Is your church "playing it too safe?"

I wanted to share this with you. It was from our church newsletter. Pastor Mike Burnidge has declared Northridge Community Church to be "unsafe". His commentary follows.

"Erwin McMannus has written much about this in his great book called The Barbarian's Way. He maintains the biggest problem with the church today it "it got too civilized". He talks about the wild chances the early church took. The result was that they often failed, often paid a high price and even experienced persecution. But despite all of that, and in a sense because of all that, in the end God honored their faith by "turning the world upside down", (Acts 17:6) and launching the biggest expansion of the gospel in human history. As I've contemplated this subject, I have identified six signs of a church that is "playing it too safe" and is in danger of becoming both domesticated and impotent.

1-A church that is playing too safe has a radical reluctance to new and different approaches that are out side of the box. Year after year they sing the same songs, do the same things and regard the word "different" as a euphemism for bad, shallow or selling out.

2-"Safe churches" offer a chilly reception to new people (especially those with messy lives). Hurting and messy people are treated as contaminants who are a threat to the status quo. They are often viewed as viruses to be avoided until they can get their lives to a certain subjective level of acceptability.

3-"Safe churches" see themselves as creative but punish failure and innovation. They may talk about "the freedom to fail" but when it actually happens, they are quick to play the blame game than to affirm the valiant, though perhaps unsuccessful effort of trying to find a new way to bring God's love to a resistant world.

4-A "Safe church" has a morbid fear of losing people to another church. A "too safe" church is more consumed with keeping unhappy, disgruntled people in the pews rather than pursuing the great commission.

5-Churches play it too safe when they plan for everything. While planning is a good thing, safe churches either plan God right out of the picture or make their plans and then tell God when He is to show up. While God isn't saying don't plan. He is saying don't plan for everything and especially remember that God's plan is the only one that really counts.

6-Finally, a church is too safe when it is critical of other people and other churches who don't play it safe as they do. Safe churches see themselves as the only light God has on the hill. They take pride in comparing the safe walls of their fortress to the open doors of the church next door.

As churches mature, the natural inclination is to play it safe and hold the turf that has already been won. When that occurs, we must become more honest with ourselves about our spiritual lethargy and more deliberate in our ministry and mission.

You see the thing that holds us back more than anything else isn't a low supply of finances, facilities or face time. It's an over supply of fear which keeps us in the boat when Jesus wants us to walk on the water! As our church nears it's 16th birthday, let's not fall into the trap of "safety first" but instead let's take a few risks. By the way, I'd encourage you to apply this "too safe" assessment to all areas of your life. You see, in case you haven't figured it out, the Bible refers to taking a risk for God as "faith".