What Does a Disrespectful Church Look Like?

by: Alan Smith and Jeff Rowland

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To view podcast click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5by9zOVCFus

The episode opens with jokes about tape measures, conference sponsors, farm season, and the kind of tiredness that seems to come with age. Then Allan Smith and Jeff Rowland turn to a harder subject: what happens when God's people stop honoring Him?

Their answer is sharp. A disrespectful church is not only loud or careless. It describes a church culture where congregations give God their leftovers, lose their fear of Him, and grow blind to their own condition. That is why their discussion lands in Malachi.

Key Takeaways

• Reverence is foundational: Disrespect in the church often begins with a quiet erosion of the fear of God, transforming the local assembly from a sacred gathering into a casual event.

• The principle of 'first fruits': A healthy congregation prioritizes God by offering their best time, energy, and resources rather than giving Him the leftovers of their week.

• Blindness to spiritual condition: Much like the Israelites in the book of Malachi, churches often become complacent and fail to recognize when their worship has become hollow or offensive.

• Excellence is an offering: True excellence in ministry is not about performance or vanity, but about preparing a sincere offering to God that reflects a heart of devotion.

• The vital role of the local church: While believers are part of a universal body, the local assembly is the essential, practical venue where faith is lived out, unity is forged, and spiritual gifts are exercised.

Disrespect begins when reverence fades

The conversation starts lightly, but it does not stay there. After joking about being worn out, including a Bill Monroe story about age being the reason for tiredness, the hosts move toward a different kind of weariness. Their concern is not only physical fatigue. It is spiritual fatigue, the kind that makes a church casual about holy things.

That concern grew out of a broader point they had already been making. Disrespect in the church does not stay inside church walls. It shows up in how people treat one another, how they value life, and how lightly they treat the presence of God. When a culture loses respect for life itself, the church has to ask whether it has also lost its own sense of honor, the biblical principle of honor, and the importance of honoring authority in the lives of believers.

Fear of God is at the center of the issue

Jeff Rowland put the problem in plain words. People no longer fear God. They no longer fear the Word of God, and they no longer fear the man of God. Whether a reader agrees with every part of that phrasing or not, the point is clear. Reverence has thinned out.

That loss of reverence changes everything. It changes how people listen to preaching. It changes how they come into worship. It changes how correction is received, and it changes whether the house of God feels holy or common. When reverence fades, church becomes one more event on the calendar. This lack of awe often manifests as gossip and triangulation, creating toxic patterns that stifle spiritual growth and fracture the unity of the church family.

This is also why the old debate about religion can miss the point. Some customs do become empty. Some habits do harden into show. Still, a church that has no sense of honor at all does not become freer. It becomes careless.

The hosts were not defending dead formalism. They were warning against spiritual casualness. That is a different thing. A church can be modern and still revere God. It can be simple and still carry honor. Yet when fear of God is gone, disrespect will show up somewhere, sooner or later.

Malachi exposes the blindness of a disrespectful church

The book of Malachi drives the whole conversation. The setting matters. God's people had returned from captivity, yet their return had not fixed their hearts. They were back in Jerusalem, back around temple worship, and back around the language of covenant, but a congregation in crisis had emerged because something had gone wrong in their spirit.

Blemished offerings reveal a low view of God

The image from Malachi is plain. People were bringing blemished animals for sacrifice, such as blind or damaged animals, which were the ones they would not want to lose. They were keeping the best for themselves and offering God what was left. This was not only poor worship; it was a form of toxic behavior that served as a direct insult to the Creator.

The comparison in the discussion makes the point land. If a person would not take a blind calf or a blemished lamb to a governor as a gift, why would he bring it to God? A local ruler would take that gift as a sign of disrespect. Malachi says God saw it the same way.

That old example still hits because the heart behind it has not changed. People still keep the best for the market, for status, or for self, and then hand God the scraps. The form has changed, but the motive has not.

Spiritual blindness keeps people from seeing their own offense

One of the strongest points from the episode is that these people did not think they were doing anything wrong. In Malachi, they kept asking where they had robbed God and where they had offended Him. Their problem was not ignorance alone; it was a profound lack of humility that left them unable to perceive their own error.

"Sin will blind you to the very things you are guilty of."

That line captures the warning. A church can drift so far into habit that it no longer sees its own disrespect. It can sing, gather, and give while missing the insult hidden in the offering. Often, this slide into complacency is one of the clearest signs of bad leadership within the community.

The hosts also pointed to the 400 years of silence after Malachi. God had not disappeared, but He stopped speaking through prophets until John the Baptist. That silence presses a hard question on any church and any believer. If God feels distant, has He moved, or have we stopped bringing Him our best?

First fruits have given way to leftovers

The phrase that kept rising in the discussion was first fruits. In Scripture, first fruits are not leftovers. They are the first and best part, given to God in honor. This biblical principle of honor shapes the health of every church community. The hosts applied that idea beyond money. They applied it to time, energy, worship, attention, and church life as a whole.

A church shows its priorities by what it gives first

This is where their message becomes uncomfortable. Too often, the church gets what is left after everything else has had its turn. If nothing else is scheduled, people go to church. If the week has not drained them dry, they may come ready to worship. If they have any strength left, they may serve. This lack of intentionality creates a burden for church leadership. Pastoral leaders often find themselves fighting for the attention of a congregation that has already exhausted its focus elsewhere. When church leadership is forced to settle for the remaining time of the people, the collective spirit suffers.

That pattern is the opposite of first fruits. It says God can have the remainder. It says the house of God can wait until every other interest has been satisfied. A church built on that habit will eventually feel empty, because the people have trained themselves to arrive already spent.

The episode framed Sunday in a way many older Christians will recognize. The first day of the week matters because the resurrection matters. The hosts said every Sunday is Easter for the believer. That is why the first day is not random. It is a weekly reminder that worship begins with Christ, not after everything else is done.

This comparison makes the contrast easy to see:

The takeaway is simple. A church cannot expect depth if it keeps offering scraps.

Small acts of honor can open something up

One example from the episode stands out. At Grace Place, they began having children come and put something in the offering plate. The church even handed out dollar bills to those who did not have cash so everyone could participate. The amount was small. The act was not.

Their point was that giving is part of worship. When people come to church ready to give, praise, surrender, thanks, money, or attention, something shifts. The room changes because the heart posture changes.

The discussion named a few simple marks of first-fruits thinking:

• getting enough rest the night before so church does not receive the last bit of energy

• coming ready to worship, not only ready to ask for help

• bringing something to offer, even if it is small

None of that turns church into a performance. It restores order. God is not the afterthought of the week.

Why the local church still matters

One of the strongest parts of the conversation came when Jeff Rowland pushed back against a common church idea. Many people love the language of the body of Christ in the broad sense, but they are far less committed to a local congregation. He argued that this is one reason churches weaken.

The universal body of Christ does not replace the local assembly

The broader body of Christ is real. Christians belong to one Lord and one people. Yet that truth does not cancel the local church. The church still gathers in actual places, with actual people, on actual Sundays. Worship, correction, giving, preaching, prayer, and fellowship all happen in real assemblies.

That matters because the local church is the primary venue for unity in the church, where believers show up for one another. It is where a gift is used, where burdens are shared, and where faithfulness becomes visible. A person can talk about loving the church in general while remaining absent from any church in particular. That kind of commitment stays thin, often neglecting the vital practice of submission to authority that defines healthy discipleship.

Rowland made the point with a plain analogy. Having something precious and never accessing it is like having gold in the bank and never going to get it. In the same way, people miss what only gathered worship can give. He also argued that some blessings are only known when the people of God assemble and work together in handling conflict rather than retreating from the messy reality of community.

Attendance is not about earning salvation

The hosts were careful on this point. They were not arguing for works-based salvation. They were not talking about handing out pins for perfect attendance. Health issues, life circumstances, and real limitations exist. Still, they refused to treat church attendance as a small matter.

That is because assembly is part of the shape of Christian life. Scripture does not speak of believers as detached individuals. It speaks of a people who gather, give, and build up one another. When that pattern is ignored, the church suffers.

This also explains one of the more practical complaints in the episode regarding church leadership. When churches need work done, many times the job gets pushed onto tired volunteers on a Saturday because nobody has put the Lord's house high enough on the list to treat it well beforehand. The same pattern appears in music, service, and administration. The local church keeps getting the leftovers, often manifesting in forced terminations or an unhealthy resistance to change because the culture of the assembly has been neglected.

Some people do not say much when they are present, yet everyone notices when they are absent. That is not sentimentality. It is proof that presence carries weight.

Excellence is not performance, it is an offering

The final stretch of the discussion turned toward gifts, music, and the lazy way some Christians use the word performance. Both hosts were blunt about the impact of toxic members and difficult people who label high effort as non-spiritual. Leaders must prioritize setting boundaries with those who push back against excellence, maintaining an assertive posture to ensure the worship environment remains focused. While healthy leadership must avoid spiritual abuse or emotional manipulation, leaders still need to practice setting boundaries when individuals confuse a lack of preparation with piety. Protecting the standard of worship requires discerning between a sincere offering and a pattern of controlling leadership or a blatant disrespect for boundaries that undermines the church mission.

Giving your best is a heart issue, not a show

Their point was simple. If God has given a person ability, that ability should not be hidden under false humility. Sing as well as you can. Work as hard as you can. Serve with focus. Preach with preparation. Worship with your whole heart. Excellence is not the enemy of anointing.

That argument extended beyond church services. A believer should give his best at work. He should give his best to his wife, his children, and every task under his hand. The standard is not perfection. The standard is sincere effort. God gave His best in His Son, and that fact shapes how His people should respond.

Jeff Rowland recalled a time when their church had a strong group of musicians. One gifted player left to join a traveling group. He did not say outside ministry is wrong. His complaint was different. Too often, the world gets the polished gift and the local church gets the hole left behind.

That same burden sat under his Michael Jordan comparison. Nobody would celebrate an athlete for refusing to play hard. Yet in church life, some people act as if poor effort proves humility. It does not. It proves low expectations.

Eddie Wagner showed what a true offering sounds like

Then Allan Smith told the story that brought the whole message home. As a teenager, while running from the call of God, he attended church where a man named Eddie Wagner came every service in a wheelchair. Eddie had no legs. Each Sunday, he wanted to sing.

By normal standards, it was hard to listen to. Smith's mother would try to help him find the melody on the piano, but he would still sing off-key. Most people simply endured it and waited for it to end.

Then one Sunday, Eddie sang "I'd Rather Have Jesus."

The room changed.

A man with no legs stood before the church and sang that he would rather have Jesus than silver or gold. The song came out off-key, but it came from somewhere true. Smith said he broke down under the weight of it. Others did too, and the altar filled.

After the service, he told Eddie how much the song meant. Eddie replied with the line that explained everything.

"I've been singing it all week long."

That was the point of the whole episode. The power was not in polished delivery alone. The power was in a heart that had prepared an offering. Smith even said that if a singer like Pavarotti had practiced "How Great Thou Art" all week and brought his best to that same room, God could have used that too. The issue was never style. It was the offering.

They closed with humor again, including a joke about Allan Pavarotti Smith. Yet the real ending was more serious than funny. Bring God your best.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the signs that a church has become disrespectful?

A disrespectful church often shows signs of spiritual casualness where reverence for holy things has faded. This manifests when the congregation treats worship as a secondary priority, gossip or triangulation become common patterns, and there is a noticeable lack of awe regarding the presence of God.

Why does the article focus on the book of Malachi?

The book of Malachi serves as a powerful mirror for modern congregations because it depicts a people who were technically participating in religious activities but had grown blind to their own lukewarm hearts. It illustrates the danger of offering God "blemished sacrifices"—giving Him the scraps of our lives rather than our best.

Does expecting excellence in church promote performance culture?

No, the article distinguishes between performance and a sincere offering. Excellence is presented as a heart issue where a believer uses the abilities God gave them with preparation and intentionality, rather than assuming that poor effort is synonymous with spiritual humility.

How can a church shift back from 'leftovers' to 'first fruits'?

This change starts with personal intentionality, such as arriving at services rested and prepared rather than exhausted and distracted. It involves prioritizing the assembly of the church, recognizing that giving our best to God is an act of worship that honors Him above all other demands on our time.

Where the question lands

A disrespectful church does not start with open rebellion. It starts with the slow, quiet erosion of reverence. It begins when the fear of God fades, when first fruits become leftovers, and when the local assembly becomes an afterthought rather than a priority. This shift is often exacerbated by bad church leadership, where toxic behavior is ignored rather than addressed, causing a ripple effect throughout the entire church family.

Ultimately, the question of honor is a question of the heart. Healing from church hurt starts when we recognize that excellence is not about performance, but about our posture before God. Healthy church leadership cultivates a non-anxious presence, creating a space where people feel safe and valued. Whether in worship, service, or daily life, the call remains the same: stop offering God the scraps of your time and attention, and bring Him your very best. By choosing to honor God above all else, we can begin the work of restoration and build communities that truly reflect His character.