10 Toxic Traditions That Are Killing the Church

Last updated on: June 26, 2017 at 5:28 am by Josh Daffern

10 Toxic Traditions That Are Killing the Church 2017-06-26T05:28:52-06:00 Josh Daffern

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

unsplash.com

6). Preaching merely to teach the Bible. Yep, let’s go there too. Preach the Bible, preach the Bible, preach the Bible. That’s all well and good. The Bible should be central in our preaching, and I hold to as conservative a stance on biblical inerrancy as the next evangelical, but the Bible is the means, not the end. If you preach only to teach the Bible, you’re selling your congregation short. How many times did Jesus sit his disciples down and walk verse-by-verse through the book of Deuteronomy? His goal was to introduce people to his Heavenly Father. That’s the end: God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. The Bible is great, but it is not a part of the Trinity. The Bible is the word of God, but the Bible did not die on the cross for our sins nor rise from the dead three days later. The goal of preaching is to introduce people to Jesus through the Bible, not just teach the Bible. The Bible is the means, but not the end.

7). Making belief in all the Bible a pre-requisite for salvation. This one is related to the previous point. I’ve written about this before that we can elevate the Bible to a place where it was never meant to be. Churches today are beginning to talk about the Bible as if belief in all the Bible is a pre-requisite for salvation. The Bible doesn’t save us. Jesus saves us. The Bible points us to Jesus, but the Bible is not Jesus. Another slice of this point is that too many churches preach the Bible assuming that everyone knows the stories. All this does is reinforce to visitors and guests that they don’t belong.

8). Viewing missions as a location and not a lifestyle. I love missions. I was a missionary for two-years. I’ve done missions about every bad way you can do it. I did tourist missions, where I went to an exotic place, took some pictures with some malnourished kids to feel better about myself, and then came back home loaded down with souvenirs. That’s not missions. But here’s the specific tradition about missions that we’ve turned into a toxic tradition: we’ve turned missions into a location, not a lifestyle. We feel like we’ve got to go 1000 miles and spend $1000 to go do missions. How is it that we’ll train for months, give up our vacation and spend our hard-earned money to go tell strangers we’ve never met about Jesus, and yet we won’t go across the street to help our neighbor? We’ll go to Africa but we won’t go to the inner city? Come on now. Missions is not a location. It’s a lifestyle. If we started doing missions right where we lived, if we began to see our schools, our workplaces, our ball fields as a mission field, people would be getting saved left and right. Missions is not a location, it’s a lifestyle.

9). Reducing the transcendence of Christianity down to a reliable voting bloc for one political party. I’ve wrote on this one before as well. Why is it that to be a good Christian you have to belong to a certain political party? I’m not trying to argue the merits of the Republicans vs the Democrats, I’m just asking why has American Christianity, which is supposed to transcend politics, been reduced to a reliable voting bloc for one political party? Whenever I ask this I’ll always get someone to come back at me, “What are you saying? How can anyone support this party and what they stand for?” That’s not the conversation I’m trying to have. What I’m trying to ask is why do you have to be a Republican to be a good Christian today? Whether or not the Republican party lines up more with evangelical Christianity is besides the point. What we’ve done is immediately alienate the half of America that doesn’t identify as a Republican. If we identify ourselves so closely with one party that people assume you have to be a Republican to be a Christian, we’ve just lost influence with 150 million Americans.

10). Choosing to reject culture rather than redeem it. Some churches treat anything outside of its four walls as so toxic that it could never be brought into the holy sanctuary. So if one church decides to play a secular song or leverage a popular movie or television show as a bridge to the gospel, it will always take friendly fire from behind because they ‘caved’ to culture. If we continually reject culture rather than try and redeem it, we’ll find ourselves having no bridges left to try and reach a community. Not all culture is bad. Not all culture is evil. When done the right way, leveraging and redeeming contemporary culture is a powerful way to reach a community. You can’t love someone and judge them at the same time. Churches have to choose whether to reject or redeem the culture around them.

Previous Post

June 20, 2017

The Sad Reality of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Alt-Right Condemnation

Next Post

June 26, 2017 Three Problems in the Church That Should Never Ever Be Solved

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Family Matters Ministry in the Trenches Morning Brew MTVpastor New Wineskins Top Menu Truth from Life Uncategorized Watch Sermons

Select a Month June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Marah" mean in Hebrew?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Bitter Healing Blessed Strength