I Will Avoid The Traps Of “churchianity" Series

• The church did not discipline members who had fallen into sin.

• There was a misunderstanding about spiritual gifts.

• There were abuses of the Lord’s Supper.

• There were abuses of liberty.

• The church was dealing with heresies concerning the resurrection.

The gospel is the story of God saving us through His Son Jesus. He poured out grace so we could respond in faith...The gospel is about Jesus dying on a cross...He bore our sin...and our punishment...He became our substitute.

Romans 5:6 says at the right time, when we were still powerless Christ died for the ungodly...verse 8 says, “That God demonstrated His love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

Ungodly...sinners...me...you!

We are recipients of this amazing grace...and our response should be grace toward others...But we don’t do that well at times.

Folks you can be critical of a whole bunch of messed up sinners in church...but please realize you are among them...we can practice churchianity and dwell on flaws and be critical or we can practice Biblical Christianity and extend grace toward others...after all without the grace of Jesus none of us would have any hope.

SYMPTOM #4 – CHURCH HAS LOW EXPECTATIONS

We expect no real miracles...no real transformations...no real God incidents when we practice “churchianity.”

We handle things in our own power and attempt to fix issues with our own plans and power. The Holy Spirit might be mentioned, but in truth we don’t pay much attention to His presence.

A low expectation Church doesn’t help new people move from being a visitor to being connected. Groups stay static and closed off instead of allowing new people to develop relationships. No one is expected to be involved in ministry...even titles like “deacon” or “servant” don’t really mean an expectation to serve. And communication about dreams and expectations come to a standstill.

Churches with low expectations have many members who practice “churchianity.”

The final symptom:

SYMPTOM #5 – CHURCH HAS CLIQUISH MEMBERS

Let me quote Thom Rainer in “I Will” concerning this symptom:

This symptom is similar to #4 in that it’s difficult to get involved in the church. One church has only a few members involved because it is a low expectation church. Another church had few members involved because most members aren’t connected with key cliques in the church.

The cliques can take different forms. One common clique is an informal power group in the church. They represent an informal alliance of typically longer-term members. In many ways, they consider the church “my church.” Anyone has to get tacit approval from that group to get involved or to get anything accomplished.

Another clique can be a family power group. Some older churches especially have a network of connected people whose origin is one or two families. Those families may date back to the birth of the church.