5 Things Pastors Should Stop Doing
Pastors are not just cheerleaders, they are game-changers. They are to stir and convict for change to take place. There are wonderful pastors and churches. But some have drifted and Christians have lost the compass of truth with more concerned about wine tasting than seeking God.
Pastors and Christian leaders must take responsibility for the spiritual health of the church and the nation without marketing strategies, demographic studies or giving campaigns.
Preaching is hard work, we need men filled with the Spirit of God and not the spirit of Dog.
The 5 things to overcome are:
1. Watering down the gospel to wooing.
The gospel truth is often watered down not to offend members but to build a large audience and crowd instead of making disciples. Pastors are more politically correct than biblically correct; they coddle and comfort than stir and convict.
2. Focusing on encouragement and entertainment.
They are wrong when it displaces the preaching of the Word. To motivate and entertain. Pastors must help people to grow by preaching the hard truth as well as the exciting ones. Preach the cross and the new life, hell and heaven, damnation and salvation, sin and grace, wrath and love, judgment and mercy, obedience and forgiveness, that God “is love” and just but He is vengeance and consuming fire.
No one is going to be bored when a pastor is on fire and have something to say.
3. Getting messages from psychology or latest fad (Intellectualizing).
Pastors should return to their prayer closet, where brokenness, humility and total surrender take place. God prepares the messenger before giving the message. Preaching theology and blowing constructive grammar around the bible without the move of the spirit encourages sin, unrighteousness and prayerlessness.
4. Trying to be like the world. Spiritual character of a pastor is demanded, if guided by the Holy Spirit or African Magic”. A pastor cannot fill his mind with worldliness and expects the Spirit of God to speak through him. “Dead men gives dead message and dead message kills”. The dry and dead lethargic condition of the church reflects lack of being filled with the Spirit. Abbreviating “20 minute” devotions and prayers is good, but not deep enough in these dire times. We need powerful times of prayer, devotion and worship. It takes broken men to break men. Unplug the TV, turn off social media and get back into the Word, prayer and worship.
5. Asking, “Will this topic offend?” and ask, “Will my silence offend God?”
The proclaimation of the Word from God is to bring down the glory and righteousness of God. Not just what people want to hear or a paraphrase, “I just want to share some things with you today…”
If you are not an aroma of death to lost souls, you can never be the aroma of life to the saves.
