No church has ever been scolded into vitality.
I know how it feels to be frustrated by a church's short-comings. The feeling of seeing visitors slip through a service overlooked... the agony of seeing quality neglect in the nursery... the stress of receiving insufficient funds.
But I can't think of a single church that made a turn-around with scoldings.
It just doesn't work.
Amen brother. My church has tons of shortcoming, as most do, but I'd rather be the change I hope to see and roll up my sleeves to help.
Posted by: Daniel Decker | February 17, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Exactly, But we know many pastors that have tried this method.
In darkness, the choice is to curse it or light candles. So many choose the former and not the latter
Posted by: David Travis | February 17, 2009 at 10:57 AM
Ben,
Hilarious- this sort of "came up" today in our Ministry Heads mtg,. when we were discussing what to do w/ a lack of volunteers in "Tiny Town" ... someone jokingly said "well, we can close it, and just tell people we couldn't get the volunteers" .. I said "I've been to that church, and it didn't work"
Posted by: Fred McKinnon | February 17, 2009 at 04:37 PM
Thanks for this Ben!
Posted by: Shaun King | February 17, 2009 at 08:34 PM
To my shame and embarrassment this is exactly how I did things for six years -- and you're absolute right, it just doesn't work.
My fear, though, has always been that to many people have a misunderstanding of love. In that "leading with love" means we never confront blatant, obvious sinful behaviors and attitudes. If that makes sense.
Posted by: Curt | February 20, 2009 at 01:41 PM