Trust is defined as the firm belief in the ability, reliability, or strength of someone or something. Trust inside our churches has been waning for several years. Perhaps this stems from the lack of trust from outside the church towards churches.
Yet, the failings inside the church have certainly contributed as well. Moral failure of church leaders, infighting amongst church members, and congregation against congregation have taken their toll on trust in and of the church.
Whether you want to believe it or not, there is broken trust in your church. It may be from something a pastor twenty years ago did or did not do. It may not have anything to do with the Pastor. There is quite possibly broken trust within your congregation.
How do we regain trust within the church? Regaining trust is not something that is granted overnight. Regaining trust is more difficult than originally gaining someone’s trust. Once you break the trust of any relationship, it may take years before that trust is completely restored. Regaining trust is a very slow process requiring an openness further than prior acknowledgment.
In the church, we must go out of our way, sacrificially give of ourselves to restore and rebuild trust. The keyword in that statement is “sacrificially”. If we are not willingly giving up more of ourselves for the relationship, we are relaying a message that is not building trust.
As leaders in the church, we must be trustworthy to our members and to the community around us to be lampstands for Christ. As church members, we owe it to our pastor, the leadership, and all other members present and future, and most importantly to Christ our Lord, to build the highest level of trust possible. As a church member, it is your responsibility, your obligation to Christ to build and rebuild the trust factors inside your church.
If the community believes there is a reason not to trust the pastor or church leaders, even if the reason is from false hearsay, your church’s trust factor in the community is trampled to nothing. God placed your church in that community to reach it for His Kingdom. The necessity for you and all members of your church is, to begin with, a repentant and forgiving heart.
Then it is imperative as a church to get out into the community with humility sharing the love of Jesus Christ in ways you’ve never dreamed of before now. (Contact me. We’ll discuss some possibilities specific for your church.)
Prayer is the beginning point and must remain a daily interface with God for our personal trust factor and that of the church as well. Trust is more than a physical battle. All our congregants live in the flesh. Therefore, we all are prone to the wiles of the adversary. Trust is a spiritual battle and regaining trust will require extra time on our knees before God and His throne.
Our ministry must become Trust oriented.
