Today, on facebook, a friend of mine posted on my wall this very interesting article from Christianity Today. It's titled "The Widowmaker Repents". And here's the link if you'd like to read the article for yourself. http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2014/january/widowmaker-repents.html
The article was extremely insightful and it is just awesome to see a church repent from their wrongdoing after they had injured so many pastors and leaders, and I'm certain quite a few other congregation members as well. I really wish many more churches would do this. I wish my former church would do this.
Anyway, the article got me thinking. What image does your church project into the community? Churches have reputations. I can mention a church name to a group of people and at least one person will tell me about the reputation of that church. That individual may or may not be a brother or sister in Christ and they may or may not have previously attended that church. It doesn't matter. But the fact is, if your church has been a church for very long, they will have a reputation and it may be a key as to whether your church is healthy or not.
I suggest everyone find out the reputation of the church they attend. It may be an eye opener and bring up some red or green flags. If you are looking for a church, this may help you avoid the unhealthy ones.
I'll use my church for example. We have a reputation in the community. Here's what I've heard.
- It has very "strong" women. That's been used in a good and bad connotation. I have to laugh because I'm one of those and I know both sides to that statement. Being a "strong" woman has it's blessings and downfalls. I am kinda stubborn, but I'm a leader and many of the women in my church are too. We are strong women.
- We are known as a praying church. I think that's a good thing. Our Pastor is known for his long prayers....hehe! He even includes song titles without realizing it!
- We are known as a community/outreach minded church.
- And we are known as a "be who you are" church.
- And a worshiping church. (I'd like to think I had something to do with that as the worship leader....lol)
I'm sure their are other things we are known for in the community but that's basically what I have heard from other Pastors and people in our community.
So looking at a church's reputation can tell you a little bit more about the inner workings of a church. Things to look out for, some red flags:
- If your pastor at all discusses how others pastors in town talk negatively about him or her. If your leadership doesn't have good standing in the community how will your church?
- Do you have any outside influences to even ask about your church's reputation? OK MAJOR RED FLAG!!!! If you have no friends or family outside your own church to ask about what they think about your church....THEN YOU JUST MIGHT BE IN A VERY UNHEALTHY CHURCH!!!!!
- take a look at turn over in your church. Do people come for a few months then leave? Call up people who have left and find out WHY!!! Not everyone who leaves a church is backslidden or has rebellion issues. If that's your leader's or other congregation member's response as to why individuals or families have left or theydo not know, then that's another RED FLAG! Plus if no one ever leaves your church on good terms....BAD!
Basically I want people to evaluate their church dynamics and strive to be in healthy places spiritually. We all have unintentionally hurt people but some churches do it intentionally. They intentionally control their congregations, or in some cases key influential members do this to their leaders or other congregation members. They intentionally seek out to isolate members from outside influences.
So when you ask people about your church be on the look out for:
- "oh, you go to "THAT" church." You may want to ask their honest opinion of what they meant by "THAT".
- The polite, awkward, cringing face that let's you know they really don't want to offend you with their opinion.
Things you don't want to hear about your church:
- gossipers
- judgmental
- manipulators
- CULT
- negative activities about your leaders
- financial issues like suspicion of misappropriating funds! PLUS: if your pastor brings this up on a consistent basis that he's been accused multiple times of this.....'cough, cough'....the people who accused him may just have reason to have accused him...or her....just saying! I've seen this and when I was asking about a churches reputation in this community that same issue was repeated and repeated and repeated! All from different sources and all had different stories from different times! I was shocked! This was clearly an issue in that church!
- stories about "I knew someone who went there" and they left on bad terms! What people say about your church outside of it matters!
- sin bashing - this can be like the judgemental thing but more specifically, like preaching against homosexuallity on a tangent because a homosexual visited your church for the first time on a sunday morning. Other pastors would call this "situational preaching".
- FALSE DOCTRINE! If someone tells you this about your church....please listen! You have no idea until you've come out of a church with false doctrine how insidious it can be. I am sorry to inform some you but we are NOT little gods and there is no scriptural evidence that Jesus went to hell for three days!
- money hungry
- controlling
I could go on but the point is, if your church portrays a negative image to the community then why are you part of it? If you are a leader of that kind of church repent! Seriously! The hardest thing to do as a leader is to admit when we are wrong. I get that. I DO NOT like being wrong....just ask my husband (see that's the bad part of being a strong woman). But if we lose focus of being the Gospel, the Good News, to our communities for the sake of our Pride then we've lost the Salt. We have missed it. I'd rather be wrong and see our communities come to the hope and knowledge of Christ. We have got the greatest story ever worth telling and we are sitting on our hands doing nothing. Instead we are portraying the exact opposite. What's our public Image? If it's negative, let's do some repenting like the church in the article and change it. Here in Panama City there are just too many churches with a negative public image and each of us has to ask why and to do something about it. So what's your church's Public Image?
