In every battle, there are ebb and flow moments where the antagonist appears to rout the progress of the heroine or hero. Times when the chips are down, and the circumstances appear dire. There are moments when the bloodied, battered, and beaten feel the cumulative effect of the sleepless nights and the lack of nourishment. Days and weeks, and sometimes years, where it seems like all hope is lost and the only thing they can do is hold their entrenched position until reinforcements arrive or, if worth losing for, a supernatural event happens that shifts the balance of power against the onslaught of the enemy.
Every Christ-follower, elder, deacon, and pastor metaphorically comprehends this reality. Pulpits and prayer rooms are their trenches. The word is their weapon and protection; they wrap themselves in the truth God has revealed through His word to protect themselves from the lies that often explode like shrapnel around them. They are ready with the gospel and use faith in God as a shield against the flaming arrows of the darkness. Convinced that the salvation of God is wrought in their heart, they willingly sacrifice their bodies (physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional) in service to their Risen King. The sad reality is that this great battle isn’t primarily happening beyond the four walls of the church. It is happening within.
Church leaders worldwide face more spiritual enemies in the safety and security of their foxholes than on the battlefield. The spiritual deception that corrupts the human heart that is present within the church is the equivalent of Wormwood’s patient but on a larger scale:
“You must bring him to a condition in which he can practice self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.”
The sinful nature of the human mind is complex, and each of us has a miniature lawyer who takes up residence in our heads to convince us that our hearts that our actions are reasonable and justified, regardless of how heinous. This is what makes pastoring a building of church people difficult; some are genuine Christ-followers struggling to understand the truth beyond what they’ve always been shown, and others are inoculated with the sights and smells of their tradition, and they only stir at the movement of a sacred religious artifact, then there are the wolves planted among the sheep whose depraved deception has led them to attack anything that could lead to the glorification of Christ in their stronghold.
Therefore, seminary students finish their studies, shine their shoes, put on their Sunday best, and enter into the arms of the beloved that calls them to proclaim the Word of the Living God. Only to discover that while the beloved desire to hear the Word of the Living God, they don’t seem interested in obeying that same word in daily or weekly deeds. In fact, as the shine turns dull and their Sunday best becomes tattered, these once-zealous reformers begin to feel like hopeless vagrants.
Not only do they struggle to see people faithfully obedient to the word, but they have a hard time preventing the arms of their once beloved from squeezing the life out of them. Breathless and exhausted, they faithfully preach God’s word week in and week out. Still, leadership meetings are frustrating, disciple-making initiatives are more knowledge-centered than life-on-life experiential, community engagement is laughable, and everywhere they look, there’s another fire to extinguish, and progress is delayed further.
It isn’t long until they're praying to God for answers on why it is such turmoil to lead those who proclaim to follow Him.
We’re Here to Help
To be honest, there are several reasons why it is difficult to lead His people. Many writings address that particular subject and various means to make meaningful progress in leading a congregation of believers through a sort of transition or change. But very few address the spiritual warfare that is taking place in the minds of every believer in an attempt to sabotage the unity and cohesion necessary to step into the future story that God has for a given congregation.
We desire to help you gain considerable insight into the variety of ways in which spiritual warfare happens in the minds of your organization (church, non-profit, Christian business), which impacts their and the organization’s ability to experience a breakthrough in the form of the Cognitive Unconscious Bias.
Unconscious biases are both naturally & supernaturally leveraged to affect people’s actions or reactions toward a God-sized movement beyond the scope of their current understanding. Since we war not against flesh and blood, it can be concluded that the unconscious biases that influence the behavior and attitude of those within a specific congregation are a result of our residual fallen nature, our human resistance to the grace of God, and a valuable tool against progress in the context of our congregation and communities.
In an effort to help unlock how unconscious bias functions within our organizations and thrives as a potential tool in spiritual warfare, we will progressively update this page with guides on the top fifteen unconscious biases that short-circuit meaningful progress and the tools to help others and maybe yourself work through them.
80% Off Is An Incredible Deal!
When we stroll away from faith in God and rely solely on pre-existing information when making a decision, we often narrow our thinking and keep ourselves and others from breakthrough.
How The Mind Works…and Sometimes Doesn’t
While a good deal can be said about conscious bias, it is not the intention of The Reinolds Group to focus on the seen; instead, on the unseen–the unconscious bias. Many times unconscious biases are both naturally & supernaturally leveraged to affect people’s actions or reactions toward a God-sized movement beyond the scope of their current understanding. Since we war not against flesh and blood, it can be concluded that the unconscious biases that influence the behavior and attitude of those within a specific organization are a result of our residual fallen nature, our human resistance to the grace of God, and a helpful tool against progress in the context of our congregation and communities.