Teleios
recently performed a survey in six Midwestern and Californian evangelical
churches evaluating members’ impressions of their church leadership and the
church itself. We presented choices that were positive in relationship to the
member’s own maturity (e.g., prayer, fellowship and Biblical preaching) and also
those which might indicate immaturity, such as self-focused motivations. Fortunately, the negative rating responses
were fewer than the more mature, Biblically-based scores but did represent a
significant minority of members’ choices.
What
are the implications of members using the church for their own agenda? I
believe they are extensive and potentially severe. What do these people want? Here
are some examples of what we gleaned from our survey.
Table:
Most frequently cited ratings potentially indicating using church for a
personal agenda.
|
I
attend church to:
|
|
|
Pastoral
care.
|
65.2%
|
|
Providing
a warm and comfortable social environment.
|
59.6%
|
|
Supporting
my needs.
|
51.3%
|
|
Implementing
my suggestions.
|
27.8%
|
|
I
have an area(s) that I can control to assist the church.
|
13.0%
|
Who are
these people in the church? We do not know for certain but here are my best
guesses:
- Earnest, suffering believers needing help from the church - There are afflicted Christians who are honestly seeking God. Although it may take time and emotion from the church leadership and caring church members, Scripture tells us to ‘bear one another’s burdens’ (Galatians 6:2) and assist suffering believers back to spiritual health (I Thessalonians 5:11-12).
- Young believers who do not know any better and need to be taught.
- Immature believers seeking emotional attention with no intent to change - These members may cause significant damage, sucking away people's time and good grace to satisfy themselves without any intention to change their lives. They are not truly seeking God and provide little benefit the body of Christ.
- Active anti-church agenda - These members use the church as a personal power base, or to aggrandize themselves in some manner. They may cause harm at a minimum by distracting other members from seeking and serving God and at worst by creating divisions that could divide the church.
- Tares - Christ mentioned (Matthew 13:24-30) that tares would afflict the church. Tares are non-believers who come to church. They learn the jargon and how to fit socially while maintaining an ungodly agenda that may cause factions, waste people's time, and distract the church from Biblical pursuits.
The church is God's plan to implement His purposes
for this time period before Christ’s return. It should function efficiently with
love as consistent with God's word. Attendees who push their own non-Biblical agendas,
whether for emotional comfort (with no desire to change) or for power, even
covered in a pseudo-spiritual façade, represent a potential danger to the
church.
How do we recognize these people and what
should we do about them?
We will
discuss these important questions over the next several blogs. Our prayer is
that this information will help you make your own church more Biblically
effective while attempting to lovingly bring destructive members into proper fellowship.
Thank
you for joining me today. I pray for those of you who read my blog and that the
blog might be encouragement to you in your daily life.
WC
Stewart
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