1. The Vision Is Not Clear
If people don’t know where a church is supposed to be
going…then it will attempt to go everywhere and eventually wind up
nowhere. (Interesting experiment–ask
people this coming Sunday at your church, “What is our vision” and see if
people give you the same answers or different ones.)
2. The Focus Is on Trying to Please Everyone
There is NO church on the planet that will make everyone
happy every single week…and…according to the Scriptures, that isn’t really
supposed to be our obsession. Too many
times, we become so concerned with offending people that we actually offend
Jesus.
3. Passionless Leadership
When a leader does what he/she does for a paycheck and not
because it’s their passion…it’s over.
I’ve said at this site before…I want difference makers not paycheck
takers. AND…also…it is hard to be
passionate about a place when a person’s average stay at a church is two years
or less.
4. Manufacturing Energy
If a program is dead in a church…then it needs a funeral,
and the people need to move on.
Investing time, energy, and money into something that is dead will not
revive it. Celebrate the fact that
“that” program had its day…and then move on.
AND…quit trying to fire people up over events that you would not attend
if you were not on staff.
5. Lack of Prayer
Many times, we work so hard putting our ideas together than
we actually think there is no need for the supernatural power of God to be
involved. Prayer should not be the good
luck charm that we stick at the beginning or the end of what we do…but rather
it should be our constant desperation to see God do the undeniable among
us. Intense desperation often brings
undeniable revelation!
6. Unwillingness to Take Risks
When our focus becomes to play it safe rather than to do
whatever it takes to reach people far from God…it’s over. NOWHERE in the Scriptures did God ever ask
anyone to do anything that didn’t involved an “oh crap” moment. We’ve GOT to be willing to embrace the
uncertain if we want to see the unbelievable.
7. Disobedience to the Scriptures
Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:48, John 20:21, Acts
1:8, II Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 19:10…I could go on and on…but we MUST
understand that Jesus didn’t come to Earth, live here for 33 years, give HIS
life for us, and then return back to heaven to intercede for us so that we
could get in really little circles and talk about ourselves and condemn those
who are not as good as us. We are called
to REACH PEOPLE FOR GOD–PERIOD!
8. Selfish Attitudes
Matthew 20:28 says it all…and if we are going to be more
like Jesus, we’ve GOT to serve others rather than expecting the church to be
our servant all of the time. When a
person (or group of people) refuses to embrace that a call to follow Jesus is a
call to serve…then we’ve lost sight of who He is, and eventually, we will make
being a Christian all about Jesus following/serving us rather than us taking up
our cross and following Him!
Written by Perry Noble
Perry Noble is the founding and senior pastor of NewSpring
Church in South Carolina. The church averages 26,000 people during weekend
services at multiple campuses throughout the state. You can read all of Perry’s
unfiltered thoughts about life and leadership at PerryNoble.com. Don’t worry,
he holds nothing back.
He can be reached through www.perrynoble.com
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