Podcast Episode #528
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Autopsy of a Deceased Church highlighted 12 reasons churches die. This week, we are looking back at what we’ve learned in the five years since it was published and highlighting a new related video resource.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- Corporate worship should be a priority and not just one activity option among many for church members on the weekend.
- A self-centered attitude among church members is a main factor in church deaths.
- Stay true to the Word no matter the cost.
- An outward focus transforms the attitudes and culture of a church.
The seven attitudes we discuss are:
- The optional church attitude
- The self-centered attitude
- The diluted doctrine attitude
- The routine-as-idol attitude
- The consumer critique attitude
- The consumer embracing attitude
- The death-rather-than-give attitude
Resources mentioned in today’s podcast
Rainer on Leadership is a member of the LifeWay Leadership Podcast Network
Episode Sponsors
Vanderbloemen Search Group is the premier pastor search firm dedicated to helping churches and ministries build great teams. They’ve helped thousands of churches just like yours find their church staff and are uniquely geared to help you discern who God is calling to lead your church.
For more information, visit WeStaffTheChurch.com.
Today’s episode is sponsored by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Be sure to check out Midwestern’s Doctorate of Ministry Degree. The D.Min. is an advanced degree preparing students for leadership in local churches and denominational service. It is also fully attainable in hybrid format which means you don’t have to move to pursue the degree.
Find out more at mbts.edu/dmin.
Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of Scrappy Church.
Missed the main problematic issue in dying churches: the Holy Spirit. In the absence of His Presence and Power, a church is not a New Testament church, but rather a dusty irrelevant relic of the past. Pews filled with gray-haired or balding “I pray in my prayer closet, leave me alone” comfort addicts. Reintroduce the Holy Spirit with His enabling and motivating Presence and Power, and the church miraculously transitions into an outreach focused, power filled dynamo as Christ intended. Study 1 Co. 12, 13, 14 and Ep. 4. Power Evangelism is God’s plan. Avoid at your own peril.
Was just discussing this with my spouse Sunday on the way to church. Then I heard a guest speaker say the same. Thanks for the confirmation!
Good observation. For some reason we have left the third Person of the Trinity behind (to our own peril). The church theme for us this year is “Fill Us with the Holy Spirit.” I understand not wishing to become the abuse that is observed in churches using the Holy Spirit’s name in vain, but we must have the power that only comes from Him.
I was reading some “E.M. Bounds on Prayer” and I agree. Bounds was saying the same thing over a century ago. We lack God’s power because we lack God honest prayer. Read and challenged by E.M. Bounds writings on prayer… then of course we must pray.
Love the writings of E. M. Bounds!
Good observation. For some reason we have left the third Person of the Trinity behind (to our own peril). The church theme for us this year is “Fill Us with the Holy Spirit.” I understand not wishing to become the abuse that is observed in churches using the Holy Spirit’s name in vain, but we must have the power that only comes from Him.
The Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of everyone who calls on the name of Jesus, regardless of how gray their hair is or how bald they may be. God is more concerned with how straight people walk than how high they jump. If you can’t sense how He’s is active within a congregation, I’d suggest you look within your own pride-filled and arrogant life rather than cast rocks at part of the Bride of Christ, simply because of their age.
Thanks Tim!
Thanks for confirming for me the reason I left the Evangelical movement. Now I define myself as a “Christian.” Can’t believe either person in this podcast is educated. Or perhaps they skipped the classes on critical thinking and leadership essentials. These leaders can slap little sheep around because they don’t teach a broad based curricula. Thanks to the internet and lots of research, I educated myself about the entire landscape/history of the Protestant religion, not just a narrow minded, judgmental, highly conservative view. If some pastors were well educated, they certainly are not passing along all they learned. That is why I left the movement. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John… I know it sounds heretical, but what about manuscripts, textual variances, the Age of Reason, Descartes, Locke, cell theory/the fine tuned universe, etc? On YouTube, James White, William Lane Craig, Richard Dawkins – hey bud’s – challenge us to think! Please. Knowledge puffs up, but Love builds up – sure, but let’s learn to witness to a very liberal, well educated world. Sheep won’t put up with Latin anymore. (FYI – Luther, Latin, the Reformation, the printing press, etc). Sheep now have the internet.
To the senior replies to my rather aggressive comment above: sorry if I riled you up, but actually if your church is part of the death of North American and European Christianity, maybe I did you a favor. My motto is “the Church has left the building” because if it doesn’t, it is dead to its mission. And if it “goes out” without the power of the Holy Spirit (Power Evangelism) to share God’s love through experience with Him, it’s a dead end, at least where I live. Discipling is to “go”, not to sit and get fat Spiritually.
The Holy Spirit is not going to move in a church unless the Bible is being preached and taught.
Wow…all of the mean comments on here. Would Christ say these things? We are supposed to speak the truth in love but instead we tear one another down. I’ve been guilty of this in the past but I’m really seeing it for what it is: Wickedness! We can’t say whatever we want just because we want to. We can’t address people any kind of way to make our point strong. If this is what we do, why should unbelievers leave where they are to be a part? “If you bite and devour one another… “look the rest up. God bless & Peace out!
Why does it seem that the vast vast majority of analysis regarding the “death of churches” has its focus on the pew and not the pulpit; such analysis is rather self-serving, don’t we think, for organizations that seek to sell their services to church leadership.