People primarily leave a Church they once called home in three ways.

First, some leave by the front door. These people are not happy. Something happened or was said that upset them, and they marched out loudly with a slamming door.

Second, some people leave by the back door. One day, they stopped attending and quietly left, never returning. These people are not upset; they go because they know they no longer fit in with this group.

Finally, some people leave by the side door. They get busy with work, sports, family, or a long list of other possible reasons. Attendance becomes less frequent. This pattern may continue for months. Then, one day, they are gone completely. They are not mad about anything. They do not say, “We are never going back.” They simply drift away and don’t return.

In my years of ministry, a few have left by the front door. Sometimes, they have proven to be a “blessed subtraction” as they were a source of negative words and actions. Also, I have had several people leave by the back door. Often, a larger Church has better worship, a bigger youth group, or more for their family. Some have told me the opposite, that our Church was too big and they needed something smaller. 

The last group is the most significant way I have lost people by far. People drift away quietly, and no one knows what happened. Frequently, they quit reading their Bibles and move away from anything religious entirely. 

Losing people, especially through the side door, is one of the most difficult parts of being a pastor. I try to get friends to reach out to them. The leadership and I make phone calls, drop messages, and visit their home. But since there is nothing truly wrong, little can be done.      

Many Christians are bracing themselves for a spiritual battle with evil. They are prepared to handle the arguments against faith. They can be well-versed in the fundamental doctrines. They will not fall prey to some grand scheme of the devil.

Meanwhile, the real threat to their faith may be a full calendar, busyness, and an overloaded life.  

Evil doesn’t care which door you choose as long as you stay far away from the Church. 

I believe there are markers of spiritual maturity. Some are highlighted in the Bible, and others are practical indicators seen in people’s behavior. One sign that someone is maturing as a believer is their willingness to own their spiritual growth. Related to that is when they begin to take responsibility for helping others connect and grow.

That means they look out for the new person when attending Church. They go out of their way to make a guest feel welcome. They love to speak to new people and shine their light for Jesus. They make it a point to find the person who is an outsider to conversations and seek to bring them into the group. These people make it their responsibility to share their faith everywhere, but especially when people walk in the doors of the Church.

You could flip this over, too. One mark of immature believers is that they continually wait for people to come to them. They want others to serve them. They want others to come and start a conversation with them. They want everyone else to take responsibility for their connection and growth. 

Spiritually mature people are not looking for others to help them continually. They seek to help others.

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness – they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means – the only complete realist.”

— C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

While driving around a suburban shopping mall during the holiday season, a group of teenagers stepped off the curb in front of me. Then, they shot me a dirty look as I slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting them.

Then, I circled down near an East entrance, and a group of college-aged women walked out in front of me without pausing their conversation. Again, I was on high alert and stopped so they could cross the street.

Throughout that day, numerous people would move through traffic as if they had all the power in the world. I could not help but think about how they did not acknowledge how little power they actually possessed. If I were not watching their actions, I could have brought disaster to any one of them. They acted like they had power over their life and destinies when, in reality, I held all the cards.

It makes me ponder about how we treat God. We often act like our lives result from our planning and decisions. We think our brawn and brains are what determine our destiny. We step off the curb feeling like we control the situations surrounding us when, in fact, we have so little power.

Part of faith is acknowledging our weakness and that we only live with an illusion of power as God drives the car.

Everyone I talked to in the Church about their New Year’s resolutions seemed to mention some form of Bible reading. As a pastor, I must say that this initially excites me. I want people to read their Bible and learn what God’s word has to say.

But the longer I have thought about it, there is also a disappointing side note. No one mentioned wanting to “worship more consistently” or “love their neighbor more fully.”  No one told me about a resolution to “overflow with the fruit of the Spirit” or “become more financially generous.”  I have not heard of one person who wanted to “live at peace, offer forgiveness, or become a vessel of grace.” 

Everyone wants to read their Bible more. That is a wonderful place to start, but you are missing the point if that is where your faith ends. The goal is life transformation. You are a new creation that is becoming like Christ in all you do.

Maybe this year, you need to worry less about injecting more Bible into your soul and instead act on what you already know.

Shallow relationships abound. Fake friendships fill our social media. The people who genuinely know us are a sacred few.

For me, the definition of a deep relationship is twofold.

A real friend knows what makes you laugh and what makes you cry. They know what brings you joy and what brings you pain. They know what jokes to tell and when to give you a hug.

Until you have someone like that, you lack the meaningful connection you need.

Until you become someone like that to someone else, you are not the friend you claim to be.

I own an entire box of knives. I do not mean one or two; my box has over fifty.

My wife recently asked me, “Why in the world do you have so many knives?”

There are two reasons for my collection. First, I have inherited some, found some, and picked up a few cheap ones. Those get added to the box with little consideration.

The second reason for this vast array of knives is that each one serves a different purpose. I have butcher, fillet, hunting, and kitchen knives. They are different lengths, thicknesses, curves, and shapes. Varying jobs require unique tools.

The Church is God’s knife box.   

While watching NFL football recently, the quarterback dropped back to throw the ball. A receiver was open, and he released a long pass. Immediately after the ball left his hand, he was hit by a defensive player who laid him out on his back. 

The ball continued to fly 20, 30, 40, and 50 yards downfield. The receiver grabbed it out of the air in full stride and ran another 20 yards for the touchdown. The crowd went wild at this incredible throw and reception. 

At this point, the camera returned to the quarterback, who waited for a three-hundred-plus-pound defensive lineman to get off him. The play was over when he stood up to look downfield. The whole play was athletic poetry, and one of the main characters did not see the results; he only did his part.

Often, I think a great life for God is like that picture. We do our very best in his service. We preach, teach, lead, connect, serve, share, and speak the gospel into people’s lives. Then, life hits us, and we fail to see the impact of our actions. We spend our time trying to get back up while the ball moves forward unbeknownst to us. 

The value of a godly life is usually not seen immediately; it happens years, decades, and even centuries later. When you measure what you give your life to, don’t look for quick reactions; some plays take time to develop, and you might never see the goal scored from the ball you threw.

Even though I am a believer, I rarely look for something mystical to happen. I believe God can show up at any moment and do something supernatural, but it is an extraordinary experience and not commonplace.

With that said, a few weeks ago, I had a dream that might been slightly supernatural. Let me share, and you can decide for yourself.

In my dream, I was standing on the stage preaching like most Sundays here at the Church I lead. While I cannot remember the exact content of my words, I started talking about our need to change and rid ourselves of sin. As I moved on to the next point of my message, an unknown man stood up and was obviously upset. He gathered his things, and before he walked out, he shouted, “I can’t take it anymore. This guy doesn’t believe what he is preaching.” I stopped to address his disruption, and he said to everyone in the room. “This man doesn’t take sin seriously enough. When he preaches, he doesn’t yell when he talks about it. If he wanted people to stop, he would do everything, including shouting to get people to stop.”

At that moment, I woke up. And as rarely happens, I remembered it vividly. It has stuck with me for the last three weeks. Occasionally, I mutter to myself, “Do I take sin seriously? God, was that you speaking to me?”

I am not saying my dream was prophetic or the voice of God, but it is certainly something I have been unable to stop thinking about. It might have simply been my subconscious processing my weekly sermon, as often happens, but it is a question worth pondering, no matter its origin.

Do you take sin seriously? And are you doing everything within your power to rid yourself of it?

I spent a few hours helping to clean up around the Church after our Christmas programs. It was a fantastic couple of weeks. We had the children perform one Sunday, with volunteers helping our young people sing about Jesus. Their parents and grandparents came to listen to them and hear about the power of the Holy Spirit. 

When the morning program was over, another group of volunteers began working and setting everything up for our candlelight program. They decorated, prepared candles, blacked out the windows, and cleaned up to ensure everything was ready. Then, on Christmas Eve, we had our teens and adults lead worship with special music to delight those in attendance.

After everything was finished, numerous people, including some new believers, served the Lord through the season. We also had a large number of guests who heard the message of Jesus and the possibility of life change.

When the dust settles and Christmas is over, it is time for everything to be picked up, packed up, put away, and cleaned up. This week, one of those jobs includes me taking time to get wax off the chairs and floors from our candles that people held. I get an iron hot, then put a paper bag on top of the wax and hit it with a hot iron. It works pretty well, and the stains are barely noticeable. 

While cleaning up the wax, I rediscovered a significant black mark. It is the remnant of a group of middle school students doing a VBS project. It has been on our floor for about four years now. Every year, I wonder how I can remove it, too. So far, nothing has worked. 

This time, I sat and looked at it for a while. I have grown rather fond of that spot. It reminds me that the building exists as a workshop for the kingdom of God, not a museum for the saints. The goal of our Church is to use the building it owns for the glory of God as much as possible. It is to be used to teach adults, teens, kids, and even middle school students to be like Jesus. That stain is a mark of people doing ministry, which is terrific. 

A clean carpet looks nice, but the purpose of a Church should lead it to value stains over lack of use.