Diseases of Church and its Remedies

The Church is like a living organism, it can be healthy or sick. If the disease is not treated on time, it can be fatal. It is up to us to take steps to cure it. Churches die if the disease weakens her life to function further. The body of Christ becomes diseased if the members of the Church continue to be sinners. The community, size of the building, national thinking on religion, denominations, legality, bad theological teachings, non biblical priorities, incorporating secular leadership ideas, poor programs can cause illness in the Church. The Church growth movement is working hard to diagnose and measure those diseases. There are seven diseases, one is terminal and the rest are non-terminal. 1. Ghost Town Diseases is found in Churches of rural areas especially in dying communities. Some rural population is decreasing because the young generations are migrating to the urban area. Though they are fewer in number yet they must experience internal growth in worship. They may not have opportunities for outreach mission yet they can still support mission work through prayers and finances. As it is a terminal disease so they have the opportunity for internal growth and eventually can die with dignity. 2. People’s Blindness disease occurs when Christians fails to see the distinctiveness of the various groups of people. It is a problem of failing to accept people as different. Different people are reached for Christ in diverse ways. Churches usually sensitize the young people then the single, widowed and divorced. They are mixed with the rest of the congregation and are blinded towards the weak and needy. Further, when the Church refuses to a part of a new culture, they suffer people’s blindness. The old believers do not want to change traditional ways of worship activities. The answer to people’s blindness is to open the eyes of Christians to see that there are people oriented groups in the society. This will enable the Church to reach each segment of the society. The result is that more people will be won for our Lord. 3. Hyper –Cooperation is a disease that comes from too much emphasis on the ecumenical endeavors. Perhaps the local Churches can work together to conduct an evangelistic canvas of a larger area although it should not go to the extent of doctrinal confrontation. To our present context, this disease is not much prevailing in Arunachal Pradesh. 4. Koinoitis is a disease when the people became fat and lazy during mission work because of full Church agenda. The congregations turn inwards and turn out to be self-centered which lead them to develop an ego-centric attitude. Having a fellowship is great, it should be the top priority but the problem is that they give little interest in evangelism. Since the believers become activity oriented, worship center develops like a social club. It is because of either ignorance or Apathetic. The ignorant group needs to learn the purpose of the church. Apathetic people do not know or don’t care that they must be raised to the level of discontent from inductive Bible study. Both the group must discuss biblical natures of the church and share their personal testimony with each other. It will make them break the unhealthy nature of fellowship while hanging on to the positive aspects of biblical koinonia. Whether they can form one to two services or plant a new church. 5. Sociological Strangulation is a disease that strikes the church by overcrowding, either in seating capacity in the building or in vehicle parking. It can be solved by constructing a new building, or enlarging the worship area, or by extending or starting a daughter church in another area. Alternative solution may be by conducting more service at different times, or in different days. 6. Arrested Spiritual Development is a disease of the Church where the members never mature spiritually. It strikes the Churches when the people are not involved in lifelong Bible study. It develops when people learn all the doctrines without the practical ministry; or because of a ‘pedestal pastor.’ Finally, it is to energize the priesthood of all believers. Mobilization of the laity (including pastor himself) into the word of God can cure it. Believers’ involvement in personal Bible study and regular family devotion will make the church healthy again. Moreover, it will help the people to become a part of Christ’s likeness which will ultimately make them mature in discipleship. 7. St. John Syndrome disease was found in the Ephesus Church (Rev. 2: 5). Within a short period of time they lost their first love to God and to fellow believers. Similarly today many churches suffer from this disease. The Church is run by the committee board which becomes a dull routine of nominal Christians. It would eventually cause a decline in membership. The answer for this disease is comprehensive evangelism. Once new people start joining the Church, their first –generation enthusiasm can rekindle the joy of a dynamic Church. The key to resisting all the above diseases is the centrality of Jesus Christ, who sits in the place of power and makes this promise to every Church: ‘I am making everything new’ (Rev. 21: 5). Here are a few suggestions: 1. We need to have Visionary Leaders. 2. Leaders who can plan for Church Growth. 3. Servants of God must be men/women of the Word of God. 4. Believers should be mobilized to the Love of the Word of God and its importance (Bible - centre). 5. Give more importance to Church Growth than committee or organizational growth. Yumri Taipodia is based in Shillong.