7 Sad Signs of a Dead-End Church

This is Part 1 of a two-part series. For Part 1, click here!

Marks of a Dead-End Church

1. The pastor/leader doesn’t connect and regularly collaborate with other churches and ministries in the region. Their energies are given almost entirely to their local church, misunderstanding the importance of their local expression of the city church. They don’t realize that the church in Scripture has a regional designation attached to it. The church defined is the regional body of believers who function under regional apostolic authority. Within that context, there are smaller, local churches that are never to be self-identified, but rather are to strategically connect and often yield to the regional expression.

This is why it was so important for me to give leadership to two prayer movements, one in Colorado Springs and one in Detroit. We would visit a new church every Friday night and pray in the Spirit from 10 p.m. until midnight. We visited over 100 churches in Colorado and over 70 in Detroit. That regional connection was invaluable.

2. The pastor doesn’t encourage people in his church to connect with other churches and ministries on a regular basis. When I was leading churches I realized the immense value of other churches and ministries in our area. I’d let my folks know that they should definitely consider becoming faithful to other churches throughout the week, as we were but a single department of the city church. Other departments, other local churches, were important in the grand scheme and they would benefit from joining with them. In Detroit, I canceled most everything in my church for a month as I led the people out of our church and into another about 45 minutes away that was experiencing a powerful move of God. We were there every single night for 28 days (I actually missed one night, reluctantly). My passion was not the growth of my local church, but rather, in fanning the flames of revival in my city.

3. The pastor has a competitive spirit. We need to kill that nasty spirit once and for all. I propose one way to do that is to invite other pastors and leaders to recruit anybody from our church that they would like. I’d let other leaders in the city know they could freely connect with my best leaders, my worship team, my staff and anybody in the church, and see if they might be interested in leaving us to serve with them. That eliminates competition and any threats of sheep stealing. They can’t steal what I don’t own and what I freely make available to them.

4. The church has contagious and aggressive vision for local church growth, yet they rarely talk about regional revival. They emphasize the goals, the strategies and the determination to grow their church, to develop their ministries, to increase in number, to outgrow their building, to attract visitors or to focus on what benefits them on a local level.

5. If they have a prayer emphasis at all, it’s almost entirely directed toward their own local endeavors. They pray for all of the stuff I mentioned in the point above while having little zeal for an outpouring in the city. They don’t understand that the revival may not even launch in their own local church, so they focus on a move of God happening in their own body while forsaking the call to intercede for regional transformation. Instead of groaning and crying out for God to move in their city, for wickedness to be exposed, for other churches to come alive, for an earth-shaking outpouring, they are praying for internal ministries, for their own tent pegs to expand and for local increase.

6. Money isn’t sowed into their region. They use finances internally to grow their own local church. While they may have earmarked funds for missions and benevolence, the idea of sowing into regional revival is foreign to them. Further, when dead-end churches do give to outside ministries, it’s almost always churches within their own denomination.

7. They rarely if ever bring in guest speakers who are leaders in other local churches in their region. They want to control the narrative and they don’t want people to be influenced by a more dynamic speaker or someone who might connect better with people in their church. They fear losing those people. They fear their nice, tidy, local family being disrupted. They also fear another leader behind their pulpit who carries a more potent vision for the region than they do. With all humility I can say that as a visiting guest minister in regions I’ve never previously been to, I’ve often had more vision for that city than the pastor of the church. It’s crazy. I’ve also boldly coached pastors not to undo what God is about to do in the meetings. When God calls me to speak in a church, a lot will be confronted and exposed and a firestorm of God’s loving reformation will be in the room. Pastors, have the guts to embrace someone who won’t simply affirm what has been built, but will call the people higher.

Marks of a Cul-de-sac Church

1. It’s all about family. As I said above, I believe the family-style church is a threat. Many of these types of churches could fit into the “seeker sensitive” category of churches. Many others emphasize the grace and love message in excess and, while there may be praying in tongues and dancing in the aisles, it all comes back to relationships. The thoughts of a vertical experience where people lock in with God and contend for Him to move is something they would struggle with if it interferes with their desire for horizontal connections. It can be both vertical and horizontal, but in a cul-de-sac church, preference is given to personal, human relationships instead of aggressively advancing in the Spirit.

2. Their definition of revival is off. They see a growing number of people who are enjoying God and one another as the prime goal. While nobody can argue that growing in intimacy with God and that developing kingdom relationships is wrong, it’s the focus and the priorities that send cul-de-sac churches into the wrong direction. Instead of a supernatural war they value a growing, happy family of people who are enjoying God together. They would call that revival, and it’s a far cry from it. They misunderstand the severity of the battle and don’t regularly engage at the required level.

3. Positivity rules. They are adverse to anything that would be a downer to their block party in the cul-de-sac. They want their people encouraged, happy, stress-free and at ease. Topics such as hell, sin, eternity, repentance, correction, expectations or anything negative are avoided like the plague. They refuse to speak to the national cultural crisis; politics; the end times; wickedness such as abortion and homosexuality; or any other issue that would be divisive, challenging or confrontational. Just as people advise others to avoid the topics of religion and politics around the Thanksgiving table for the sake of civility and keeping the peace, cul-de-sac churches avoid anything that would cause any measure of disturbance.

4. Connecting with other churches is a no-go. Especially those that are aggressive in the pursuit of revival, holiness and a supernatural manifestation of God. They are happy within the four walls of their family gathering and they don’t want any outside influences threatening that.

Marks of a Kingdom Church

Instead of a list of attributes of a kingdom church, I’ll draw this article to a close. I believe it’s easy to deduce just what makes up a kingdom church by reviewing the opposing views above.

The bottom line is that we absolutely must see a massive correction come to what we know as the church today. Regional and national revival is greatly hindered by a lack of true, kingdom churches that are in existence not for themselves, but rather for the advance of, well, the kingdom.

Pastors, let your vision die. Let your church die. It’s OK. Let the stress of growing your own little spiritual experiment in a tiny little Petri dish fade away. Even more importantly, get on board with what God has planned in your city. Let your personal endeavors go, as great as they seem to be, and contend with others in your region for an outpouring. Just gather together somewhere, anywhere, with governmental, kingdom leaders and other revival-minded people. Press into God’s heart and intercede and advance exactly as God reveals to you as a part of the regional, governmental body. That’s church. That’s a kingdom church. That church will turn the world upside down.

Grace in the Shift

In closing (for real, this time), I want to encourage you not to get jaded. Don’t point fingers at churches or pastors. Understand that they have a mega-burden, and even if they aren’t advancing the way reform demands, pray for them. There must be love and grace in the process and in the ultimate shift. Also, understand God is diverse and there are many different types of people giving leadership, and they have varying levels of ability, experience, gifts, offices, prophetic revelation and understanding of the purpose of the church. In fact, many will disagree with this article. That’s OK. This doesn’t mean we can’t contend for transformation in the local church, but it does mean we must have grace in the process. {eoa}