Nine Questions I Wonder If Churches Ever Ask

Church Health

Jan 28

I read a provocative blog post recently, written by Chuck Lawless, Senior Professor of Evangelism and Missions at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He was wondering if many churches in North America ever ask certain questions. Some of the following questions are taken from his blog post, and some are mine.

Why have we not done anything about years of decline in our churches? I don’t understand why nobody speaks up about this problem. Could it be that many of our churches are sleeping themselves to death?
Are we reaching any non-believers? Some seem to think that the church is growing if they baptize their own children and welcome a few Christians every year who place their membership with them. But, converting our own and growth by transfer will never reach a lost world.
If we were not here, would our community miss us? I suppose the only way to answer this question is to ask it of our community. Their answer might shock us. Our community may not even know that we exist.
How long will we tolerate weak staff members and church leaders who drag the church down? For fear of confrontation and division, congregations too often tolerate weak leadership and a poor work ethic in their staff members. We should remind ourselves that mediocrity has never made much of a dent in the world.
If every family in our church gave sacrificially, what could we do? There is evidence to suggest that most believers give a fairly low percentage of their income to the Lord. Only God knows how much more ministry we could do if we gave sacrificially.
Do we really care about holiness and sin? Too many of us have given up on living according to the high moral standards of the New Testament, and many churches seem to tolerate low ethical standards among their members, even among their leaders.
Why don’t we have a step-by-step plan for the spiritual growth of each person in our church family? We may assume babes and adolescents in Christ who regularly attend worship assemblies and Bible classes will grow to spiritual adulthood, but will they? Have we thought through what it will take for people to grow up in the Lord? Do we have a concrete action plan for bringing about growth into the stature of Christ?
Why are we content with maintaining the status quo when the status quo is clearly not working? I get that we may be fearful of change and “rocking the boat,” but in the end, don’t we pay too high a price for our fear and complacency?
Why do we demand so little from those in the body of Christ? It seems that many of us have lowered the bar as to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Not surprisingly, because we expect so little from one another, that’s what we get—very little in the way of commitment to Christ, very little in the way of sacrifice, and very little in the way of service.