Reject toxic faith

One hundred years ago, heroin, cocaine and meth were not only street legal but prescribed by doctors for various ailments (for instance, heroin was marketed as a cough suppressant). Only later did we realise that these drug habits were doing far more harm than good. It took decades to outlaw these drugs, but the damage was done. Generations were addicted, and these drugs still plague us today. Toxic habits can be absolutely devastating.

Toxic habits were something Jesus himself railed against in Matthew 15:3 when he asked the religious leaders, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” Some of the very religious traditions held by the day's leaders kept people away from God, defeating the whole purpose. Even a well-intentioned tradition can turn toxic and do more harm than good if we're not careful. Traditions weren’t just a problem in Jesus’ day. We still struggle with them today. Traditions give people a sense of continuity, order, predictability and expectation, which can be delicious. Traditions are traditions because they are valued and cherished by many, making them difficult to abandon and replace, even if they are harmful traditions. And there are cherished habits and traditions within the church today that are doing more harm than good, obstructing our ultimate objective of making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). Here are the biggest culprits.

We see the church as a building and not the people.

If when you hear the word ‘church’, you immediately think of a location and a building, that’s a toxic tradition. The church has never been the building. It’s always been the people. Why is this tradition harmful? Too many churches think they can have a church if the building is paid off and enough money to pay the light bill. When you think of church as a location, it tempts you to act holy inside a building but do whatever you want outside it because you’re not ‘in church.’ If we understand that the church is the people, it forces us to put more value on people than on buildings. And that doesn’t always happen. Too often, buildings and architecture come before people. Early in ministry, I had a sweet group of little old ladies coming into the sanctuary on Thursday mornings after our big youth services the night before. They were looking for scuff marks on the pews that they could charge me for. For them, it was the church, the building, not the people.

Making church services something we endure rather than enjoy.

For some reason, we’ve gotten it into our heads that church isn’t done right unless you’re bored and that if you enjoy church too much, you’re probably sinning because the church is supposed to be endured rather than enjoyed. That is, God forbid, guests have such an enjoyable experience that they actually want to come back and find out more about God the following week, that somehow doesn’t honour God. Boring people and making church an endurance contest doesn’t glorify God. Seeing a place filled with lost sheep looking for their way home brings glory to God. And lost sheep won’t return if we make something they must endure rather than enjoy. It’s okay to laugh in church. It’s okay to have fun. Jesus isn’t still in the grave, so why do church services have to resemble funerals? Jesus is alive; let’s throw a party!

Focusing on our outward appearances rather than the inward state of our hearts.

Yeah, let’s go there. This one’s tough because I completely understand where both sides come from. I was talking with a lady the other day who said she’d like to come to our church but wishes we would all dress up more because that’s how she was raised, and it’s disrespectful not to dress up. That’s the tradition: when you dress up, you show respect to God. There’s nothing wrong with that. But what’s happened over time, and why many churches intentionally dress casually, is that dressing up became a way to put on your religious uniform for a few hours a week. When you go to work, you wear a uniform and are on the clock. But then you can be yourself off the clock. For too long, people have seen Christians who dress up and act Christian when they’re on the clock inside the church building but then be mean and spiteful and hypocritical the rest of the week. So, to outsiders, dressing up doesn’t bring up the idea of respect so much as it does the idea of hypocrisy, which is why dressing up for church doesn’t mean what it used to mean. And by the way, God ultimately looks at the heart, not how we dress. You can be respectful without dressing up, and you can be prideful and arrogant in your best three-piece suit and vice versa.

Praying ceremonial rather than Kingdom prayers.

By how we pray, I simply mean that we’ve turned prayers into something purely ceremonial at home and church. We say a quick formal prayer before meals, before bed with our kids, once or twice during the service, and that’s it. We’ve lost the passion for intercessory prayers, of Kingdom prayers. When was the last time we diligently prayed that our neighbours come to Jesus? When was the last time we prayed together on the Lord? How often do we weep because of the brokenness of our families, our communities, and our nation? Are our prayers more scripted than heartfelt, more ceremonial than genuine? Try giving an emotionless, scripted declaration of love to your spouse and see how that turns out. Our prayers are too formal, and we’re too guilty of that in our churches. This tradition becomes toxic because, without prayer, we don’t have the power of God to see our community change.

Reducing discipleship down to more head knowledge.

For years discipleship (growing in your faith) has been one thing only: more Bible knowledge. If you want to become a stronger Christian, learn more Bible, go to another Bible study. Now please hear me: studying the Bible is excellent. I’ve done it for years and plan on doing it for the rest of my life, but who were the people in the New Testament that knew the Old Testament Law the most? The Pharisees, the very people Jesus rebelled against. That’s why Paul warned the Corinthians that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1). If we reduce discipleship down to simply more Bible knowledge without obedience, community, evangelism, serving, giving and ultimately a thriving, growing, vibrant relationship with God, all we’re doing is training up and unleashing modern-day Pharisees on the world. We’ve seen where that’s gotten us.

Preaching merely to teach the Bible.

Yep, let’s go there too. Preach the Bible, preach the Bible, preach the Bible! That’s all well and good. The Bible should be central in our preaching, and I hold a conservative stance on biblical inerrancy as the next evangelical, but the Bible is the means, not the end. If you preach only to teach the Bible, you sell your congregation short. How often did Jesus sit his disciples down and walk verse-by-verse through the Deuteronomy? His goal was to introduce people to his Heavenly Father. That’s the end: God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. The Bible is great, but it is not a part of the Trinity. The Bible is the word of God, but the Bible did not die on the cross for our sins nor rise from the dead three days later. Preaching aims to introduce people to Jesus through the Bible, not just teach the Bible. The Bible is the means, but not the end.

Making belief in the Bible a pre-requisite for salvation.

This one is a tradition that simmers just beneath the surface. I’ve written that we can elevate the Bible to a place where it was never meant to be. Today, Churches are beginning to talk about the Bible as if believing in all the Bible is a pre-requisite for salvation. The Bible doesn’t save us. Jesus saves us. The Bible points us to Jesus, but the Bible is not Jesus. The entrance exam to heaven isn’t based on whether you believe Noah’s Ark really happened. The requirement was, is and always will be belief in Jesus Christ. Another slice of this point is that too many churches preach the Bible assuming everyone knows the stories. We make passing references to stories like David, Goliath, Daniel, and the Lion’s Den, assuming everyone already knows those stories. All this reinforces to visitors and guests who don’t know the Bible that they don’t belong.

Viewing missions as a location and not a lifestyle.

I love missions. I was a missionary for two years. I’ve done missions about every bad way you can do it. I did tourist missions, where I went to an exotic place, took pictures with some malnourished kids to feel better about myself, and then came back home loaded with souvenirs. That’s not the mission. But here’s the specific tradition about missions that we’ve turned into something toxic: we’ve turned missions into a location, not a lifestyle. We feel like we must go 1000 miles and spend $1000 to do missions. How is it that we’ll train for months, give up our vacation and spend our hard-earned money to tell strangers we’ve never met about Jesus, and yet we won’t go across the street to help our neighbour? We’ll go to Africa, but we won’t go to the inner city? Come on now! Missions are not a location; it’s a lifestyle. If we started doing missions right where we lived and began to see our schools, workplaces, and ball fields as mission fields, people would be getting saved left and right. Missions are not a location; it’s a lifestyle.

Choosing to reject culture rather than redeem it.

Some churches treat anything outside its four walls as so toxic that it could never be brought into the holy sanctuary. So if one church decides to play a secular song or leverage a popular movie or television show as a bridge to the gospel, it will always take friendly fire from behind because they ‘caved’ to culture. If we continually reject culture rather than try and redeem it, we’ll find ourselves having no bridges left to try and reach the outside community. Not all culture is bad. Not all culture is evil. When done correctly, leveraging and redeeming contemporary culture is a powerful way to reach a community. You can’t love someone and judge them at the same time. Churches have to choose whether to reject or redeem the culture around them. But be warned, leaving culture outright is toxic to the church.

Like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, many Christians are well-meaning and well-intentioned, but we’ve clung to traditions that have become toxic to our health and effectiveness as the church. So like Jesus, the chief rebel and instigator of our faith, may we hold our relationship with our Heavenly Father in such high regard that we allow no tradition, no matter how sacred, to get in between ourselves, our church, or our community and the God who loves us