Dr. Ralph Winter, President of Frontier Missions asked this question in the March - April 2008 Issue of their international magazine, Mission Frontiers. This magazine is on the cutting edge of missions and thought provoking emerging trends in Christianity.
For the past 29 years we have had the privilege to work with Pastors of smaller churches here in the US and overseas as well. Some of those small church pastors grew to mega church pastors and we had the privilege of being an eye witness to the evolvement.
This article is especially poignant because it takes an honest look at the results of the church's work in the past 10-20 years. The great charismatic movement (1970-1980's) that birth so many exiting and vibrant ministries evolved from soulwinning and evangelism to entertainment and kingdom building.
The passion and the sacrifice the early founders made for the sake of souls and the gospel was replaced by the 2nd generation of professional ministers who's idea of success was a membership to an exclusive golf course and a BMW all purchased by the church.
I have some reasons why we are losing.
1. The church has lost it's passion for souls. The church has become a looky lou plethora of people who go from pillar to post, running around from ministry to ministry. Not solidly grounded in the word, not looking for the prophetic voice that is found in the pages of God's word, but for a prophet to give them their prophecy of the day. The church has lost the prophetic voice of God and has been running after the prophetic voice of man.
2. The call of the MISSIONARY in many cases is being replaced. Instead we send professionals to the mission field who teach at a seminary of some sort, who live in grandeur and the "green zones" of the mission fields sending their children to the best schools and living in the best homes with maids and servants. The sacrifice is that they no longer have 170 channels on the cable TV or the wonderful supermarket to shop at. Instead the example they pose to the indigenous people are affluent, arrogant, and unapproachable. (Watch two good movies: Inn of the Sixth Happiness the Gladys Alyward story and Keys to the Kingdom. Both are true and both show a genuine missionary call one protestant and one catholic and it also shows the hypocrisy of the organized church. I didn't know Gladys' story and I was so touched)
3. The indigenous church is becoming more literate. With literacy comes more questions. They are not interested in long discourses and sermonizing. However, if they have a need, physical or personal and God intervenes in a miraculous way that does catch their attention. How many of today's missionaries are able to say that "signs, wonders and miracles follow them."
4. The church has lost its love for one another. The church has become a business in America. And that spirit has traveled to the world. Rather than passion and sacrifice for our own fellow laborers such as missionaries who did serve overseas in the humblest of manners to the poorest of people, they come home and rather than being loved and honored for their sacrifices, they are treated like second class citizens (poor people ) because they naturally do not have the retirement income necessary to live even modestly they have to succumb to sharing a home or a room because their landlords are more interested in the bottom line than caring for one of God's unsung heroes. Too many pastors who served 25-35 years in their denomination and who cannot afford to retire are being "let go" without a retirement party, without another assignment to go to, without any retirement. And who cares? Younger pastors don't want those "old guys" around. But it is the old guys that blazed the trail for these younger pastors - they endured the hardships of planting, watering and reaping in the early days so that this generation of leaders could enjoy the harvest.
5. The church has allowed the leaven to invade our land. I Cor. 5:6, "Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?" The church has allowed the leaven in our society. Less than 5% of our population are gay or lesbians and that number may include sympathizers, and yet because of their influence we see orgies on TV, little boys in school now being taught to be more like little girls and children questioning their gender at tender ages because of the influence these small group has had on our society. Even the next generation of McDonald's leadership is allegedly promoting the gay agenda! Ray Kroc would roll over in his grave?
That leaven caused the church to go to sleep when they took prayer and the Bible out of primary education and we have produced several generations of agnostics and atheists and a new generational of heartless, godless people.
When asked if they needed additional Chaplains to bury our great generation of old soldiers, I was told that not really, because families are not giving them funerals. They just ask the mortuary to take the body away, cremate it and dispose of it without a funeral, because "the younger generation" doesn't want to be reminded or made to feel sad or they are too busy. How sick is that? No God, No Christ, No Church.
6. The Church is living in a dream world and very naive. I'm ok. So I trust by faith you're okay too.
In Kenya and Africa, if a small group of radial Islamic Muslims decide its time to kill all the Christians in a village, what do you think the average Christian family will do? Sit around and be slaughter. They will fight back. I remember the Watts riots in 1965. Good Christian families had shotguns in their living rooms. If the church doesn't wake up and realize that this religion is not of God but of Satan, we will have a slaughter than is so huge it will be unbelievable. It's happened over and over in Africa. The non-Christians kill.
Real Christians don't kill Christians. We are naive to think that there is a moderate muslim. Moderate muslim can only be moderate until the "jihad" is called then they have to join or else they will be part of the slaughter. (Watch how muslims are killing muslims in Iraq. If they can do it to their own brothers, how much more to people they consider dogs and people of the Book.)
There is a master plan for the radical muslims - 1) breed as many muslims as possible.
2) Marry white girls and convert them to Islam 3) rise in the ranks of business, military, politics and medicine to positions of power including law enforcement. Do not let a heathen (anyone other than a muslim) rule you 4) get rid of people of the book: Israelis and Christians.
There is a final reason why the church is losing?
Because God who is in control of this world is allowing this to happen. He has a reason why. It's just up to us now to be sure that we are not the cause of this loss. And if we are, perhaps this is the time to take an introspective look at our own lives to see how we can rekindle that passion and ignite the fires that once caused us to do the impossible - to dream the unthinkable and to accomplish the miraculous!
George Barna's forte is watching church growth. He has had the opportunity to meet our best pastors etc. And I think maybe what he is seeing is making him sick. They need to take a look at the small church pastors. They have stayed true to the task.
So we promote these guys and build them up and then they are discovered tapping in bathroom floors or secret meetings in hotel rooms. How sick is that? Rather than lifting up the name of Jesus - they were lifting up their names and look what happened.
The only person we can truly have confidence in not to embarass the church is Jesus!
If we allow Jesus to be Lord of our lives again and Lord over America we can starting winning again.
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