5 Grave Dangers For Any Local Church

One of my favorite movies is the 1992 modern classic, “A Few Good Men.” It starred Tom Cruise as Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, Jack Nicolson as Colonel Nathan Jessep, and Demi Moore as Lieutenant Commander Joanne Calloway. It’s a great leadership movie.

You probably remember the famous “You can’t handle the truth!” dialogue, but do you remember this scene?

Kaffee: Yes, Sir. Colonel, at the time of this meeting, you gave Lt. Kendrick an order, is that right?
Jessep: I told Kendrick to tell his men, that Santiago wasn’t to be touched.
Kaffee: And did you give an order to Colonel Markinson as well?
Jessep: I ordered Markinson to have Santiago transferred off the base immediately.
Kaffee: Why?
Jessep: I felt his life might be in danger once word of the letter got out.
Kaffee: Grave danger?
Jessep: Is there another kind?

Grave danger… is there any other kind?

That may seem over-the-top or a bit dramatic for a blog post intro. Most of us who are leaders in the church are not nearly as intense as Kaffee or Jessep, our work doesn’t require us to carry weapons, and we aren’t often in a courtroom.

But as we think about the gospel story, it is dramatic. It is about life and death. When it comes to the local church, the stakes are high and we do stand post for the Kingdom!

We don’t have to get weird about it, but there are grave dangers that we face as we do our part of leading the mission forward. It’s easy for church work to become “business as usual.” Therefore, it’s wise and helpful to reflect on the depth of five dangers that can really hurt your church.

5 Grave Dangers:

1) When systems take the lead over the Holy Spirit.

I’m an advocate of church systems. Good stewardship requires efficiency of time, energy and money.

However, if we ever begin to lean into systems over the power of the Holy Spirit, we are skating on thin ice. Under the demands of a 7 day turn around, 52 times a year to “produce” the next service, it’s easier to do than you might think. The machine can take over the mission.

The idea is not to ignore your systems or get rid of them. In fact, you may need to develop them better. It’s more about keeping them in the right priority and knowing how to keep them subject to the Holy Spirit. That’s not easy when you have deadlines.

The Holy Spirit should not be a tag on at the end, if we as the leaders still expect divine power. We must let Him lead the way, and then the systems help us unleash that power to reach even more people.

2) When your church name is lifted above Jesus’ name.

The name of your church matters and a good reputation in your community is important. But there is a subtle and all-the-more dangerous potential to talk more about your church than about Jesus.

12Stone Church has a good name in the community, and I’m grateful for that. But one of the best compliments I’ve ever heard was from a server in a restaurant who said, “Oh, you guys are those Jesus freaks!” She in some way associated us with Jesus, and that’s a good thing.

We must never be ashamed or embarrassed about introducing the name and person of Jesus into our conversations.

It’s easy to say “God,” (and there’s nothing wrong with that), but when you say “Jesus” you’ve made a distinct declaration and people know where you stand.

If you lift up the name of Jesus, He’ll lift up the name of your church.

3) When programs take precedence over prayer.

Programs over prayer leads to experience without transformation. The unique nuance with this potential danger is that the actual experience might be good, but that doesn’t mean that anything of eternal impact has taken place.

The longer I lead, the more deeply I’m convinced that prayer is everything. Your church or my church may have great leadership that people respect and appreciate, and excellent programs that people love and are grateful for but true long-term life-changing ministry success is based on prayer.

Prayer is our most powerful ally in ministry leadership, and the future of the church.

The more I fight my schedule to add more time to pray, the more it fights me. I fight anyway. Why? The enemy knows and will do anything to prevent prayer! In fact, the enemy loves prayerless programs because they pose no threat. But even the smallest and most humble of churches can rock the Kingdom if it’s a praying church!

4) When competition becomes greater than cooperation.

Competition within our churches or with other churches is neither subtle or unnoticed, and it’s a grave danger that is hard to conquer. A spirit of cooperation is a far better approach. It’s difficult to conquer because some competition is healthy. It comes from a good and godly leadership drive that wants to make progress and excel.

It’s when competition is driven by jealousy, pride, envy or insecurity that we get in trouble. When you are upset because someone has more than you, of anything, competition has you by the throat.

Scripture clearly calls us to unity, whether it’s within our own church or with other churches. When we lock arms in a spirit of cooperation, with a fellow staff member or, for example, at a roundtable with another church, we are difficult to defeat.

Cooperation doesn’t demand its own way, it finds a better way.

5) When comfort is allowed to replace sacrifice.

Have you ever noticed that church planters and new churches never seek comfort? They eat, sleep and drink the mission. They make huge sacrifices to launch the baby church. They do whatever it takes.

And yet the same leaders in same church, years later, not uncommonly seem to have let off the gas. Perhaps they just ran out of gas, but there are a number of other reasons and let’s be honest, few of them are good. Nothing of any real value continues to move forward without commitment and sacrifice.  

From your marriage at home to your mission at church, sliding into the comfort zone is like quicksand. You don’t notice what you’re stepping in, until you are already in danger. Grave danger.

Never take the road of comfort when leading a church, if you need help, get help, but remain committed and willing to sacrifice for the cause. It’s that road that sees the results you pray for.