Tacks on the Chair: Why Most Believers Get Stuck and Never Move Forward

In Dann Spader’s little redbrick country school, the favorite prank was placing tacks on the teacher’s chair or smearing Elmer’s glue on a seat. When someone sat on the glue, it would start to dry. When they tried to stand up, they were stuck. If they pulled too hard, they could tear their jeans. The glue held them fast.

That image captures a spiritual reality that Spader has observed over decades of ministry: many believers sit down in one chair and never get up. They get stuck. The enthusiasm of new belief fades. The energy of early service dissipates. And years later, they are still in the same place - faithful perhaps, but not growing, not reproducing, not moving toward the multiplication that Jesus intended.

The Parable That Explains Everything

Jesus told a story that explains exactly why this happens. In Mark 4:1-20, the Parable of the Soils, a farmer scatters seed on four types of ground. The first is a hard path where birds snatch the seed before it can take root. The second is rocky soil where the plant springs up quickly but withers under the sun because it has no depth. The third is thorny soil where weeds choke the growing plant. And the fourth is good soil that produces a harvest of thirty, sixty, or a hundred times what was sown.

The sobering math: three out of four soils fail. Seventy-five percent of the people who encounter the Word never reach fruitfulness. Jesus Himself observed, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matthew 9:37). The “workers” - Chair 3 and Chair 4 Christians - are the minority.

A farmer in a remote Javanese village understands this intuitively. Some ground is so hard from the dry season that seed just sits on top. Some soil is shallow - plants spring up fast but die when the heat comes. Some soil is full of weeds that choke out the good plants. The farmer knows that soil preparation matters as much as seed quality. We cannot just scatter Gospel seed on unprepared ground and expect a harvest.

The Three Thorny Stickers

For believers who have already received the Word, the most common sticking points are the three thorns Jesus identified in Mark 4:19. First, the worries of this life. Anxiety about money, health, family problems, persecution, or future uncertainty crowds out trust in God. When the mind is consumed with worry, there is no room for the Word to grow.

Second, the deceitfulness of wealth. Note the word “deceitful.” Wealth promises security but delivers anxiety. Even in contexts where most people are poor, the desire for more money can be a snare. The pursuit of financial stability - a better harvest, a better job, a better market price - can quietly crowd out the pursuit of God’s Kingdom.

Third, the desires for other things. Not bad things. Just “other things.” Family obligations, work demands, hobbies, community responsibilities, even church activities - good things that can crowd out the best thing. A believer can be busy with church programs every day of the week and still be unfruitful, because activity is not the same as multiplication.

The Deeper Framework: John 15

Beyond the sticking points within each chair, Jesus identified three barriers between the chairs. In John 15, walking through a vineyard on the way to Gethsemane, He described four levels of fruit-bearing that correspond to the four chairs: no fruit, fruit, more fruit, and much fruit.

The first barrier is sin - unconfessed sin that keeps the branch trailing in the dirt. But the Greek word translated “cuts off” actually means “lifts up.” The Father does not destroy fallen branches. He lifts them out of the dirt, cleans them, and places them back in the sunlight.

The second barrier is pruning - and here is the surprise. God prunes away good things, not bad things, to make room for better things. Spader visited the Biltmore Estate vineyard and learned that a young branch with ten to twelve buds must be pruned back to two or three to produce rich, luscious fruit. The gardener is never closer to the branch than when he is pruning it. What feels like loss is actually preparation for greater fruitfulness.

The third barrier is satisfaction - the subtlest trap of all. A believer who is bearing “more fruit” can become content with that productivity and stop pressing toward “much fruit.” A church-planter who is faithfully leading Bible studies and baptizing new believers may never realize that God’s goal is not just his own fruitfulness but multiplication through others.

The Number One Destroyer

If there is one warning Spader emphasizes above all others, it is this: bitterness is the number one destroyer of disciples. Hebrews 12:15 says, “See to it that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” When pruning comes - and it will come, because God prunes “every branch” - the temptation is to become bitter at God, at the people He used, or at the circumstances. Bitterness grows silently underground, and by the time it surfaces, it has already poisoned the soil for everyone around.

The way forward is not to avoid pruning. It is to trust the Gardener. He is never closer than when He is pruning. And He is always working toward the same goal: that you would bear much fruit, proving to be His disciple.