{"id":135,"date":"2016-12-20T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2016-12-20T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?p=135"},"modified":"2016-12-17T22:18:55","modified_gmt":"2016-12-17T22:18:55","slug":"6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html","title":{"rendered":"6 Types of Church Members That Will Destroy Your Church"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"unsplash.com\"
unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

4\u00a0<\/span>For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about\u00a0long ago have secretly slipped in among you.They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.\u00a0<\/span>8\u00a0<\/span>In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings.\u00a010\u00a0<\/span>Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct\u2014as irrational animals do\u2014will destroy them.\u00a0<\/span>12\u00a0<\/span>These people are blemishes at your love feasts,\u00a0eating with you without the slightest qualm\u2014shepherds who feed only themselves.\u00a0They are clouds without rain,\u00a0blown along by the wind;\u00a0autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted\u2014twice dead.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em>16\u00a0<\/span>These people are grumblers\u00a0and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires;\u00a0they boast\u00a0about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.<\/em>\u00a0Jude 1:4,8,10,12,16<\/span><\/p>\n

Tucked away in the oft-forgotten New Testament book of Jude, we discover six different types of church people to be wary of. These six types of people have the potential to destroy any good work a church is trying to accomplish, destroying the church from within if left unchecked. It’s these six types of church members that we need to be on the guard from, to ensure that God’s work is not encumbered in our churches. To honor Jude’s\u00a0warning, here is his list, with language updated for today’s modern church.<\/p>\n

6 Types of Church Members That Will Destroy Your Church<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

1. The Perv<\/strong>\u00a0(v. 4) – These church members are the creepy ones. They use and abuse God’s forgiveness as a license for immorality. Since God loves to forgive (their thinking goes), they have a blank check to indulge in every sinful behavior. Watch out for these members.<\/p>\n

2. The Rebel<\/strong>\u00a0(v. 8) – These church members reject the authorities placed over them. Pastors, elders, deacons, whomever, no one can tell them what to do or how to do it. These church members are the ones you dread taking the microphone at the business meetings because they have no respect for authority and it shows.<\/p>\n

3. The Meathead<\/strong>\u00a0(v.10) – These church members never let a little ignorance get in the way of a good argument. Without knowing all the facts or doing the work of seeing things from a different perspective, these church members loudly and defiantly decry anything new or anything that doesn’t fit into the very small frame through which they see the world.<\/p>\n

4. The Taker<\/strong>\u00a0(v. 12) – These church members think that the church is a cruise ship and you’re there as the pastor to meet their every wish. Don’t worry about bothering them about serving or contributing to the greater mission; that would be wasted breath. These church members are leeches, sucking the life and energy from a church without returning any of it. Keep a wooden stake handy for these vampires.<\/p>\n

5. The Grumbler<\/strong>\u00a0(v. 16) – These church members are usually miserable, and you know how the old saying goes: misery loves company. Nothing will ever go right for these members, and their one glimmer of satisfaction\u00a0is to spread their non-cheer wherever they can. These are the ones that can find the cloud within every silver lining.<\/p>\n

6. The Throne Hog<\/strong>\u00a0(v. 16) – I’ve known a few of these along the way, and they are a handful. At the end of the day, these church members allow pride to rule them. They’re proud about how blessed and godly they are. Secretly, they think God should be thankful that they’re on His team. They think leadership within the church is a right (not privilege) for them. Don’t stand to close to them, because you don’t want to be knocked over when God finally brings them low.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4\u00a0For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about\u00a0long ago have secretly slipped in among you.They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.\u00a08\u00a0In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15,78,77],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-next-steps","tag-church","tag-jude","tag-members"],"yoast_head":"\n6 Types of Church Members That Will Destroy Your Church - Next Steps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Watch out for these six types of church members who can destroy your church from within if left unchecked.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"6 Types of Church Members That Will Destroy Your Church - Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Watch out for these six types of church members who can destroy your church from within if left unchecked.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-12-20T06:00:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-12-17T22:18:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/newwineskins\/files\/2016\/12\/church1-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Josh Daffern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@joshdaffern\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"6 Types of Church Members That Will Destroy Your Church - Next Steps","description":"Watch out for these six types of church members who can destroy your church from within if left unchecked.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"6 Types of Church Members That Will Destroy Your Church - Next Steps","og_description":"Watch out for these six types of church members who can destroy your church from within if left unchecked.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html","og_site_name":"Next Steps","article_author":"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","article_published_time":"2016-12-20T06:00:25+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-12-17T22:18:55+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/newwineskins\/files\/2016\/12\/church1-300x225.jpg"}],"author":"Josh Daffern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@joshdaffern","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html","name":"6 Types of Church Members That Will Destroy Your Church - Next Steps","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/newwineskins\/files\/2016\/12\/church1-300x225.jpg","datePublished":"2016-12-20T06:00:25+00:00","dateModified":"2016-12-17T22:18:55+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c"},"description":"Watch out for these six types of church members who can destroy your church from within if left unchecked.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/newwineskins\/files\/2016\/12\/church1-300x225.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/newwineskins\/files\/2016\/12\/church1-300x225.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2016\/12\/6-types-church-members-will-destroy-church.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"6 Types of Church Members That Will Destroy Your Church"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/","name":"Next Steps","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Josh Daffern","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c","name":"Josh Daffern","description":"Born and raised in California, Josh graduated college from California Baptist University and spent two years as a missionary in Africa before coming back to America and finding the love of his life (Robin). Josh graduated from New Orleans Seminary with a Masters of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry. Josh has been involved in full-time ministry for over twenty years. He enjoys hiking, beach volleyball, reading, playing anything competitive, and rough-housing with his kids. Josh, his gorgeous wife Robin, his outrageously handsome boys Zeke, Shepherd and Lincoln and his princess Elle, live in northern Virginia. Josh also blogs on Patheos as New Wineskins: an Apologist for the Modern Church and you can find links to all his content on joshdaffern.com. Enjoy the blog!","sameAs":["http:\/\/joshdaffern.com","facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","https:\/\/x.com\/joshdaffern"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/author\/jdaffern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}