Spotting the signs of a church heading for trouble

Throughout church history, from the New Testament onwards, there have always been churches in trouble.

From my observations, churches heading for trouble invariably suffer from poor leadership. This does not mean poor Christians, but we need to remember that doctrinal soundness is no guarantee against trouble. Nor is it a character fault in those leading troubled churches, for it is self-evident that many churches heading into difficulty are led by really nice folk who love the Lord Jesus.

If we are to take seriously Paul’s inclusion of leadership as a spiritual gift in Romans12.8, it is essential that church leaders are gifted for their task and can show evidence of such gifting. Too often churches are led by men who do not have the gift of leadership: They have no track record of the Lord blessing their ministry in the past, they remain in their position even though there is no evidence of blessing in the present and there are few prospects of blessing in the future. For all sorts of reasons, many honourable, they do no more than uphold the status quo and this leads to problems for the church.

Problems with leadership

Problematic leadership indicators include the following:

* The na•ve leader regards the newly converted person as an immediately functioning, mature Christian, forgetting that learning and character change calls for love, patience and discipleship training by word and deed over time.
* The out-of-touch leader fails to understand present-day reality, e.g. the place for contemporary music in worship or the difference between Crisis Evangelism (Billy Graham-type missions looking for instant decisions) versus Growth Evangelism as seen in the current success of Christianity Explored and Alpha. They do not understand the thinking behind the newer style of worship and evangelism and are thus unable to make an informed choice.
* Inflexible leaders who fail to appreciate that, in an age of rampant individualism, we cannot make clones but must accept differences as long as biblical authority is not compromised. An example of this today would be dress code: failure to wear a tie or jacket is a preference, not a sign of spiritual rebellion.
* Blinkered leaders fail to understand the pattern of change in society and how it affects the life of church members, e.g. they expect membership commitments from another age when a 9.00 am to 5.00 pm five-day week was normal and the majority of women did not work outside the home. Another example of social change is that, with our upwardly mobile society and the increase of students living away from home, many churches find that on any given Sunday a third of their members are away visiting family.
* Insecure leaders fear change and/or their older members who themselves fear change and so hold rigidly to the past. E.g. a church down to a handful of elderly members who enjoy their 1950s style of worship and respond to any suggestions to change with, ‘We want to keep things as they are!’
* Theologically mistaken leaders do not grasp that God is under no obligation to build any particular church fellowship just because they are ‘faithful’. Their mistake is to think that ‘all we have to do is preach the Word, open the doors on Sunday and God will bring them in’. Oh that it were so simple: if it were we would not have to fulfil the Great Commission.
* Disheartened leaders complain that, among other things, potential new members who visit their church do not come back, and yet they take no steps to find out why and address any relevant issues.
* The controlling leader cannot trust others to do their duties and must interfere in the details. The result is that growth is stunted (there is only so much he can do), members are irritated and leave, and he becomes exhausted.
* The negligent leader, conversely, delegates too much responsibility and fails to monitor activities with the result that each ministry ‘does its own thing’, strong characters dominate, there is no synergy and conflict is inevitable.

Signs of trouble ahead

Potential indicators of trouble ahead include:

* The pastor changes his theology.
* The strength of the leadership is not sufficient to robustly defend the doctrinal position of the church, or to direct Christians to other churches more in keeping with their personal understanding of secondary matters (style of worship, etc.).
* There is a lack of clarity of purpose with a corresponding lack of unity in the leadership.
* Leadership starts to become more and more concentrated in the hands of a ‘one man band’ who does not appreciate Ephesians 4.11-12.
* There is a lack of spiritual discernment and deacons do the work of elders while elders do the work of deacons.
* A group of strong-willed ladies is permitted to dictate to their husbands and persuade them to change the decisions the men have made at church officers’ meetings.
* Church-hopping newcomers bring their friends and form a dissenting group.
* The church is ‘hostage’ to a powerful individual or group, e.g. musicians, youth leaders or those with money.
* The membership is becoming predominately ‘grey-haired’ and insular: the lack of young people will be fatal for the future of the church.

If not dealt with, such problems can have the knock-on effect of causing gifted Christians, especially those with families who have a particular concern to see their children stay within the church fold, to leave for other churches.

Possible outcomes

If change is not forthcoming, there are two likely results. First, a small number of very elderly, like-minded Christians grow old together until the church closes. It would appear that the Lord in his mercy allows this to happen. Second, unregenerate regular attendees, who, not understanding the nature of the ‘church’, treat it as a ‘club’ and are allowed a say in the affairs of the running of the church because of the leader’s fear of ‘what will happen if we lose them?’ The likelihood is that the Lord will close this type of church.

While a number of the above symptoms can be easily observed, e.g. the ‘one man band’ and the change in a pastor’s doctrinal stance, the church will often appear calm to the onlooker, as the tensions are hidden under the surface. The problems will only be detected by using discernment, asking pointed questions, or waiting until the inevitable results become plain for all to see.

Importance of leadership

Churches do not grow by chance. They are rarely the result of people-pleasing pastors whose goal in life is to keep everything the way it was in 1950, nor do they evolve out of committees of well-meaning church members. Rather, churches flourish when spiritually gifted leaders, or groups of leaders, do what God called and gifted them to do — lead!

They do so in a manner that is loving, sacrificial, inspiring and positive as they preach and teach for godly change and empower their members to fulfil the callings God has given them.

As they do that, over time, men and women are saved and as they begin to grow in Christ they desire to please him and show their love towards him. They become disciples of Jesus, reaching out to their community and demonstrating the love of Christ in word and deed. And as their church grows, the gates of hell get pushed back a little bit more and God is given the glory that is rightly due to him. That is the fruit of gifted, godly leadership!

Hugh Hill has led three growing churches and is the author of the testimony book I did it his way, which can be obtained from Amazon or direct from http://www.hjpublishing.co.uk