Why Is The Congregation Weak?

Articles

Antoine N. Holloway
03/02/14 - Church Bulletins

Continuing with this series on local church membership, an attempt will be made to answer the question, “Why is the congregation weak?” One may be led to believe that a particular congregation is weak when they hear the following coming from current & recently former members:

I am not being spiritually fed here.
I am not getting anything out of the messages preached from the pulpit &/or lessons taught in the classrooms.
Worshiping here is a waste of my time.
There are too many hypocrites in the church.
A member here embarrassed me & the Lord with his conduct in public.
Everybody looked up to this particular member & it was discovered that she was cheating on her husband for years.
When I was sick, the Elders never came to visit me or pray for me once. Isn’t this their job?
There are a lot of good people here, but I fear they are blind to all the problems in this church, IF they willingly continue to serve, worship, & contribute at this congregation.

Do you know somebody who has made these comments? Have you made these comments yourself? To the person who makes these comments, it appears that the immediate solution is to leave & the secondary solution is to make the local church into their vision of what it should be. Unfortunately, God is left out of both the decision making process & the resolution process. Why is this? Could it be our culture? Could it be our godlessness & hypocrisy? Could it be uncaring Elders, worthless Deacons, unmotivated Evangelists, &/or lazy brethren? Whatever we may believe the problem to be, may I suggest that we look in the mirror first (1 Corinthians 10:12 & Matthew 7:1-5).

It appears the motivation of many to even become a part of a local church is NOT to do the work of the Lord in worshiping Him & saving souls (John 4:24 & 1 Timothy 3:15), NOR because it is authorized through apostolic example (Acts 9:26), but because we demand brethren serve us, feed us, & care for us. It is sad to see the hypocrisy in others, yet fail to see our own hypocrisy. If we have the heart of criticize, then we must also have the heart to help. – MORE NEXT WEEK

These series of articles are motivated by the book "I Am A Church Member" by Thom S. Rainer