June 18, 2026

Narcissism in the Church

When a storm and its strong winds bring large waves ashore, they often leave a lot of debris, requiring considerable cleanup. Unfortunately, the same is true of spiritual waves of revival; along with the good outpouring of rain they produce, debris also washes ashore.

Along with the tremendous good from the great outpouring of Holy Spirit in the 1960s and 70s, negative fallout also occurred. Babies make “messes,” and a lot of babies were born in that era. Another great revival has begun. My prayer is that we learn from the mistakes made in the last one, and that correction comes to eradicate the bad fruit.

Today’s and tomorrow’s posts deal with this. My goal is to light a candle, as they say, not curse the darkness–to pray for positive change, not complain or criticize.

Problems

In the 60s and 70s, tremendous growth occurred in the church, many new churches sprang up, and others grew quickly. Unfortunately, the spiritual growth of the new converts did not keep pace with the numerical growth. The discipleship process was weak.

Also, many leaders of existing churches did not want to adapt and change. They didn’t like the music the young people were bringing with them, the casual attire they wore, or the informal style of worship services they preferred. Quite honestly, many of the existing churches also didn’t want the messes baby Christians would create. Consequently, thousands of new believers, especially the young ones, couldn’t find suitable churches. Therefore, they started their own, although their theology and knowledge of the Bible were weak.

These weaknesses didn’t concern them because the prevailing belief was that Jesus was coming soon to rapture the church and, after a short stint of antichrist rule, deal with all the evil on earth. Therefore, church services focused primarily on loving God and one another, and most evangelism was intended simply to prepare people for heaven. Discipling nations (Matthew 28:18-20) was nowhere in the picture. Most teaching was to benefit the believer himself or herself, not equip them to become part of Christ’s ekklesia (Matthew 16:18-19), which exists to release His will and authority on earth.

As many of you know, when Jesus said He would build His “church,” He used the Greek word ekklesia. In the Greek language, an ekklesia is a governing or overseeing assembly, not a building, not an organization, and not a religious gathering. He was describing our function. The body of Christ was to be more than a family of worshipers; we were to be spiritual legislators - binding and loosing, forbidding and allowing, opening and closing spiritual doors, and discipling nations (Matthew 16:18-19; 28:18-20).

The internal focus of the revival without discipling new believers and prioritizing our assignment led to some very significant problems:

1) It eventually produced a spiritual narcissism, with believers focusing primarily on their own needs and wants. The word “narcissism” originated from Greek mythology. Narcissus was a mythical person who became so enamored with himself that he stared at his image in a pool until he died. The Greek gods turned him into the flower that bears his name: Narcissus.(1) 

When believers focus primarily on themselves - their own wants, needs, well-being - as opposed to what God wants and others need, the church stagnates. We don’t aspire to serve, give, and become the ministers Christ desires us to be, but to receive, be served, and blessed. It is easy to see how this mindset stifles personal growth and hinders the body of Christ’s effectiveness in releasing the kingdom of God in the Earth.

When we should be releasing the fragrance of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:15), we become like Narcissus, releasing only the fragrance of ourselves. Rather than laying our lives down for Christ daily (Luke 9:23), we live for ourselves.

2) The corporate focus of many churches mirrored this narcissistic mindset. Most congregations didn’t truly see themselves as part of the church of a city or region, called to work together to release God’s Kingdom life into their communities. Instead, the focus was on their own needs, well-being, vision, and growth. Individual self-love became a corporate self-love. Truth be known, most churches now have very little concern for other congregations in their city. They feel no grief over church-splits, financial struggles, or other shake-ups, as long as these things aren’t occurring in their congregation. In fact, they are actually excited that some of those “sheep” might end up in their congregation. How sad this must make Christ.

3) This spiritual narcissism inevitably produced independent and competitive mindsets in the body of Christ. Believers tend to think only of “our” or “my” church/congregation, not the entire body of Christ. And rather than working together, churches became competitive. Our goals aren’t primarily to extend Kingdom influence, but OUR influence, to grow OUR church. And we are happy to do it through transfer growth– relocating sheep; the new key to church growth is to have the best “sheep relocation plan.” This mindset has made the church incredibly weak and sick, feeding on itself.

If the body of Christ thought as we should, pastors of a city would be gathering and strategizing together, like an army, hearing from God as a team regarding how to win their city for Christ and release His Kingdom life there. This, however, is almost nonexistent.

4) This competitive mindset led to redefining success. The competition had to be justified, so the definition of success for many churches in America changed, and has become the size of the congregation and how quickly it grows. When referring to local churches, phrases such as “fastest growing” and “one of the largest” are proofs of our competitive hearts and our wrong definitions of success. The sad truth is that the vast majority of church growth in America over the past 50 years has been due to people relocating to a different congregation, not to people being won to Christ. And this transfer growth now defines success.

This is appalling and a very great deception. Because of their geography, some congregations will always be small in number. Others will remain small because of their assignment: some churches are called to intense prayer ministries, others to primarily caring for the poor or hurting, and other valid assignments. Are they less successful in God’s Kingdom or less important? If they are fulfilling their assignment well, even though they will probably never be the biggest or fastest-growing, are they not significant? Absolutely! The “well dones” in heaven will be based on faithfulness, not size or speed (Matthew 25:21).

I’ll share more consequences in tomorrow’s post. But let’s pray today regarding these weaknesses, asking Holy Spirit for correction to come in these areas, and for them to be avoided in the coming revival.

Pray with me:

Father, You are persistent in Your love and mercy. We mess things up, You help us repair them. In the last great national revivals in America, human tendencies to exalt “self” prevailed, and we turned our churches into self-help centers.

Forgive us for the self-promoting, the spiritual narcissism, and the competitive spirit that gained control in much of the church. We redefined success and actually justified working against one another. Forgive us, and deliver us.

In the coming revival, transform the church and give us selfless, committed believers willing to lay down their lives for Your cause. Give us New Testament churches and leaders. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Our decree:

We declare that God is raising up a new generation of believers who are Christ-centered and filled with Holy Spirit.

Click on the link below to watch the full video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYY6YkmaCSw

---

1. https://www.etymonline.com/word/narcissism