Two weeks ago I asked for your help in identifying the key hindrances in the Western church. I did this to inform me with your insights as I work on my next book.
Your responses were many and amazing!
I have organized those responses into the three primary categories they seem to fall into. Below is a mini-version of my notes. You can download my full notes here.
Key Hindrances:
1. Our relationship with God
- Lack of intimacy with God
- Not listening
- We don’t know Him as He is
- We don’t know His word and/or we are lackadaisical about it
2. Our involvement in religious traditions and legalism
- Religious attitudes
- Man-made traditions
- Religion and pride
- Comfort-seeking in our church life
- Me-centered in our church life
- Consumer mentality as a Christian
3. Our followership (our walk as disciples)
- Lack of obedience to Jesus alone
- Lack of obedience to all of Jesus’ commands
- Not making disciples
- Not surrendered wholly
- No passion for the lost
- Compromise
Again, I only printed the first few responses and you can see the full list here.
Very, very helpful! More coming…
Comments
2 responses to “Organizing Your Thoughts on What Hinders the Western Church”
Thank you for sharing this – it is an intriguing if somewhat disheartening list to read. Through the lens of observing what is happening in my ‘traditional’ local church, the heartfelt concerns shared in my small group and my own attempts to walk in the light, far too many of these resonate too loudly. Blessings.
I forgot to add my own contribution. Prompted by the ‘No personal experience with Jesus ourselves—all second hand’ point in your list, I would also offer ‘Experience of God/Jesus devalued or reframed’. By this, I am referring to those whose relationship with God and Jesus is primarily experiential; that is experienced, felt, sensed, rather than read, heard or spoken to (either directly or through the Word). In my experience, such experiences can often be dismissed, reframed or reinterpreted by others as an emotional response rather than a spiritual one. This in turn can devalue a person’s connection with God or, worse still, cause them to question and falter in seeking to grow that relationship. I hope this makes sense. Blessings.