I was recently talking to a pastor who was telling me about the amazing things God was doing in his church. The church is 150 years old, and had gone into steep decline. Up until a few months ago, they were averaging only 8-10 adults on a Sunday, all of whom were over 65 years old.<\/p>\n
The pastor shared with me that recently, in response to many years of prayer, God had brought “revival” to the church, and they were now averaging about 150 people!<\/p>\n
I was amazed and impressed. The church went from 10 to 150 in a few months!\u00a0And while I believe in the power of prayer, I was amazed when the pastor said that, aside from praying a lot and building a brand new building (how did they fund that with only 10\u00a0people?), they hadn’t really done anything different with outreach or their worship service.<\/p>\n
But as I talked longer, it came out that the 140 people had come from a big church across town that split.<\/p>\n
My heart sank at the news. This pastor was thrilled at the “health” of his church, and the “revival” that God was bringing in response to years of prayer, but really, not a single new person in the community had come to faith in Jesus. Instead, a church across town experienced a messy split, and 140 people came over to the church in town with a new building. Is that really a “work of God”?<\/p>\n
As I sat there fuming, trying to decide if I should burst the pastor’s bubble by telling him what I thought, and that it was probably\u00a0just a matter of time before his church split also, God reminded me that in my first pastorate, I was actually praying for other churches in town to split or fold, and\u00a0for other pastors to have moral failures, so that my church could possibly receive some of the people in those other churches. It saddens me to even think about it!<\/p>\n
But this is what the American church has come to…feeding off each other as we try to survive a nose dive into oblivion and cultural irrelevance. If we want to not only survive but thrive, we need to change. I think I am beginning to see and envision what some of these changes will mean for me. The question now\u00a0is whether or not I have the faith and courage to follow through on them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was recently talking to a pastor who was telling me about the amazing things God was doing in his church. The church is 150 years old, and had gone into steep decline. Up until a few months ago, they were averaging only 8-10 adults on a Sunday, all of whom were over 65 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[19,32],"class_list":{"0":"post-332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"tag-discipleship","7":"tag-theology-church","8":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\n