DON'T ROCK THE BOAT

" I am paid by the church organization and if I am to continue to get paid, and if I expect to get retirement pay, I can't rock the boat"

This was posted on a Christian forum on the internet. The poster was someone who has shown his very keen sense of what the scriptures and the Lord is saying to the church.

This was the response he got from a minister when he raised something that was not backed by scripture.

If the truth were known, the “don’t rock the boat mentality” motivates most paid ministers in Australia and the US and probably the UK.

This mentality would explain why only 1% of the churches in the US are growing according to a poll conducted amongst them.

This “don’t rock the boat mentality” is probably why the majority of churches do not obey Jesus command to go into all the world and make disciples. To do this requires commitment, challenge, being taken out of our comfort zone and doing what God wants, not what we want.

Most churches do not have the slightest interest in that sort of thing. Most activity in most churches is for the benefit of the people who are already attending.

It has been said that the most spiritual in the church often are the people who block anything remotely different as they have built up their power base over the years and are comfortable with the way things are so they don’t want anything to happen that will “rock the boat” and maybe diminish the power they have.

The other side is that, and I have been told this, if we do whatever has been suggested, some people might leave so we can’t allow that to happen. The fact that it might be God’s will to do it and that twice as many will join as leave as a result seems to escape them.

I guess when you are fearful of man what happens is what the bible says will happen as in “the fear of man brings a snare” (Job 28:28). It goes on to say that the fear of the Lord is wisdom. Seems that there are a lot of unwise leaders out there. In Proverbs 29:25 it says that those who trust the Lord will be safe (not those who don't trust the Lord). Amazing how much we ignore God's provision.

Those ministers who are focussed on retirement and their pension are certainly snared by complacency and obsolescence. It is no wonder that the church is irrelevant to most people outside the kingdom of God.

One other thing. This attitude is another sign that the one man paid pastor in most cases is the biggest barrier to the church being the army of God and being equipped to take our cities for God as we are required to do as our prime objective.

No army goes into battle with the Captain, a few lieutenants and a sergeant major equipped for war and all the other troops looking on to see how they go. Except the church that is. We equip a few, pay a few, anoint a few and then ask all the others to be their cheer squad.

Paul told the church, not just the leaders and few underlings to put on the whole armour of God. Why did he do this? So that we can have an armour fashion parade? So that we can look good whenever we go out? So that we can let people see that our armour is better than theirs?

He told us to put on the whole armour of God for one reason only. The church is not a fashion parade, it is an army barrack. We are foot soldiers of the King and we are in a battle to put Satan in his place. If you and your church are not doing this you are not a church, you are just a religious social club, run by an executive committee who ignore most of the rules of engagement that are in its manual, the bible.