And other institutions don’t have what Christian ministries do have, like: the resurrection power of Christ, the indwelling Holy Spirit, the love of Jesus Christ in their hearts and the incredible privilege of prayer. 

The turn inward is deadly, imperceptible, natural, powerful and fortunately, reversible.

Does your ministry need to reverse the turn inward?

Sometimes a wrong turn can be tragic, sending a ship to the bottom of the sea, a motorist onto the wrong lane of the highway or a passenger jet onto the wrong runway.

For churches, it’s often the turn inward which sends the congregation on a one-way journey to obscurity. Here are five observations about this tragic mistake:

1. It’s deadly.

Churches almost always begin their existence with an outward focus. Of course, it helps that the new congregation has nowhere to go but up. There’s no building—or not much of one anyway—only a small group of people, little money and little talent.

Thirty years later, a large percentage of congregations are pretty much irrelevant. There’s a nice building, a healthy budget, a good staff, some gifted volunteers and no outreach.

In one of the more famous Christian articles ever penned, “The Parable of The Life Saving Station,” probable author Theodore Wedel likened the typical congregation to an ocean-side rescue unit—the citizen-run predecessor to a U.S. Coast Guard station. This devolves from a fearless group of stalwart heroes to a self-absorbed cadre of comfort-obsessed club members.

As a result, the now useless life-saving station must be replaced by a new, outwardly focused station, which, in time, also has to be supplanted by a subsequent group of fearless volunteers.

2. It’s imperceptible.

Church consultant Tony Morgan, writing in his insightful book, The Unstuck Church, makes some startling observations: First off, churches are typically in the maintenance mode (on the downside of the life cycle) for months or even years before they realize it (p. 117).

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