WHAT KIND OF CHURCH ARE YOU BUILDING?

This article was originally written by a Nigerian church consultant and I am yet to know his details because I forgot to do that while saving it into my laptop.

Our Lord Jesus used the analogy of building when He first talked about the church “I will build my church…” – Matt. 6:18.

Building takes planning, systematic approach and time. It cannot be done at once, rather, it must be done systematically, one block after the other. Sometimes, it takes a lifetime to build a very good house. And the durability of any physical building is largely determined by the foundation. The scripture refers to the church as the spiritual house of the Lord (I Pet.2:5). It goes to show that the church is people, not just the building. People are the church and they must be built for the Lord. The Lord wants to dwell in people, not in material or physical buildings. So, building the church means building the people up for the Lord and in the Lord.

Over the centuries, Jesus has used various people to build His church. The right emphasis has always been on the people as the church and the church has survived various persecutions and deprivations because she was rightly built for the Lord.

However, it has been observed and noted that today’s leaders have been building the church, largely in an unbiblical way.

How leaders are building the Church today

Various church leaders have risen up today, claiming authority from Christ and they are building the church in ways that have left much to be desired. Permit me to pinpoint some of the major ways the church is being built today.

1.        Architectural Cathedral churches

Many mainline, Pentecostal and charismatic leaders are now expending all their energy, effort and finance in constructing the best building in the world as a church. It has become a competition to have a structural edifice and state of the art building as church, while the people are left unbuilt for the Lord. In the believe that the building is the church, we have wrongly focused on having a good, modern and digital church building, while the real people that are the true church are left spiritually destitute, beggarly and shallow in the things of the Lord. However, we need to realize that Jesus did not die to save cathedrals but people. And He is not coming to rapture our fine buildings, but people that are truly His.

2.        Biblically Illiterate churches

Today, there are small, middle-size and large churches that are biblically illiterate. The people are scripturally ignorant because they were not taught. The church is built upon preaching, motivation and ideas of men, spiced only with scriptural passages here and there. People now go to church without a bible and you can go through weeks of services in a church without the bible being open once! Christians of today no longer use the term, ‘the bible says,’ when discussing spiritual issues, rather the common refrain is, ‘my pastor says’, our bishop says’ ‘papa says’ Why? Because they are biblically illiterate. So-called Christians are ignorant of what the bible says about dressing, work, marriage and living. That is the reason we are no longer good examples to our neighbours.

3.        Prophetic and Power Dependent churches

Church leaders of today are also building the church on prophecy, power and miracles only. People are being prophesied upon in meetings, miracles are being sought and power demonstration are emphasized. Even though the people are not free from sin, evil and ungodly living. The people are now prophecy and power dependent. They seek prophecy everywhere, even from devils. Dreams, visions, revelations and prophetic manipulations are thriving in the church and people cannot do anything without prophecies received. With people’s faith built on such things, they become a prey to false prophets and charlatans. They also use ungodly and occultic means to better their lot in life and ministry, so long it is prophesied. People that are prophecy and power dependent cannot be truly stable in the faith.

4.        Seeking God’s Hand and not His Person churches

Ministers of today are largely building churches that seek God’s hand for blessing, but not His person. Such people pretend to worship God, but in truth are only looking for what He can do for them. Most modern day churches are built as ‘give me, give me church’. The emphasis is on what God can do for you and almost nothing on what is your responsibility to God. Most of the prayers, fastings and programmes are based on ‘enemies’, victories and breakthroughs, and nothing on holiness, righteousness and being obedient to the Lord in all things. In such places, people are ready to call ‘Holy Ghost fire’ upon any perceived enemies, even though their attitudes and characters are quite unchrist-like!

 5.        Worldly Success but spiritually bankrupt churches

It is also a reality that too many leaders are building the church along the line of financial, material and physical success. Your worth and wealth are used to determine your spiritual success. Success in physical and material terms are harped upon to the detriment of people’s spiritual life. Churches that are built on worldly success are noted for carnal, ungodly and bankrupt living. Corruption, immorality, lukewarmness and spiritual apathy reign in such churches. People do all kinds of ungodly work in order to appear successful to others and the church keeps mute. Such churches usually become backsliding churches with lots of spiritually dead people but physically okay and materially wealthy.

6.        One sided/line of the truth churches

It is an incontestable fact that churches are also built on one line of truth. They are started as power, deliverance, prayer, faith and worship centers and unfortunately are built only along that line. Churches in this scenario usually experience numerical growth for some time until people will start looking elsewhere for the balance. Imbalance churches build spiritually imbalanced people and that injures and ruin the lives of many.

These above mentioned churches have been true caricature of the church Jesus had in mind. They are largely our churches, not His own church. They are churches built after the wisdom of men, not the true representative of Christ in the world. Because these are the churches that are prevailing in the land, that is the more reason the world has not been won to Christ. In spite of the widespread of churches, little or no impact is made upon our societies.

To really build the church Jesus had in mind, church leaders need to start with themselves. They have to build themselves as true disciples of the Lord first, and it’s only then they will be able to build their churches purposefully, intentionally, deliberately and scripturally. It is only when the church is being built in a purposeful and scriptural way that we can impact the world for Christ.