The Subtle Effect of Traditions

In a wonderful book entitled The Trellis and the Vine, authors Colin Marshall and Tony Payne explain the subtle danger of our "church" traditions. They write:

"We are all captive to our traditions and influenced by them more than we realize. And the effect of tradition and long practice is not always that some terrible error becomes entrenched; more often it is that our focus shifts away from our main task and agenda, which is disciple making. We become so used to doing things one way (often for good reason at first) that important elements are neglected and forgotten, to our cost. We become imbalanced, and then wonder why we go in circles (p. 15)."