IT’S TIME FOR A CULTURE CHANGE IN THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST

7 Actionable Steps…

Please read this first before continuing:
Is Your Congregation in a State of Spiritual Crisis?

(The below is an abbreviated summary of these 7 recommendations. Lord willing I will be providing much more detail later.)

(1) AWARENESS
In Jesus’ shocking report card to the 7 Churches of Asia, the first thing He always did was to attempt to open their eyes to reality, and make them fully aware of their (in too many cases) dire situation. Similarly, before we in the Church can overcome anything, we need to be fully aware of our shortcomings—be it complacency or any other deficiency. We must acknowledge our sins before God. If congregational leaders are not aware and not united, urgently required change will likely not happen in their churches. We must wake up, for the End of all things in this world may be at hand! (2 Peter 3:7-13) Additionally, Jesus’ ominous Words of the first century may apply to some of today’s Church leaders: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Words will never pass away. No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert ! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: `Watch!’.“(Mark 13:31-37)

(2) REPENTANCE AND CHANGE
Regarding Jesus’ admonition to the 7 churches of Asia…in each case of congregational shortcoming, immediate repentance was required. To the lukewarm Laodiceans His command was simple: Be zealous and repent. In these cases we must recommit ourselves to fully pleasing our Lord. Paul wrote:
“Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.
Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

(3) GROW AS CHRISTIANS!
After repenting of any shortcomings and changing our lives—if we’re going to change the culture of our congregation, each of us must re-commit ourselves to growing as Christians. Our inner man must be developed! Our faith must be strengthened. We must set about “training ourselves in godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7-8). Men must put away all lust, keeping a pure heart, not looking upon women to lust after them (Matthew 5:27-30). Christian women must also be careful to not dress in a way that would tempt men to look at them with sexual interest; instead, they should give careful consideration to the Lord’s ominous teachings regarding those who cause others to sin. Jesus said: “Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the [person] through whom they come! If your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.” (Matthew 18:7-9). Christian husbands must step up and take spiritual responsibility for their families, lovingly advising their wives (and daughters) in this (and other) matters accordingly, for they will be primarily accountable for the spiritual failures of their families on the Day of Judgment (noticed shortly). Growing in Christ obviously entails growing “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18), and filling our minds with the knowledge of God’s Holy Word (Colossians 1:9-10), accompanied with meditation and much prayer (Psalm 1:1-2). I believe that we should learn to read the Bible with view to improving ourselves, growing in our inner man, and making strides in our relationship with God and LSJC (1 Peter 2:2). And we must not forget to be careful to value the Word of God greatly, and to handle it responsibly, not falling to the temptation of distorting or twisting it to match our traditional beliefs and practices (1 Thessalonians 2:13).

(4) PUT OUR TALENTS TO USE!
To change the culture of our congregation, we must take personal spiritual inventory regarding our spiritual development, analyzing our talents and putting them to active use for Christ. We must dig up any buried talents and rededicate ourselves to putting them all to proper use in service to the Lord. Christ will not tolerate those who do not grow and mature, and who do not develop their talents for His Cause (Matthew 25:14-30). He (Jesus) demands that we not only grow—and not simply bear fruit—but that we bear MUCH fruit (John 15:5,8). We must run the Christian life with the attitude of winning the prize. We must “strictly train” ourselves in godliness (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). There are multiple, serious warnings against not doing so (Matthew 25:14-30; John 15:1-8). Not even Paul considered himself to have already attained his heavenly goal (Philippians 3:13-14), but instead was resolved to “forget those things which are behind and reach forward to those things which are ahead” and “press onward toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

(5) A CHURCH FAMILY MUST BE DEVELOPED!
In my humble estimation, a lack of sincere focus upon internal and external congregational growth is one of the most neglected areas of modern leadership. It is not uncommon to visit churches that resemble a collection of students who attend weekly lectures but have little or no concept of their mutual responsibility to help develop the Church as a true, spiritual Family of God through our LSJC. By contrast, we must seek to greet and know every one of our brothers and sisters in Christ for the purpose of mutual encouragement and edification. We must be active in encouraging and uplifting one another in the most holy faith. We must be non-exclusive, and avoid collecting into groups that basically take little interest in others. We must learn to love all others in our spiritual family both in terms of brotherly love (free-flowing friendly interaction) and agape love (genuine good-will for others). Romans 12:3-4 says: “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference (“showing honor”) to one another…” Jesus said (John 13:34-35): “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” This critical, spiritual family environment sets the stage for church growth regarding any visitors that come our way either from other congregations or from the community. I believe we should consider every visitor—including visiting Christians from other congregations—as though they are already part of the beloved family members of our congregation. As we know, many in our world don’t actually have families; the Church must fill that void for them, becoming a constant spiritual and encouraging support for those seeking Christ. I believe that a strong spiritual family environment must be in place before any serious outreach effort can be properly successful. It must be in place before any hope of meaningful church growth. We must create a sincerely magnetic culture that visitors will look forward to visiting again, a truly positive, edifying, encouraging experience, founded on genuine brotherly love and active friendships in Jesus Christ. We must develop an outreaching attitude in every thing we do! This is something for every single member of our congregation to be a part of, for we are all part of the same Body of Christ our Lord. This cannot be emphasized enough! (See Matthew 28.28-20; Acts 8:1-4; Hebrews 5:12-14; etc.) We must show perfect courtesy to everyone, be respectful of everyone, speak evil of no one, be friendly to all, and be ready for every good work (Titus 3:1-2). All such things must be heavily and repeatedly emphasized from the pulpit. We must also repeatedly emphasize the things that foster unity, peace, oneness of mind, continual growth, conflict resolution, etc. Finally, we must recommit ourselves to acceptable worship to our God. It truly must become a time of solemn worship to our God and LSJC, and devoid of inappropriate teaching. I believe that in modern Churches of Christ, not all men should be teachers (James 3:1-2), and those who are especially apt to teach should be teaching in the main services when visitors might be present. In my humble opinion, leadership must have much better control over what is being taught. Also, what is being taught should repeatedly emphasize the Scriptural leadership-decided-upon goals for pleasing our Lord. WE CANNOT AFFORD TO FAIL, which several early Churches of Christ were on the verge of doing! In my view, teaching should focus mainly on development of our inner man and church growth to please our Lord—while never neglecting basic church doctrine, with potentially divisive matters being discussed peacefully in other forums, including readily available literature (brochures, pamphlets, etc). Our goal must be to always work hard to maintain peace, while never sacrificing the Truth, which Itself demanded us to be peacemakers and problem solvers. Peter wrote: “Let him turn away from evil and do good; Let him seek peace and pursue (chase, hunt, run after in order to catch) it).” (1 Peter 3:11) Speaking plainly, we must develop an aggressive, pro-active effort to be at peace, and strive to live in harmony. Speaking of “divisive matters,” Christ is strongly against division among His people. His expectations have been clearly documented in His teachings, as were those of Peter and Paul. Those responsible for handling understandable differences in divisive ways, even casting those with legitimate questions out of the Church, are committing grave sin, especially when they make no sincere effort to understand dissenters who have been respectful and unity-seeking. Instead of seeking peace they demand traditional conformity. A house divided cannot stand.
Through it all, we must also seek to establish proper brother/sister relationships in the Church locally—and towards nearby congregations as well. We must develop our spirits and our skills in relationship-building. We must be active in Relationship Evangelism, constantly inviting friends and acquaintances to visit our churches for various meetings and events, and then have a realistic, good-faith, actionable spiritual plan for them to become mutual followers of our LSJC. Lastly, every member must be active in the good works Christ have given us to do. Among those good deeds are participating in the work of the ministry and building up the Body of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-16), and looking out for those in need, especially those of the household of faith (Galatians 6:10). (A great deal more could be said about the above, which I hope to cover later.)

(6) ACTIVE LOCAL COMMUNITY OUTREACH MUST BE DEVELOPED!
The Church of Ephesus seems to fall into the category of a congregation that was once zealous and active for Christ’s Cause in their local communities—but had lost their enthusiasm for His noble work. Like the Hebrews, they seemed to have fallen into complacency, prompting the inspired writer to say this: “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish (i.e., lazy), but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises (i.e., inherit what has been promised) – Hebrews 6:11-12. By contrast, if a congregation can develop into a magnetic, loving body of sincere, unified, and out-reaching Truth-seekers, then and only then will we have a Christ-approved culture ready to accept new additions from the community and from other congregations—congregations that may not share the noble goals we are pursuing and that have members searching for involvement.
At this point, it’s time to consider well-planned outreach efforts into the communities surrounding us. The visitor guest book should be used as an active tool of evangelism with a sincere follow-up plan in place, but certainly not the only one.
In my opinion, a far more diligent job of planning and executing such outreach efforts must be accomplished by leaders of the Church. We must actually run the race to WIN, not just to “make an effort,” which often turns out to be a mediocre one. If something isn’t working, let’s change it! We must make a sincere effort that Christ would truly be pleased with, and never quit!
I plan to have much more to say about this and all the above later. But in a nutshell, I cannot imagine Christ being pleased with the half-hearted attempts (if any!) that congregations these days have been making to reach the lost of their own communities. It is a sad state of affairs, and represents the epitome of lukewarmness, hardly comparable to the activism and enthusiasm of our ancestors described in the book of Acts.

(7) OUTREACH TO NEARBY CITIES & STATES SHOULD ALSO BE CONSIDERED
Outreach to other nearby towns, cities, or states should be a goal of churches that are developed enough to handle these works (Matthew 28:18-20). I believe the goal of any outreach-effort embarked upon (foreign or domestic) must be to create independently operating, Scriptural congregations that can govern their own churches and are also trained in spreading the gospel and the Word of God to their own communities. But before we could do that, we must first understand how to do it ourselves (by emphasizing the things listed above or other such strategies). Obviously, we must be able to set an example for other new brothers and sisters to follow, and even provide hands-on aid in their local outreach efforts. However, if in our own congregations much complacency exists—or worse, if inactivity has become the accepted standard of our church (as it appears to be in numerous congregations these days)—do we really think our outreach results are going to be successful? Speaking plainly, we must first get the logs of failure out of our own local church’s eye, and then we will be able to see more clearly on how to develop properly functioning, growth-focused churches elsewhere that themselves can also be thriving congregations. Merely sending preachers to other countries to conduct gospel meetings and then come back home to post OPA updates of their “foreign work successes” and solicit more financial support is not exactly how early Christians handled such works. Sadly, it has been my first-hand experience that typically there is very little if any serious planning or supporting-congregational oversight for such works.
However, I believe that the secret to all success lies in the teachings of our Lord and His inspired apostles and prophets regarding the steps above. I plan to have much more to say about all of this later, including getting specific about the things I believe we must be teaching and practicing to please Christ.

PLEASE READ:
Is Your Congregation in a State of Spiritual Crisis?

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