The Biggest Threat to the Church

If you lurk around Christian Twitter long enough (a habit I do NOT recommend), you notice that one of the perennial themes is whether or not _______________ is a threat to the Church in America. In fact, it appears pretty easy to build a platform, write books, and hold conferences on this theme. Simply pick a threat, beat the drums loud enough, and point to anything happening in the world as evidence that you are right. By appealing to the visceral fight or flight response in the human brain, you grab people’s attention, and by extension, their wallets.

The two latest threats to fill in the blank are CRT (Critical Race Theory) and CN (Christian Nationalism). CRT is a theory that looks at how racial biases affect structures and systems. CM is a conflation of America and Christianity. Both of these issues have their proponents and advocates, and both have their detractors who will claim it is THE biggest threat to the American Church currently, if not through all of history.

I am by no means an expert on CRT or CN. They may well pose threats. However, I can say definitively that neither of these are THE biggest threat to the Church in America. Rather, the biggest threat is and always has been the lack of obedience to our King’s final commission.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18-20 English Standard Version

For some time now, the American Church has stepped away from this duty entrusted to us by our King. Rather than being full of disciples of King Jesus who disciple others for King Jesus, we have outsourced this responsibility to paid clergy. These clergy are left with the task of discipling scores of individuals through sermons and classes rather than one-on-one personal disciple-making relationships.

Sermons and classes are good and necessary in the church. Jesus certainly taught the masses. However, He discipled only a few, and try as we might, we will never out-disciple Jesus. The great problem for the Church in America is that the world is discipling people at a faster rate than we are.

The great problem for the Church in America is that the world is discipling people at a faster rate than we are.

If the Church does its job of discipling men and women to be disciple-makers for King Jesus, then the gates of Hades will not be able to stand against us. No ideology from the mind of man or woman will prevail against her. However, if we continue on our current course of omitting the Great Commission, then we can expect things to go from bad to worse.