The result is evangelism drops off, programming becomes all about what the Christians want for themselves, and the worship service begins to cater only to those in the body of Christ.
The scary thing is that all churches drift in that direction. All churches drift inward without the intentional effort to keep an outward focus on those who are far from God. It’s not easy, but it is that simple.
The leaders of the church must agree and align with a ministry that intentionally commits time, resources, effort and energy to reach out.
4) Hindrances to Church Growth – Programs over people
Programs over people can become a reality in a church of any size, but this tends to be a more common barrier in larger and mega-churches. It’s not intentional, in fact, it comes from the natural pressure to bring excellence to programming.
Ministry program excellence is important, but we can’t let it crowd out love and care for individual people.
Program over people shows up in little things that are important things. Such as phone calls not being returned, it becomes difficult to volunteer, and the systems for next steps are complicated.
There is no perfect solution here. It’s impossible for very large churches to give large amounts of time to everyone. The most important thing we can do, however, is to give genuine individualized care to as many as we can. That helps ignite the culture so that this caring attitude has a way of continuing amongst the people.
5) Slipping from relevance
Change is essential. The message of Jesus never changes but our methods, style, and approach must always adapt to the needs of the current culture.
In more extreme cases, when entering an outdated church environment, it’s like walking into a time warp. It causes those who visit to question if the leadership understands how to navigate current culture.
See Page Three for more hindrances to church growth:
