Where is your church going these days?
Today we’re going to be talking about where your church is going. I’ve been talking to lots of people lately who are concerned about what’s happening in their churches. Now if this doesn’t apply to you, I hope you’ll keep listening. Maybe you know someone you can share this with who might appreciate it.
Today’s challenges
There are all kinds of challenges facing churches today. Sometimes a church may be growing but in the process people are getting too attached to one or more powerful personalities in church leadership positions. I know of churches where you have to go along with whatever the Pastor says and basically aren’t allowed to think for yourself.
Other folks have complained their churches have become too political, one way or the other, and they just want to learn more about how to follow Jesus and be more Christlike.
And some people have told me their church is doing everything they’ve always done but their membership is declining and they don’t know what to do.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of the challenges facing churches today.
Over the last few months I’ve been working with several churches to help them explore some fresh ideas about what it means to be a church in today’s world and how to minister to their members as well as reach out to their communities with the healing message of the gospel of Christ.
Now, every church is unique and has specific circumstances they’re dealing with. There’s no way to talk about every single issue churches are facing these days. But I have noticed some general trends and I’ll touch on a few of them.
Sharing your faith
One of things I’ve noticed in a lot of churches is the tendency of the members to keep their faith to themselves and not share it with others, sometimes even when their friends ask them to.
They don’t want to come across as pushy or as proselytizing. And I get that, but let’s say you had a really good brownie recipe, you’d probably love to share your brownies and the recipe, unless it was a super-secret family recipe, you’d love to share them with anyone who asked.
Your faith is much more wonderful and nourishing than any brownie could ever be. The difference is you’re 99 % sure someone will enjoy your brownies, but you’re not so sure people want to hear about your faith.
But sharing your faith doesn’t mean you’re going to be like some street preacher who is arguing and debating people and telling them what miserable sinners they are.
Sharing your faith can be as simple as asking a friend, who has just told you about a specific challenge they’re having, “Would you like me to pray for you?
You don’t always need words
There’s a quote that’s often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, but probably didn’t originate with him.
“Preach the gospel at all times. And if necessary, use words.”
Here’s a link to an article that discusses whether St. Francis actually said this or not, in case you’re interested: If necessary use words…What did Francis of Assisi really say?
But the idea is one we need to ponder. “Preach the gospel at all times. And if necessary, use words.” There are many ways to share your faith and preach the gospel. And it really boils down to how you live your life, how much Christly love do you express. You don’t always need words to do that.
Letting your light shine
Jesus said,
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16 NIV
Letting your light shine does not mean you’re trying to convert someone to your faith. It means letting the love of God in your heart shine forth in the way you live your life in a way that others feel this love and realize there’s more to this love than just you being a good person. They glimpse that this kind of light and love has to come from a divine, not a human, source.
I want to re-emphasize the point that sharing your faith does not mean you’re trying to convert them to your church. It means you love them the way Jesus would. You share helpful ideas the way Jesus would, and you share how God has worked in your own life. And sometimes you use words.
How someone responds to this will help you know what the next step might be. You might get together and share some ideas from the Bible, or experiences of how God has worked in your life. You might eventually invite them to church.
There’s no formula for sharing your faith. It mostly involves listening to what’s on someone’s heart and them feeling loved.
The need to love more
Sometimes the reason people don’t share their faith is they just don’t have enough love in their hearts for others. If you’re listening to this podcast or reading this blog posrt, this probably doesn’t apply to you. But some folks are so caught up in their own struggles and obligations they don’t see opportunities right under their noses when someone is reaching out and would be receptive to some words of spiritual encouragement.
Some churches I’ve talked to are actually pretty good at living their faith. The church members are loving and supportive of each other, but they’re not really reaching out individually or collectively to share with their communities.
Why one church closed
Several years ago I was talking to a fellow whose church had just closed. They had had just a handful of members but felt they couldn’t keep the doors open. The more I talked to him and heard about the faithful few who were there till the very end, I realized they were all sincere followers of Christ and very supportive of each other. But they hadn’t done much to really reach out to their community in a way that met people’s needs. Their community was barely aware they existed.
They were doing a great job of living their faith for themselves, but there was something missing. They weren’t really obeying the spirit of Jesus’s command
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Mark 16:15 NIV
What if Jesus had lived his faith just for himself? What if the apostles had? What if Paul had only followed Jesus for himself and never told anyone else about it?
You and I might not know about or be following Jesus today.
Who will follow Jesus because of you and your church?
Who might not know about Jesus 100 years from now because you didn’t share your faith, because you didn’t let your light shine?
Or we could ask it in a positive tone: Who will know about Jesus 100 years from now because you did share your faith?
That’s pretty sobering to think about. Even when you rephrase the question in a positive way, it still begs a reevaluation of how to share our faith.
Now I realize I’ve been talking about what you can do as an individual to share your faith. But what does that have to do with church as a whole?
Well, obviously, your church is composed of the members. What the members do individually becomes what the church does collectively. And the more individual members of a church share their faith, the more ways the church will find to do it collectively.
Where is your church going if it’s small?
Another challenge many churches are faced with is having a very small membership. But what if you could see that as an advantage?
If you’re driving down a steep hill and have to make a quick left turn at the bottom, it’s much easier to make that maneuver in a small car than a huge overloaded hay wagon.
The flexibility of being small is a gift, if you can see it that way. Some churches struggle with being so big, everything gets clogged down in bureaucracy.
So what if you have a very small church? How can this be a blessing?
Starting where you are
Well, Jesus started his ministry with just himself. He didn’t complain about it. He just started doing what he was sent to earth to do: bear witness to the truth. And he started sharing his message. Right after his 40 days in the wilderness he started preaching.
From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 4:17 KJV
This is not complicated. He simply started telling people the good news that the kingdom of heaven was not way off in the future, but here and now.
What can you and I learn from Jesus’s simple approach here?
Well, what is the good news that people need to hear today? You could say it lots of ways. How would you translate “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” into today’s language?
It could depend on who you’re talking to. If someone already believes in God, you might say one thing. If they didn’t believe in God, you’d probably share in a completely different way.
The point is, Jesus shared the good news of heaven at hand with people. He gave them hope for the present moment, not just for the distant future.
How to reach a wider audience
Once Jesus got started, he reached out on a wider scale. And what was the result? People from all over the region heard about him and came to see and hear him, and to be healed.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him. Matthew 4:23-25 NIV
People’s lives were being transformed. No wonder they came to Jesus.
Does your community feel loved by your church?
What would happen if people in your community felt loved by your church the way they would have felt loved by Jesus?
What would happen in your community if you started healing people like Jesus did, just one person even?
There were other preachers in Jesus’s day, but no one spoke with the spiritual authority he did and no one healed people like he did. No one showed God’s love for His children the way Jesus did.
How can you follow Jesus’s example? How can your church follow his example collectively?
Getting a bigger picture
Sometimes a church is struggling because they don’t have a bigger picture of their purpose. They’re just trying to get by and check all the boxes. But that approach never transforms and regenerates hearts hungry for spiritual meaning and purpose in life.
Even if you have a tiny little church, you are part of something much bigger. You’re part of the entire Christian church which has embraced the whole world for almost 2,000 years. You are not alone. You are not small. You are part of a grand whole, the body of Christ, which is composed of many members, and cannot be chopped up into separate pieces.
You are connected and inseparable from the whole Christianity of Christ. Acknowledge this. Own it. Express gratitude for it. You may feel like your little church is just one tiny dot on a single letter “i” in a huge manuscript. But without your church, that manuscript would not be complete.
Because your church, as small or as large as it may be, is part of the whole body of Christ, you are capable of much more than you may realize.
So, where is your church going?
Now let’s look at the question I asked in the title of this episode: Where is your church going? Do you have a destination? Or are you going nowhere?
Some churches I’ve talked to over the years remind me of a hamster in one of those little exercise wheels. They run and run, making the wheel turn round and round, but they really don’t go anywhere.
Some churches are so busy going through the motions of having church services, administrative duties, and committee work, that they’re not really growing as a church. And by growing, I don’t necessarily mean getting more members, I mean growing spiritually and following Christ more closely.
I love this verse from Proverbs.
Where there is no vision, the people perish: Proverbs 29:18 KJV
Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; Proverbs 29:18 NIV
Vision means you know where your church is going
If you don’t have a vision for where you’re going, if you’re not receptive to what God is revealing to you to do, you’ll never get there because you don’t really have a destination.
Having a vision for your church simply means you know where you’re going and will do whatever it takes to get there. You have to know where you are and where you’re going.
If you have a GPS device on your phone, your computer, or in your car and want to go somewhere you’ve never been before, you have to put your destination in. Then the GPS shows you the best way to get there.
If your church is struggling to survive or faced with challenges of any kind, you need to have a clear destination in mind.
And by destination I don’t mean wanting to have a certain number of members or programs and activities.
What is your destination?
What if the desired destination is for every member of your church to follow Christ so closely that it was a blessing to everyone in your community, and your community felt that?
What if your destination was to help your members and your community learn to love and forgive the way Jesus wanted us to?
There are so many possibilities here.
The ultimate destination, you could say, is the awareness that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
When you use a GPS, you put in the destination, but it already knows your starting point. If the kingdom of heaven is the destination, what is the starting point?
What is your starting point?
The interesting thing is, Jesus’s starting point was also the kingdom of heaven.
Now you’re probably thinking: Hey James, wait a minute. If my church’s destination is the kingdom of heaven, how can that be our starting point as well?
The best answer is in the Lord’s Prayer. Look how Jesus began that prayer. It’s all about God, His kingdom, His power, His glory. And that’s exactly how it ends as well.
When the vision for your church begins with the clear understanding that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, it magnifies the good you see in yourself, your members, and your community. You see opportunities to let your light shine you had never seen before.
From a human perspective, your church will be doing all sorts of things you’ve never done before, reaching out and engaging with the community, and expressing love and support in new ways. It feels like you’re really going somewhere.
But from a spiritual perspective, your church has never left the precincts of the kingdom of heaven. You’re constantly radiating and reflecting God’s absolute and unconditional love for all His children.
Where is your church going “in heaven”?
Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So, what is true about your church right now in the kingdom of heaven?
In heaven, is your church struggling to survive, or is it thriving and glorifying God and expressing love to everyone?
Jesus said of himself
Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. John 5:19 NIV
If this is true for Jesus, it’s true for you and it’s true collectively for your church.
What do you see God doing?
What can you see God doing in your church? What can your church see God doing within it?
What can you see God doing in your community? What can your church collectively see God doing in your community?
When you actually see what God is doing, you will do likewise, because you’re the image and likeness of God. You reflect every action He takes. Your church does this collectively.
How do you see God expressing His love with everyone in your community? When you can see God doing that, you will do it as well.
Jesus says very little about church. When Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus replies
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” Matthew 16:17, 18 NIV
Jesus built his church on the fact that God reveals Christ directly to the individual, not through some ecclesiastical hierarchy. Or put another way, God is speaking directly to everyone.
So, where IS your church going?
Some people hear God’s voice and some don’t. What do you hear God revealing to you? What does your church hear God revealing to you collectively?
So, I’ll ask again: Where is your church going? What is your starting point? What is your destination?
To the degree your church follows Jesus’s example in what you say, how you think and love, and what you do, you will imbibe the spirit of Christ, you will see and tell others about the kingdom of heaven at hand, and your church will prosper.
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James Early, the Jesus Mindset Coach, is a Bible teacher, speaker, podcaster and church mentor. He conducts Bible workshops online and in person. His focus is on getting back to the original Christianity of Jesus by embracing the mindset of Christ in daily life. Contact him here.
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Bible References
Matthew 5:16 NIV
16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Mark 16:15 NIV
15 Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.
Matthew 4:17 KJV
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew 4:23-25 NIV
23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
24 News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.
25 Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.
Proverbs 29:18 KJV
18 Where there is no vision, the people perish:
Proverbs 29:18 NIV
18 Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint;
John 5:19 NIV
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
Matthew 16:17, 18 NIV
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
