10 important, needed, hard steps that could transform the church …

The pandemic, political vitriol, racial conflict, or other serious issues did not wreck the church.

The church in the West was already hurt and suffering real and serious decline before any of the above traumatized the world for most of the past two years.

We could have identified what was needed to make the church more like the church we see in the New Testament before any of those issues mentioned above occurred, and some people did. But most churches were trying to limp along doing ministry “as usual.”

We can’t continue doing church and ministry “as usual” if we don’t want to see the worst happen to the church. It is possible to see the church transformed into being much like the church we see in the New Testament, but to see such a radical change will take MAJOR changes, like these 10 steps:

1. Revitalized scrutiny of making sure all candidates for ordination and vocational ministry positions are fully biblically qualified, have been personally discipled, and are adequately equipped. Hundreds of pastors quit vocational ministry every month, and many are FIRED every month. Among the reasons is one the church hasn’t had the guts to face up to — that for a very long time, we have been ordaining and putting into vocational ministry positions men who were never truly called, and definitely not biblically qualified, to be ordained or take vocational ministry positions. We can fix that with a commitment to much greater scrutiny. But not just to making sure they fully meet biblical qualifications – that’s the lowest standard that must be met. Too many men entering ministry may have graduated from a Bible or Christian college but were never personally discipled! They may have an academic equipping, but not a personal, experiential spiritual development through being personally discipled. That is a massive deficit for anyone being ordained and hired for a ministry position. Or, they may have had some level of personal discipleship, but no equipping for the work of ministry. All three are important – fully meeting biblical qualifications, being personally discipled, and adequate equipping for ministry. This step could transform the quality of church leaders going forward.

2. Pastors need to focus their attention and time on:

• • Preaching and teaching.
  • Prayer.
  • Shepherding and pastoral care.
  • Equipping the saints for the work of ministry.

While too many church leaders have been negligent in all of the above, probably the greatest area of neglect by church leaders today is their failure to equip the saints to do the work of ministry, even though that is a primary reason why they have a leadership position!

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ,” Ephesians 4:11-12.

3. Pastors and elders need to execute a serious commitment and strategy to helping every church member grow to spiritual maturity. Church leaders often are theoretically in agreement to wanting their flock to mature spiritually, but have no real plan and strategy for achieving it, and don’t track or follow the spiritual development of their members. We need to be as vigorously committed to the spiritual maturing of Christians today as the Apostle Paul was, as demonstrated in this passage of scripture:

“So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. That’s why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ’s mighty power that works within me,” Colossians 1:28-29.

4. Preaching needs to return to preaching the Bible, more specifically including the Gospel, rather than endless topical series on “felt needs.” After “going to church” on Sunday, people should feel like they’ve “been to church,” not to a motivational seminar or a session with a life coach.

5. It’s time to bring back the office of Deacon and give them real authority to do their jobs. If pastors are seriously going to give their time and attention to item number two above, they need to hand off other ministry issues (yes, important issues) to Deacons to take care of, trusting them with that work.

6. The attractional model should be permanently buried and church members should be equipped to effectively share the Gospel, then be challenged and encouraged to live as ambassadors for Christ. There’s nothing biblical about the attractional model, and it has actually caused a great deal of harm to the church. And it’s utter and complete failure was fully demonstrated during the pandemic when a production at a building couldn’t be used as a lure for spiritually dead people to come to a religious gathering. The attractional model was never God’s plan for making disciples; sending ambassadors for Christ into the world to make disciples was, and still is:

“Jesus came and told his disciples, ‘I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age,'” Matthew 28:18-20.

“And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!'” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.

7. A “simple church” model should be adopted for church ministry. To oversimply what a “simple church” model is, it’s any ministry or activity that doesn’t further the purpose and mission of the church won’t be kept or started. But don’t oversimplify; instead, please buy and read, cover-to-cover, the book “Simple Church” by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger (you can check it out on Amazon here).

8. Church membership should come with expectations and accountability. Of course this means expecting nothing more than what, from scripture, we would expect of anyone professing to be a sincere follower of Jesus Christ — but also not expecting less, and in love and with encouragement, holding each other accountable to the biblical expectations of those who call themselves Christians and commit to membership in a local church. This has been missing in most churches for a long, long time.

9. Make the church much more a “family” (the family of God) and much less a “community.” To the harm of the church, MANY church leaders have given up the identity of the church being the family of God to their preference of calling it a community. But words matter, because words have power. The average person gives little consideration to their “community,” that’s just the place they wander out to for work, to go shopping, to get the things they need before coming home to the people they love and care about – their family. We trivialize the church by constantly referring to it as a community instead of powerfully instilling in every church member that we are FAMILY! Brothers and sisters in Christ! We belong to each other the same way an organ of the body belongs to the body … we’re the body of Christ, one body!

10. Worship should be something done in spirit and truth, not as a production, and holiness should be our life ambition. When you make worship a show, and fail to prioritize holiness, you will fail at the ultimate purpose and mission for the church, as worshiping God in spirit and truth, and being transformed into the likeness of Jesus so that we can obey God’s demand for holiness is why we have the church!

There’s an abundance of conversation out there about what the church should do as we move into the post-pandemic world, but these kinds of things aren’t heard from many corners of the church. Instead, we argue over the value of keeping online services, or things that might be important, but not essential or transformational to the church being the biblical, disciple-making church. As long as today’s church “leaders” want to be CEOs and entrepreneuers leading “organzations” we’ll miss these important things that could revitalize the church to being more like the New Testament church. Pray we learn our lessons, take the big steps, and make the hard decisions.

Scotty