Maintenance-Mindset

Many of our smaller churches have a maintenance-mindset that has greatly limited their impact on their communities.  These churches have an inward focus rather than an outward one, they seek chaplains rather than pastors to lead them, they work very hard to preserve their resources instead of using those resources for ministry, and they see missions as something they support instead of do.  Most of these churches are either plateaued or declining with the majority of them in decline.  They can often survive for decades in this state, but for all practical purposes they have forfeited their right to call themselves a church.  They long ago forgot their purpose for existence was is to impact their communities with the Gospel.