Last week’s blog ended with this statement, “May the church become our spiritual emergency room.” The church was designed to be place where people heard the Word, believed the Word, and acted on the Word.
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?
Romans 10:14
Instead, the church in many places has leaned toward the woke culture and has become anything to anyone. Dr. George Barna in recent research has discovered the following when it comes to pastors with a biblical worldview.
Pastors in the church demonstrating a biblical worldview
Executive Pastors 4%
Children/Youth Pastors 12%
Teaching Pastors 13%
Assistant Pastors 28%
Senior Pastors 41%
All Pastors 37%
What has happened over the last 2,000 years is that the enemy has attacked the original purpose of the Church and led it off task. The mission of the Church could not have been more direct and identifiable. The secularization of the Church over the last two millennia is, at its core, the battle between the secular and the sacred. Sadly, the Church has become lukewarm, losing its love for the bride.
A lukewarm church may still look like a church, function like a church, and, in most ways, achieve the original mission of the Church. However, it will only do so with a focus on the short term—10, 20, 30, or even 50 years in sight. The lukewarm church needs to see the Great Physician and return to its first love. Transformation will not come from an overemphasis on programming, but from a recentering on the Truth that built the Church.
Dr. Barna tells us that 80% of those who grow up in the Church leave it when they reach college. The question we must ask ourselves is: Why? Why do they no longer believe in the message the Church was commissioned to teach them? Could it be that programming has overtaken the message—TRUTH?
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6
The truth of the Church must be centered around one message: Jesus. In returning to its first love, the Church would embrace this message above all. Truth grew the Church in Acts 2, and it can once again grow the Church.
Truth comes from God’s Word alone, and it is the Church’s responsibility to equip families with this message!
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