Toxic Churches

Our discipleship group at Christ Community just finished working through the book, Who Stole My Church, by Gordon MacDonald.  It is a great discussion book because it deals with many of the issues in church planting and revitalization in a novel format.  That makes it much easier to read.  I know we enjoyed the discussion this book promoted.

Today I share one long quote from MacDonald.  He is describing a "generative" group and its opposite, a toxic group.  I am sharing his observation on a toxic group.  Unfortunately, too many of these toxic groups are found within churches.  In fact, an entire church can become toxic if it does not deal well with those toxic elements when they first appear.  Without further explanation I ask you to consider, 

do you know any churches or 

groups within churches 

that are marked by these toxic tendencies?

"A toxic group is filled with people who don't know how to bend in the process of conflict and usually operate from a me-first spirit.  They measure every initiative on the basis of 'What's in it for me?'

Second their group is marked by low morale.  There is almost no sense of a bright future or vision.  And they are territorial- they hold on to things from the past.

Third, their general method of problem solving is to blame others.  Blame other group members; blame the larger organization; blame something going on in the world.  Almost all the energy goes into conversations about who's at fault.  For some that's easier than going to work to resolve the issue.

Toxic groups, fourthly, tend to drag down the larger organization around them.  Lots of energy is spent trying to resolve their problems and do damage control.  For that reason, toxic groups are a danger to younger people and to new Christians.  They send the wrong message about Christ and the gospel.

And there's one more mark you need to write down.  Toxic groups destroy people, one after the other.  People get cynical, burned out, slanderous, bitter ... and finally they determine that they'll never again be part of something like this.  More than a few of them simply drop out of their church or go somewhere else."