HOW TO CAUSE CHURCHES TO DIE

Garden City church of Christ

Garden City, Michigan

Here are fifteen suggested causes for the demise of a local congregation:

A church will die when—

1. It is more concerned with buildings and budgets than with benevolence (Galatians 6:10);

2. It is concerned with the traditions of men instead of the truth of God (Matthew 15:3, 9; John 8:32);

3. It is more concerned with programs than with people (I Corinthians 13);

4. It is more concerned with what it keeps than with what it gives (II Corinthians 8:1-7);

5. It is more concerned with land than with love (Acts 4:34; 5:5);

6. It is more concerned with what is fashionable than with what is faithful (Romans 12:1, 2);

7. It is more concerned about the accumulation of fortune than with the action of fellowship (II John 9-Il; III John 4-8);

8. It is more concerned with the methods of men than with the mercy of God (Matthew 23:23-27);

9. It is concerned with saving face instead of saving faith (James 2);

10. It is concerned with fussing with friction instead of friendliness and forgiveness (Galatians 5:15-26);

11. It is concerned with being sensational and dynamic instead of being sound and disciplined (II Corinthians 10:1-7);

12. It is concerned with heaping up instead of helping out (Matthew 6:19, 20; 25:31-46);

13. It is concerned with a religion of worldly, pompous ceremony instead of one based on a proper relationship with Christ (Matthew 23);

14. It is concerned with picking up one another instead of praying for one another (Luke 15:21-32; James 2:14-17; 5:16); and

15. It is concerned more with holding back than with reaching out (Matthew 28:18-20).