What sustains our faith when our strength is gone? John Piper shows from Psalm 71 how God sustains our faith to the end through his word.

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I pastor in Los Angeles, a sprawling city filled with ethnic enclaves isolated from one another economically, linguistically, culturally, politically, and religiously. In the latest US census, no single ethnic group accounted for more than 50 percent of LA’s population.

I meet monthly with a group of about twenty pastors from these diverse communities. We are uniform in our complementarity, high view of Scripture, Reformed soteriology, and gospel-centeredness, but we are completely different in some nonessentials. At my church, we typically preach in a jacket and tie. In another church, the pastors preach in T-shirts and shorts. One congregation sings hymns only, while another sings contemporary praise songs. Because our church communities face different civic problems, it’s not uncommon for our members to pursue different political remedies. Yet we don’t stumble or divide over our tertiary differences. We know our Lord loves all of our differing churches, and we are by grace through faith striving to worship him in spirit and truth.

God anchored a conviction deep into my soul with a quote from John Piper a long time ago: “Jesus didn’t die for a divided church.” This is true, so I hate tribalism. Tribalism is “my-group-centricity.” It believes and acts on the lie that in order for churches to be godly, they must be like my church (in worship style, political affiliations, missional priorities, and so on), and that’s regardless of their cultural context or the community God has called them to serve. The deceptive danger that drives tribalism is believing that God, who made diversity, doesn’t love diversity (Revelation 5:9–10; 7:9).

Tribalistic churches and Christians demand conformity to their broad range of preferences, believing they are inviolable God-ordained principles. So they strive to silence or coerce other Christians to assimilate, or they quietly despise these brothers and sisters. This inevitably leads to dark consequences. Instead of loving other Christians who have the same primary biblical convictions but differ over tertiary issues, tribalistic Christians feel justified in waging war against them.

As a preacher from times past used to say, “To be forewarned is to be forearmed.” Let’s consider three biblical prescriptions for this spiritual ailment that often remains undiagnosed but endangers the life of too many congregations.

Put Preferences in Their Place

In the beginning, what did God call good? God created the heavens and the earth, day and night, land and sea. That was good. God created humans as equals yet with complementary differences as male and female, and he called that very good. God created massive and microscopic sea animals. God created giant and dwarf planets. God created snowflakes that look alike, but each one is different. God fearfully and wonderfully made humans, yet all eight billion of us on this planet are different. God loves complementary diversity.

God also created his bride — the true church — such that no two churches are exactly the same.

In order to live in peace and harmony with all of our differences, every church member needs to heed Paul’s command to “count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). Having the humble mind of Christ leads to unity within complementary diversity. Pride, on the other hand, doesn’t. It can be dangerously subtle. It can appear when we simply think and say things like, “Why don’t they choose the hymns I like?” or “Why doesn’t my pastor preach like so-and-so?”

This scenario is so dangerous because pride can masquerade as harmless preference. Like the first sign of termites, our disagreements can start off small, but when not resolved, these problems can grow to infest and erode an entire house.

James exposes the true root of this problem. “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:1–2). When members attack their own body like cancer cells, churches grow weak, become ill, and die. They “bite and devour one another” (Galatians 5:15). Christians can do this to each other while the root cause — prideful, self-centered hearts — disguises itself as preferences. The spiritual sickness remains undiagnosed and hidden.

Pray that God keeps your eyes open to his beauty in the diversity of his body, the church, and be humble. Your brothers and sisters in Christ don’t have to embrace your preferences, so don’t devour them to get your way (1 Corinthians 8:13).

Beware of Divisive Influences

As a pastor, I sit for a living. Sitting all day is an occupational hazard. It is poison to the body. Prolonged sitting leads to back problems, weight gain, poor cardiovascular health, and more. These are unintended secondary effects of reading and writing.

Many Christians today live online. That too can produce tribalism as a secondary malady. Churches are filling up with members whose favorite YouTubers, social media influencers, or news outlets are constantly telling them how to think. It shouldn’t surprise us if we are divided like the New Testament church in Corinth. Remember their disunity problem? Members were splintering around their preferred leader, boasting, “I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Cephas,” “I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:12). While Christians have “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5), that hasn’t always stopped us from being convictional cultural partisans at the expense of dividing churches.

This is a real problem. Jesus’s two-thousand-year-old maxim about being divided is still true today: Divided kingdoms, cities, and houses don’t stand — they fall (Matthew 12:25). The same is true for divided local churches, including yours. Beware! Our enemy, Satan, wants to divide and conquer your church. Don’t let your flesh become his willing ally.

Live by the Word and the Spirit

Let’s consider this problem in light of Paul’s admonition in Romans 12:2. Paul charges believers, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

We live in a 24-7 information cycle. Often the information is inaccurate, biased propaganda. By passively ingesting information from the world (being conformed in Romans 12:2 is a passive verb), our minds will be molded by the world to embrace its worldly perspective.

The word of God is the antidote. By it, the Holy Spirit transforms our minds to be in alignment with God’s perfect will. So heed the psalmist: Delight in meditating on God’s word day and night (Psalm 1:2). The Spirit of God will take the word of God and transform our values, convictions, and minds into greater and greater Christlikeness, and as a result, we will think less and less like the world.

Here’s more good news. Not only does the Spirit of God use the word of God to renew our minds, but he also transforms our affections by revealing to us the wondrous glories of Christ (John 15:26). This ministry of the Spirit will cause our hearts to overflow with the love of Christ, which will in turn stir our affections to love Christ and his bride, the church. So instead of fighting to subtly (or not so subtly) demand your way, you will give way to others as a servant like Christ. Having God’s love inflaming our hearts does that. It changes the way we live and the focus of our passions from me to we, from self to selflessness (1 John 3:1–3, 16).

Grateful, Not Tribal

The aim of Christian discipleship isn’t to make everyone like us. The aim is to make everyone like Christ. As each member of the body of Christ grows in Christlikeness, so will the whole local church. That can happen only when all the parts of the body are grateful to be and do their part in unity with the other parts of the body (1 Corinthians 12:12–26; Ephesians 4:12–16).

In sports, when every player wants to be the star scoring guard or the quarterback, the team doesn’t win. To develop cohesive unity, coaches drill into their players the cliché, “There is no I in team!” That’s true for the church too. Together, we reflect the beauty and glory of Christ more than any one of us individually ever could.

Let’s pray that Christ would be the one who is exalted in our churches, that Christ would have his way with each of us, and that we would be humble servants, yielding to one another in love and according to Christ’s will. That’s a prescription for building healthy churches and avoiding the deadly dangers of tribalism.

John Piper opens up Paul’s immense warning to those who would help to build God’s church. How can church leaders leave behind work that lasts?

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ABSTRACT: Just as the serpent led Adam and Eve into idolatry by reinterpreting God’s good word, so prosperity and word-of-faith preachers are today proclaiming a false and idolatrous gospel. But unlike Adam, African preachers are refusing to stay mute. Recognizing the need for faithful interpretation of Scripture, they have drawn up a statement to help pastors stand against the idolatrous assumptions and teachings of the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology.

Christian leadership is war. When God calls a man to shepherd his flock, he calls him to war against wolves. Satan, the father of lies, and his minions hate the spiritual health of God’s people, wanting nothing more than to lead the people of God from truth to idolatry. The spiritual leaders of God’s flock are called to fight against Satan’s counterfeit gospels by proclaiming the word of God (Ephesians 6:17). When those leaders fall silent, when they fail to preach the sufficiency of Christ alone, they make space for Satan to lead the people of God into idolatry. As John Calvin rightly said, “Those in authority in the church turned over to idols the office of teaching for no other reason than that they themselves were mute.”¹ The muteness of faithful leaders gives voices to idols.

Since Genesis 3, the devil has been in the business of poisoning the minds of God’s people with lies. In God’s good garden, the enemy came preaching lies: If God truly loves you, he will give you the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden. Eve paid close attention while Adam idly stood by, mute. Thus he, his wife, and all his descendants died of the poison of Satan. The world is under the curse of sin because of a failure of leadership.²

One of Satan’s most deceptive counterfeits plaguing both American and African churches is the prosperity gospel, a false teaching that elevates the idols of health, wealth, and power. David Oyedepo, a strong proponent of the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology, says, “Healing is the covenant right of every child of God . . . sickness has no right to feast on your life.” He goes on to proclaim healing over his congregation: “In the name of Jesus, I decree an end to every toil with sickness and disease.” He assures them that faith in Jesus means the end of sickness.³

As I’ve written elsewhere, this “idolatrous perversion of the gospel” turns Jesus into “a means to God’s full blessings, primarily of health, wealth, and might” in the present life.⁴ Its widespread success indicates a failure on the part of so-called shepherds to engage in spiritual warfare by speaking the whole testimony of God’s word.

Today, many church leaders in Africa are boldly refusing to remain mute while the “new serpent,” the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology, reinterpret God’s goodness as mere material blessings. These bold leaders are now advancing the centrality of the true gospel by the recent publication of the Africa Statement on the Prosperity Gospel and Word of Faith Theology. The present essay introduces the statement, first explaining why it is necessary, then summarizing its main points, and concluding with a warning against the syncretism of prosperity teaching.

Hermeneutical Battlefield

Our hermeneutics determine whom we hallow, and whom we hallow reinforces our hermeneutics. As it was in the garden, the fight for the people of God is the battle for faithful interpretation of God’s word. Biblical interpretation can either create idols or cultivate love and worship for the one true God. If our interpretation skills create idols, those idols will engrave the faulty interpretation skills in our minds and shape how we read. As Calvin rightly said, “Man’s nature [particularly his mind] is a perpetual factory of idols.”⁵ As he thinks, so he worships; as he worships, so he thinks. Failure to read rightly and think appropriately about what God has revealed concerning himself and his work leads to the mental creation of idols. We never leave our Bibles without either accepting God as he reveals himself or creating our own god. Faulty hermeneutics leads to false gods; and when we have settled for false gods, the gods inevitably intensify faulty hermeneutics.

‘Another Jesus’

We see this clearly in the church of Corinth, where false teachers created a new Jesus by their hermeneutics. Paul warns the Corinthian believers against the deceptive teaching of the “super-apostles” who proclaimed “another Jesus,” “a different spirit,” and, therefore, “a different gospel” (2 Corinthians 11:4).⁶ Their teaching differed from the apostolic gospel. They were agents of Satan disguising themselves as apostles of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:13–15).

Underneath their proclamation of “another Jesus” was a hermeneutical problem. Paul calls the false apostles “peddlers of God’s word” (2 Corinthians 2:17).⁷ They used God’s word for personal gain, shaping their message to impress their listeners and make a profit for themselves. Refusing to receive the Bible on its own terms, they twisted it to generate messages that would sell. Thus they produced a different Jesus, a different spirit, and a different gospel.

Since they made themselves the measure of the text, they saw only a reflection of themselves. As Calvin warns, the “flesh is always uneasy until it has obtained some figment like itself in which it may fondly find solace as in an image of God.”⁸ For the super-apostles in Corinth, Scripture was not a window to God’s glory but a mirror reflecting their own greatness. This led to competition and comparisons among themselves. Instead of commending God, they commended themselves and thus were without understanding (2 Corinthians 10:12; cf. Psalm 49:20). With minds veiled from the glory of Christ, their hermeneutic led them to idolatry.

Prosperity preachers and followers of a word-of-faith theology do the same. By their hermeneutic, they hew for themselves, and their followers, a new god whom they claim gives them their best life now. Because they lack a biblical understanding of “already but not yet,” the “new serpent” forces the “not yet” of the new heaven and new earth into the “already” of the sin-accursed world and uses the cross as the justification for such a forced overlap of the ages.⁹ Like the so-called super-apostles, prosperity preachers today turn the good news of the gospel into a matter of idolatrous self-aggrandizement.

War for the Sheep

Every leader of God’s people since Adam stands before two choices: either passively give in to idolatry or actively protect God’s people so that they faithfully worship the one true covenant God of the Scriptures.

Paul grounds the call for faithful leadership in the church on the intrusion of false teachers who lead people astray with false teaching. Church leaders must be morally qualified (Titus 1:5–8) and theologically sound, holding to and protecting the flock with sound doctrine, while also protecting them from those who contradict the truth. “For there are many who are insubordinate. . . . They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:10, 16). Claiming to know God, they have turned many from the truth to lies (Titus 1:14). In such a context, leaders must rise to the task of spiritual warfare to protect and provide for the sheep (see Titus 2:1).

In similar fashion, Paul warns the Ephesian elders,

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:28–32)

Paul’s urgent call for the elders to protect and provide concerns both the elders’ lives and those of the flock. Made overseers by God the Holy Spirit, they are called to protect and care for God the Father’s church, which he obtained with the blood of Christ, his only Son. The burden of leadership is to protect and provide for the blood-bought people of God with blood earnestness as they wage war against wolves who speak lies to draw men into idolatry.

It is this same burden that drove several African Christian leaders to issue the Africa Statement on the Prosperity Gospel and Word of Faith Theology. Our desire is to wage war for the worship of the one true God, rather than remain mute as false teachers proclaim the new deity of the prosperity gospel.

Drawing Battle Lines: The Africa Statement

The Africa Statement is a tactical response in the war against the serpent that spans from Adam to Africa, the war against the idols created through wrong readings of God’s word. African leaders are reclaiming true theology for Africa (and the world), combatting idolatry with the sword of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). The leaders believe that they “are not waging war according to the flesh”; they employ the weapons with divine power to destroy the false teaching that produces idolatry — “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” — and seek to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3–5).

Without attempting to exhaustively address all the distortions of the prosperity theology, the African statement is structured as fourteen articles, each affirming what Scripture teaches and denying what is taught in the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology. This structure draws a clear boundary between falsehood and truth, exposing possible counterfeit views and plausible alternatives that might sound Christian but are not of the faith, thus helping pastors fulfill the dual tasks Paul describes in Titus 1:9: “He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”¹⁰

While the Africa Statement, with its Scripture proofs, is worth reading in full, the following presents a brief summary of all fourteen articles.

Article 1: Affirms that God is a good Father who gives good gifts but denies that God has guaranteed material blessings, health, and wealth in the present age.

Article 2: Affirms that Christ’s atonement is for the forgiveness of sins and denies that the cross guarantees health and wealth in the present age.

Article 3: Affirms sound hermeneutics (context, grammar, and so on) and denies subjective impressions and “hidden revelations” as legitimate methods of hearing God’s voice.

Article 4: Affirms the promises to Israel in the old covenant but denies that Christians stand in the same covenantal position or can claim those material promises directly.

Article 5: Affirms that sin and foolish living can bring serious consequences but denies that believers are necessarily bound by “generational curses.”

Article 6: Affirms that in the Old Testament God met people in places (such as the tabernacle and temple) but denies that today certain places or objects (“points of contact”) have special access to heaven or blessings.

Article 7: Affirms that suffering is a normal part of the Christian life but denies that suffering necessarily results from weak faith.

Article 8: Affirms generous giving but denies that tithes and offerings are the mechanism to unlock guaranteed material blessings.

Article 9: Affirms the blessing of wise, truthful, and edifying speech but denies that humans have the power to “speak things into existence.”

Article 10: Affirms that humans are made in God’s image but denies that Christians are “little gods.”

Article 11: Affirms that faith is God’s gift by which we trust Christ for salvation but denies that faith is a creative force or power that obligates God to work.

Article 12: Affirms clear biblical thinking but denies that conjuring mental images and making positive declarations can result in those things materializing in the life of a believer.

Article 13: Affirms that God has appointed leaders for the church and denies the “man-of-God” culture that demands unquestioned loyalty to a particular pastor.

Article 14: Affirms that God created us to glorify and enjoy him forever and denies that God can be used for other ends.

In many ways, the prosperity gospel and the word-of-faith theology pose an even greater danger to the church than worldviews that directly oppose Christianity, because they maintain a Christian appearance while distorting the gospel of Christ and its benefits.

A Warning: Syncretism and the Golden Calf

The false teaching that prompted leaders to craft the Africa Statement leads to idolatry. Prosperity and word-of-faith teachers promote idolatry and lead worshipers astray who consider themselves to be worshiping the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But their god is a god of their making. It is idolatry. It is demonic. It is destructive. Calvin rightly said,

Man’s mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and an empty appearance as God. To these evils a new wickedness joins itself, that man tries to express in his work the sort of God he has inwardly conceived. Therefore the mind begets an idol; the hand gives it birth. The example of the Israelites shows the origin of idolatry to be that men do not believe God is with them unless he shows himself physically present.¹¹

False teaching is idolatry because it introduces a different God, a different Christ, and a different way of worshiping him. Thus, what is at stake in the false teaching of the prosperity gospel and the word-of-faith teaching is that men and women are being led to worship idols while they think they are worshiping the God of the Bible.

In the wilderness, Israel once bowed before a golden calf in worship of Yahweh. After Aaron formed the image with the gold collected from the people, the people proclaimed, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (Exodus 32:4, 8). Aaron built an altar and proclaimed, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD” (Exodus 32:5), and the next day Israel rose and offered sacrifices to the golden calf; then they ate, drank, and played, falsely thinking they were worshiping Yahweh. Commenting on these verses, Allan Harman notes,

The people were purportedly worshipping the LORD, but in reality they were worshipping an idol. Instead of exclusive worship of their Saviour, Israel under Aaron’s leadership was engaging in religious syncretism. They sat down to eat and drink and “got up to indulge in revelry.” Their actions in this regard were more typical of Near Eastern idol worship than true worship of their God.¹²

Aaron erroneously led Israel to identify God with Baal and claim to worship Yahweh while bowing before Baal. And so do prosperity preachers today.

The god of these movements speaks through “men of God,” not through the Scriptures. Although prosperity and word-of-faith preachers carry the Bible, they worship a god of their own imagination, either the god of the “man of God” or the “man of God” himself. The tragedy of the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology is not just that it ignores the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but that it rebrands him. This movement calls the god who feeds their worldliness “Jesus” and defines greed as “faith.”

‘Keep Yourselves from Idols’

The hope of the leaders who crafted and signed the Africa Statement is that, with the sword of the Spirit, we might bleed and drain the lifeblood of the idols of false teaching and guard the truth for coming generations.

Our hope is that the statement will help teach and preserve the truth about God the Father, Christ and his sufficient sacrifice for sins, the Holy Spirit, and the sufficiency of God’s word for the coming generations. We want to preserve the gospel for the coming generations so that when our children ask, “What do these statements mean?” we might let them know, “Your fathers passed over from death to life. For the Lord satisfied his anger on Jesus, drying up the waters of his judgment until we passed over to life and safety in Christ, as the Lord once did at the Red Sea and the Jordan, which he dried up for Israel until they passed over. He himself is the gospel, not any earthly prosperity, and him alone should you serve as your greatest delight” (cf. Joshua 4:21–23).

Without clearly drawing the lines between truth and falsehood, we easily slip into the factory of idol manufacturing. We must depend on the Holy Spirit, develop good and faithful reading skills, seek to see in all of Scripture our crucified and risen Lord, and make him known to the glory of God. Let us read to find God, not to fashion gods.

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).

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We live in a chronically noncommittal society. No wonder, then, that this has been dubbed the age of anxiety. Surely, covenant relationships aren’t the only cure, but it might surprise us how much stability of soul comes from deep, reliable, unflighty fellowship.

Today, most of the mainstream societal influences in your life implicitly or explicitly cater to your personal sense of freedom. Change your mind, opt out, you do you. No need to cut ties if you don’t have them.

Many of the freedoms we enjoy in late modern life are truly precious gifts — some even generally conducive to true Christianity. But others subtly promote a false vision of self and all reality; they pretend (and we’re often happy to pretend along with them) that our autonomous selves are the end-all-be-all. I am the given; others should cater to me. My immediate desires are fixed; the world around me should adjust accordingly.

Covenant-Making God

Into this pit of quicksand enters the covenant-making God. That you are a creature, who did not make yourself, but was made (and is upheld) by the Creator, is bracing enough. Add to that, he’s not just God but a God who makes covenants.

God made a covenant with the first man in the garden before sin entered the world and dwelled in the human soul. God made a covenant with a moon-worshiper named Abraham and promised to make a nation out of him. God made a covenant with that nation of chosen people once he had delivered them safely from slavery. And this covenant was not simply with him vertically but included thick horizontal commitments to fellow humans for life together under God.

Today, we orient in and under Christ through the new covenant. From it follow horizontal commitments to each other, promises worked out, inevitably, among real people in our own locale, that is, in local churches.

The wisdom and power of local church “membership” (or whatever you call it) rests not on a single proof text or two. Rather, the nature of human relationships in the world God made, the arc of redemptive history toward a new-covenant people not of ethnic birth but delivered from sin and death by new birth, the good limits of creaturely finitude particularized in various places around the world — all these lead inexorably to “membership,” specific people committed to one another in a specific place. No matter what you call it, what’s vital is the concept of real belonging and mutual allegiance.

My Sheep?

In a recent essay, Massachusetts pastor Stephen Witmer defines “church membership” as

a clear and continuing mutual commitment between an individual Christian and a local church, in which the church endorses the member’s profession and shepherds the member’s soul, and the member submits to the church’s authority and shares in the church’s life.

The implicit commitment between churches and their duly appointed leaders in the New Testament provides a compelling line of evidence for “membership.”

Hebrews refers to Christians having their own local leaders, who keep watch over their souls (Hebrews 13:17). The benefits here are mutual and manifold. Humble Christians want leaders who know them in their local setting and watch over their souls. And good leaders, to do their work, need to know whom they will give account for — who’s in and who’s out.

The apostle Paul addresses the local leaders in Ephesus, saying, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28). To give the flock their careful attention and watch out for their souls, shepherds need to know who’s in the flock and who’s not.

In the same way, the apostle Peter tells leaders in Rome to “shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight . . . not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:2–3). Again, shepherds need to know which sheep are “in their charge” and belong to their flock, not another.

Moreover, the New Testament abounds with commands we cannot fulfill without some real sense of belonging to a particular local church and its pastors. Can you appropriately esteem your leaders (1 Thessalonians 5:12–13), honor them (1 Timothy 5:17), and have a healthy disposition that yields to their leading (Hebrews 13:17) without identifying yourself with them and submitting to the structure of belonging that allows them to know and care well for those in their charge?

For Your Good and Joy

Witmer’s definition above appeals to two leading benefits for every Christian: “the church endorses the member’s profession and shepherds the member’s soul.” It is naive, at best, to think these two benefits are anything less than dear beyond words. Amid the unruly waves of sin and sickness, disease and death, spiritual growth and puzzling backslides, the tangible, embodied endorsement of your profession of faith in Jesus by Bible-believing, trustworthy pastors, along with the whole congregation, can be an anchor for the soul. Commitment can be a means of precious assurance.

If you keep attending a church without covenanting, what do you lose? For one, you forfeit the deep and enduring joys of being the church to others and having others be the church to you. In church membership, we pledge to “be the church” to each other. This has always been vital, but it is becoming especially so in our mobile and transitory society.

Without a local-church covenant, you lose the assurance that someone will have your back when life gets tough, when you’re weary, hurting, doubting. In church membership, we do not covenant “till death do us part,” like marriage, but we do pledge to be there for each other in thick and thin.

It’s easy to be the church when life is easy — but much harder when life gets hard. And so we make promises to each other, covenant commitments, to be the church to each other not just when it’s convenient and comfortable, but when we face friction and challenges — for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish one local bride of Christ. And so we imitate Christ not in theory but in real local church practice.

Safety in the Ship

From the early days, Christians have often seen the church as a boat, afloat on the waves of the present age, an ark to save us from drowning in the swirling seas and storms that come at us. In this world, winds suddenly shift. Unexpected tempests arise with stunning fierceness. The boat rocks and creaks. We might not see the sun for days on end.

In such times, we have our unseen Lord above and our visible, tangible fellow sailors alongside. Christ has appointed our fellows as his hands for holding us fast, his mouth for telling us truth, his feet for springing to our aid as the ship tilts. In church membership, we covenant to be the church to each other on the best days and worst ones. Ironically, the kind of commitment an anxious generation scoffs at provides precisely the safety it so desperately longs for.

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As we were finishing a counseling session, Jill looked at me with concern, her eyebrows furrowed. “You got distracted,” she bluntly stated.

Unfortunately, Jill was right. Just outside my workspace, several pastors gathered in the church office lobby, talking and laughing. I’d gotten sidetracked by the commotion. About 70 percent of me was attending to Jill, but 30 percent of my headspace had shifted to the lobby: What are they doing? What’s so funny?

We live in a distractible culture. Between YouTube shorts and checking our email inboxes every hour, our minds wander quickly. Staying focused is a skill few truly master. But it’s essential if we’re going to care well for God’s people.

Whether formally or informally, counseling another soul is a distinct privilege. Yet, too often, mistakes plague our conversations. Fortunately, getting distracted is one of several common mistakes that are correctable. After Jill’s jarring comment, I closed the window blinds (simple fix), talked to the staff about keeping the commotion down (another simple fix), recommitted to staying focused (possible, though it would be work), and prayed the Lord would renew my love for his sheep.

What counseling mistakes are you prone to make? Take a quick check.

Mistake 1: Fear of Man

Charlotte shares about her struggles with her job. She dislikes her boss, and she’s weary of her work. Unfortunately, she often responds to her difficulties with sinful choices. This time, she lied to her boss to get out of an assignment.

You sympathize with her frustrations but feel convinced you’ve got to speak up about her lying. Charlotte’s a Christian, and Scripture makes clear that because God never lies, Christ’s followers shouldn’t either (Colossians 3:9–10; Titus 1:2).

Yet you hesitate. You know Charlotte will get angry, and your fears kick in. Why bother bringing it up? Lying is between her and God. Right now, she needs a friend. But you know if you don’t say something, Charlotte will eventually lie to her boss again. What should you do?

Repent of your fear that causes you to avoid a difficult word. Confess your worry about speaking up to the Lord (Psalm 34:4).

If you struggle with people-pleasing, then saying a difficult word will feel painful. Reframe your situation by putting the fear of God at the center of your thinking (Proverbs 29:25; Luke 12:4–5). If we fear God more than Charlotte, we won’t let Charlotte’s potential anger get in the way.

My friend Jonathan Leeman calls the helper in this situation a “sin-absorber.” A true friend willingly absorbs the cost of another person’s sin for the sake of honoring Christ. Would you be willing to absorb Charlotte’s anger if it helps her address her lie?

Mistake 2: Assumed Insight

Angela and John have been married for 31 years. Sometimes John gets frustrated with Angela because she assumes what he’s thinking. “I know I’m not supposed to assume,” Angela would think, “but we’ve been together for a long time.” The more familiar you are with someone, the more you’re likely to get in trouble. Familiarity breeds assumptions. Think about your last conflict. How many assumptions did you make? Probably a few.

Assumptions can create problems. Sometimes our assumptions are true, but often they’re not.

If you’re prone to making assumptions, here’s how to stay away from trouble: Don’t overestimate your ability to size up a situation. Pride makes you think, “I know what’s going on.” Humility tells you, “Ask God for wisdom.” The humble recognize they’re not as smart as they think and must depend on the Lord for insight (James 1:5).

After you’ve asked the Lord for help, test your assumptions. Don’t tolerate any of them. Check the validity of your assumptions by asking thoughtful, careful, and loving questions. Genuine curiosity will lead you to ask rather than assume. At the encouragement of a friend, Angela asked more questions during marital conflict, and that built more understanding between her and John. The apostle Paul tells us that abounding love is marked by “knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9).

Mistake 3: A Misplaced Harsh Tone

Tony and Patricia are talking through a difficult topic, and Tony starts getting agitated. You can hear his tone getting louder. His anger boils below the surface, and it’s showing itself in his frustrated tone.

When we communicate, how we say things matters, not just what we say. Did you know that Scripture speaks to our tone? “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). And “a gentle tongue is a tree of life” (Proverbs 15:4). God commends a soft and gentle word rather than a harsh or belittling tone. Patricia’s gentle tone and words helped to defuse Tony’s anger.

Granted, there are times for a serious, stern demeanor, as when you’re warning a believer who lives in sexual sin or a Christian husband who abandons his marriage. Soft words are not a good fit for such moments (Proverbs 25:11). But most of life doesn’t require a stern tone. Usually, a gentle and softer approach will be more effective in getting your message across.

Mistake 4: Hasty Speech

If we look at our typical daily conversations, it’s probably embarrassing to admit how often we speak up before we’ve truly listened. Sometimes, we half listen — like in a conflict when we’re thinking of a response even before the other person’s done speaking. Or, in our impatience, we just cut our friend off and jump in while he or she is in the middle of a sentence. Solomon says fools don’t listen or take any pleasure in understanding but only in expressing their opinion (Proverbs 18:2, 13). A fool will act impulsively and be hasty with his words (Proverbs 29:20).

What can we do? We can grow in discipline to shut our mouths and listen more, but fleshly restraint only lasts so long before we’re back to our old habits.

The Spirit can grow our patience to wait and not speak. Do you ever ask the Lord to grow your humility? Christlike humility increases your willingness to put others’ interests ahead of your own (Philippians 2:3–4). It reorients your heart away from what you think is so important to say, and it grows in you a deeper concern for others. It changes your outlook on conversations.

Mistake 5: Poor Personal Boundaries

My friend Carol was discipling a troubled young lady named Karen. Carol left for a marriage retreat with her husband, Ron, but Karen texted her throughout the retreat. After Karen’s seventh text, Ron advised Carol, “Ignore the texts, turn off the phone, and don’t look at it again until our retreat is done.” But after the tenth text, Carol still responded.

Often, weaker believers have a hard time respecting boundaries. And because Christians (and counselors especially) have merciful dispositions and bleeding hearts, we can establish poor boundaries. Technology makes things worse: We’re accessible anywhere in the world at any time.

If you’re a professional counselor, it’s likely difficult to contain your counseling to work hours. Troubled people will reach out after you’ve left the office. Even if you don’t counsel professionally, you may find others taking advantage of your graciousness. But it’s not just their fault, is it? Far too many of us are like Carol: We don’t maintain healthy boundaries. Our bleeding hearts win out over the discipline of ignoring our phones and focusing on our families. Do you check your phone or do ministry work when your kids or spouse need your attention?

Ask your spouse and a mentor for their input on a healthy boundary between your counseling and your family life. Carefully select a boundary (like “No ministry calls after 6:00pm unless it’s a true emergency”). Then tell a friend or two about your boundary and ask them to hold you accountable. If we try to do this on our own, we often fail. Pray that the Spirit might work in you. We need help to maintain healthy boundaries.

God’s Grace for Our Mistakes

As people fallen in sin, we will make mistakes, even in our efforts to help others. But by God’s grace and through the Spirit’s daily work, we’re conformed more and more into the image of Jesus, reflecting a more loving, hopeful, kind, patient, and thoughtful disposition to our friends and fellow church members (Romans 8:29). Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor (Isaiah 9:6). Our goal is to look more like him.

Wise counselors — both formal and informal — are a gift to God’s church. We want to be good stewards of this privilege of counseling souls. May our good Lord help us to make fewer mistakes, trust in Christ, and honor him in everything we do.