Church Problems

What to do when your church seems to be slipping.

Photo by Drew Murphy on Unsplash

Whether you are involved in church or not, your choices about how to participate (or avoid) probably, at least initially, do not come out of doctrinal concerns.

Most often they involve problems with people.

Over time, our appreciation for clear doctrine should grow.

This is because as we grow spiritually, doctrines start to make more sense.

Consequently, they begin to describe what we have come to believe in our individual life experiences. They are shorthand similar to mathematical equations.

And yet, apart from what we know about God and life principles, I know we all have a few triggers — things that bypass logic.

With this in mind, let’s talk about a common problem in many churches today.

It has to do with differences in worship format and styles.

On the surface this may seem insignificant, but it really isn’t.

It comes down to questions about how people are spiritually fed at church.

Are they receiving what they need to grow and serve? Or are they living on fumes?

Are the preaching, teaching, and music selections consistent with the foundational doctrines the church purports to believe? Or have they been watered down with the idea that this might attract more people and grow the church?

Often decisions can be colored by financial pressures. Those in charge, whose livelihoods are on the line, can feel pressures to please both enough people and the right ones in order to keep the church viable.

This makes the church is a quirky community to include includes tattooed rappers, formal theologians, and multigenerational monied founding families.

What I think should bind us together as a community is a serious belief that God actually exists and is active in the affairs of the world to include our own. Sadly , this isn’t always the case.

Now, I am a firm believer in the importance of church doctrine and I believe it is constantly under attack. Some of these attacks are diabolical in nature and some of these attacks are innocent questions and concerns and the working out of faith by those who have yet, but will likely, eventually, reach similar conclusions to ours and to those who came before us. None of this escapes God. He knows exactly where we are and what each of us needs. No matter what, we are safe in Him.

Where we can speak up for the truth of Scripture by showing the passages correctly interpreted to others, I believe we are called to do so. Where there are controversies that involve individual taste and experiences, I believe we are to love people where they are and continue to pray that God will light all our paths just a little better. If I get others to agree with me on things and they come to where I am, I think they will eventually become disappointed, because I have likely moved on. They would do better to follow the light God gives them and use the insights of others as simply useful and limited roadside markers.