If you know that you need help to grow in the Lord, join or start a group or class that will go deeper in the study of the Bible.
Ask the pastor or a staff leader for direction in this.
If you can’t be part of the team, do your church, the Lord and your pastor a favor and find somewhere else to attend. However, before you do that, think about how you will explain your leaving your church to the Lord. That’s a lot harder than explaining it to your pastor or someone at church, because God knows your heart. If your reasons are selfish, He will know. If your reasons are valid, you will know His approval.
Before you write off the leadership of your church and/or decide to leave, ask yourself these questions:
1. If the church changed to suit me, would it be more likely or less likely to reach unchurched people?
2. Am I a customer at my church or am I part of the work force?
People complain about commercialism in the church and say church leaders work to impress the unchurched. Some of those same folks then choose to leave the church because the church doesn’t suit them. What they seem to want is for the church to treat them as customers.
For the church to work as it should, church members should be part of the staff, not the customers. The customers of the church are people who need Jesus. When they put faith in Jesus, the process of customers becoming workers begins. The work that people in God’s church are supposed to do is the great commission and the great commandments.
I have actually heard people say that the church should cater to them, because they give money. Well that’s consumerism. Our gifts to the church are just that — gifts.
Some folks give to the church the way they pay dues to a country club. They think their offerings buy them the right to be served by the church and use the facility, and that the church leadership should put the social and religious needs of its members first. On the contrary, the church must put the spiritual needs of those who don’t know Christ ahead of the religio-cultural needs of the members. We should expect, even require, that our gifts to the church be used to build the Kingdom of God.
On the other hand, if the reason you don’t feel like your are growing is because the church is not reaching people, then you do need to find another place where you can be part of the doing the mission. You need a place where you grow by serving and supporting the vision to reach your community for Christ.
You are not to be a spectator. You are to be a stakeholder. You are to be a servant. You are to be a minister and missionary!
