Is the Church in America Dying
I belong to a group of pastors in my area who are serving declining churches. Together, we are a part of a church revitalization team designed to encourage and equip us as we seek to turn our dying churches around.
I don’t consider the church I serve to be in decline. Unlike the other churches represented in our group, Embrace Church is a newcomer, and the challenges we face are different. But the harsh reality is church membership in the United States has been in decline for decades. The receptivity of people to church attendance and membership is not what it used to be.
Many blame this decline on the increasing secularization of our society. And there is truth to this. The most popular preachers and teachers in America today are not found in our churches, not even in our mega-churches. They are found in the lyrics of the songs we listen to, the movies and television shows we watch, even the politicians we pledge our loyalty to. But the problem is that many Christians are being discipled by these secular prophets as well.
And the result is that Christianity in America is being shaped by forces that the New Testament refers to as “anti-christ.” That is, wisdom and ways that are contrary to the Spirit of Jesus and His Kingdom.
We are choosing to serve what one pastor refers to as “A nice middle-class, American Jesus.”* A Jesus who “is beginning to look a lot like us because, after all, that is whom we are most comfortable with.” The result of this is that when we gather together in our churches to worship, “we may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead we may be worshiping ourselves.”1
This, I believe, is the real reason for the decline of the church in America. But make no mistake; our God is a consuming fire. Just as the fire burns away the dross and impurities in the precious metals placed into it, so our God, to change the metaphor and use the words of Jesus, “gathers the withered branches and throws them into the fire to be burned.”
Consider these words of the writer of Hebrews as he addresses the decline of churches in his day -
At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken — that is, created things — so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”
Is the church in America dying? No. It is, however, being shaken. And the reason for this shaking? So that what cannot be shaken may remain. And what can be shaken is described as created things. That’s just another way of saying transient things, temporal versus eternal things.
And the result of this shaking is so that we may receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And for this, the Spirit-inspired author of Hebrews says, we should be thankful and worship our God with reverence and awe, for our God is indeed a consuming fire.
There is a great shaking going on in the American church. Could that shaking be because God wants us to be more than American Christians?
I believe it is.
We are called to be ambassadors of His kingdom, citizens of heaven, and faithful followers of the One who said, “pick up your cross and follow me.”
In Christ,
Dan
Check out my podcasts from Church on the Edge and my books on Kindle.
You can listen to my weekly messages at Embrace Church, High Point.
David Platt, Radical, p.12-13.