How to spoil the renewal in the church - Part 4

This is the fourth, and last, part of a series about renewal in the church. The series has four parts in total and is posted once a week, on consecutive Tuesdays.

7. Create a culture of disrespect and blind following

 

A real respect between the older and younger generations demands honesty and causes trust.

 

In worst case scenario, the people who were against the renewal in the beginning become reformist themselves and will start to push for a renewal in the church.

 

This happens when the people advocating a renewal are too respected and listened too open mindedly, and become trusted.

 

The most important thing to do to avoid this is to create a culture of disrespecting others, of secret agendas and blindly following the leadership.

 

8. Keep the young people out of leadership

 

Even if there were young people with calling to teaching and leadership in the church, keep them out of the teams, elders (even the name says elders, not youngsters) and central responsibilities in the church.

Do not let young people, or people open to renewal, steal away the responsibilities in the church.

This could mean that the church would change and people would become more open to the renewal.

The congregation might even reach out to new generations and find ways to close the generational gap.

It could even become a church that creates new disciples and reaches out to find new Christians.

This is the fourth, and final, part of the series.

To read the first part, go to Part 1

To read the second part, go to Part 2

To read the third part, go to Part 3

Eight handy ways to spoil the renewal in the church - Part 3

This is the third part of a series about renewal in the church. The series has four parts in total and is posted once a week, on consecutive Tuesdays.

5. Always team-up and keep the side of the people who are against the renewal

 

Many people get hurt, angry or are afraid of the renewal.

 

Because of this they might leave the church – or worse – they might stop tithing the church.

 

If you are a leader in a church, do not annoy the people.

 

But obey them and try to make everyone happy, especially the most strong willed, and richest, people.

 

They are usually the most conservative people around, and sure to be against any renewal in the church.

 

6. Keep the mission and vision of the church secret and as obscure as possible

 

If the congregation has a clear vision and mission of what they want to accomplish, they might actually do it.

 

And this could cause a renewal in the church.

 

Make sure as few people as possible know the church’s mission and vision.

 

And make it at obscure and hard to understand as possible.

 

It is always better to use theological terms and long, hard words, maybe even some Latin and Greek.

 

If the people actually understand what vision is and internalize the mission, they might get involved and put it in practice in their own lives.

 

Again, this might lead to a renewal.

 

This is the third part of the series.

To read the first part, go to Part 1

To read the second part, go to Part 2

Eight handy ways to spoil the renewal in the church - Part 2

This is the second part of a series about renewal in the church. The series has four parts in total and is posted once a week, on consecutive Tuesdays.

3. Leave the decision making to the people who have no clue of what they are doing

If you want to be really effective in spoiling the renewal you should keep the key people in the church, like the team leaders and the elders, complete misinformed.

Only hold meetings with the elders when you cannot avoid it and only talk about the issues in the meeting plan.

The issues should be as basic and boring as possible.

Maybe the elders could decide if the church needs a new row of pews?

This should keep them both uninformed of what is really going on and help them to lose all the motivation they ever had to do their job.

Meet with different team leaders as seldom as possible and make them feel that they should know what they are doing without your explaining it.

And if they still keep doing their job well, you can always make them feel like they are missing some really important point, that you can’t really explain because they should know it if they are real Christians.

A good frustration is excellent antidote to renewal.

4. Don’t let the leading pastor to choose their co-workers

If it’s possible, do not hire a pastor who wants to have renewal in the church.

But there is the risk that even the most boring pastor can suddenly become a burning preacher who searches the renewal for their congregation.

In this case it is imperial to prevent their coworkers to catch this renewal spirit.

If this happens, they will make a strong team that can lead the whole church to the renewal.

To avoid this, and forestall it from happening, make sure that the leading pastor never gets to work with people they have chosen.

Instead make sure that people who are against renewal and the pastors policies more openly in the church are chosen to work with him.

This is the second part of the series.

To read the first part, go to Part 1

Eight handy ways to spoil the renewal of the church - Part 1

This is the first part of a series about renewal in the church. The series has four parts in total and is posted once a week, on consecutive Tuesdays.

What if we did not want to reach to new people?

What to do if we want to avoid the renewal in our church?

Or even spoil it?

Here are eight handy ways to do it:

1. Organize different kind of services on every Sunday

There is a good organized way to offer services in the church.

And then there are the everything-goes-services.

When everything is organized and people can know what kind of service to expect this Sunday, it is easy to come.

And even to bring friends with you.

Other way to do the Sunday services is to surprise people, never let them know what to expect and what exactly will happen the next Sunday.

This is a good way to even lose the people who used to be loyal members of a church.

2. Do not give a role to the youth

It is good to have young people in the church on Sundays.

But as everyone knows, if you really want to spoil your renewal, you should see a young person, not hear them.

This is why they should leave the service as fast as possible, maybe to a different room.

They can have a youth service of their own, completely apart from the rest of the church.

When they do come to the Sunday service, make it very explicit that they are expected to behave, be quiet and accept everything exactly as it is done by the people who are older, and wiser, than they are.

It is even better if the young people are not given any kind of chance to participate in the organization and the program of the Sunday service.

Young people might otherwise have a fresh view of things and bring new ideas to the church.

Or even get other people infected with new ways of thinking, which could, in the long run, lead to a renewal.