Ways to Kill a Church!

I read Ben Arment's blog several times a week, he's got so much insight into church planting and general leadership. I'm trying to meet up with him for lunch next week when I'm in Washington, DC.

But check out this blog entry from April:

Top Ten ways a core group can kill a church
1 Talk about how much you love your church because it's so small and personable.
2 If your church doesn't have a particular ministry, start attending it at another church, rather than starting one where you are.
3 Don't forgive anyone for hurting you or offending you.
4 Instead of telling the pastor about your frustrations, hold out in silence as long as you can, getting angrier and angrier until you can finally leave in one, unforseen blaze of flaming glory.
5 Go to church for what you get out of it.
6 Don't invite anyone.
7 Forget faith ~ that's the pastor's job. Sit back and wait to see what happens, rather than becoming personally invested.
8 Use "prayer" as a conversational piece rather than a spiritual discipline (as in: "I'll be praying for you," or "Let me pray about that.")
9 Do frequent "polling" in hallway conversations to see if other people have the same concerns about the church as you.
10 Meditate on how wonderful the church would be if it weren't for the pastor.

Now, I realize number 10 is especially tempting, but I know that we all face temptations like that from time to time. Starting a new church is a lot of work and it's easy to give into temptations like those or to ask "is it really worth it?" Yeah, it's worth it. I'll do whatever it takes to reach people for Jesus. One family at a time!