their buildings, or on a particular method of education. Whatever the emphasis may be, it will be counterproductive to God's work if it is allowed to usurp the rightful place of the gospel at the center of all we do as the people of God" (p. 17).
It is not hard to see why so many churches and so many Christian people are not as healthy as they ought to be. The pitfalls we can tumble into are legion. Hopefully you are all as eager as I am to discover God's paradigm for revitalization. That's what we look at next week.