Hey so I realize that I havent done this in a while but today is a new day and the day in which I choose to start this bad boy back up. So here we ago:
Has the church as we know it become irrelivant? Has the institution that I love and plan to spend the rest of my life working in become completly irrelivant in todays society? Has the church been “doing” church so long that it has completly lost its way in being the church? In the last few weeks my eyes have really been opened to this subject and to be honest it really scares me. Has the church lost its way? Are we so worried as a body to not be seen as in the world that we have completly taken ourselves out of the world in which we currently live? Does the world see the church as RELIVANT.
Do you know that we loose 70-80% of the young people that grow up in our churches. These are not the kids that grow up never seeing the inside of the church doors. These are the kids that we’ve taught Sunday School to. These are the kids that you’ve seen at every youth function since they were old enough to attend. These are the kids that you have grown to love as members of your church body and the fact remains that 70-80% of them will turn their back on their faith and walk away, many never to return. Does that not scare you? Does that not scare you when it comes to the future of the church. So many times when young people speak about how they were raised the phrase always comes up in which they say they were “raised in church.” I think there in lies a problem. Please read carefully to what I’m saying here. I think to many of our young people are being “raised in our churches” instead of being raised in a relationship with Jesus Christ. Do you see the diffrence there. I think many times we take our kids to church and we leave the emphasis there. We get them in the doors give them to a youth pastor or worker and thats it. And when those kids leave our churches after years of being brought by their parents or maybe even coming on their own for the interaction of young people their own age they leave with nothing more than “being raised in church.” There is nothing wrong with wanting young people in church. There is nothing wrong with getting your children in the door but there is something very wrong if they leave that church not understanding that their God wants a relationship with them. He’s not just some guy in a book. He’s not just another prophet. He’s a loving God who created each of them in His own image and so that they could have a personal relationship with Him. To many times the God our young people hear about is not big enough for their experiences. They meet someone who is very cool, very well read and knows more about their faith than they do and says that the God they’ve been told about their entire life doesnt exsist. And they leave, many never to return. What is the church doing to stop this? Why is it that to so many churches the word change might as well be four lettered?
As a church body we have got to change. There is a world out there that is lost and dieing and for the most part the church stays still and without change. WHY? Your church building is not sacred!! Your churches stance in church politics is not sacred!! If a church meets week in and week out due to habit and because we feel like we need to “raise our young people in church” we have missed the boat. What makes the church sacred is our mission and our message. If we’re losing an entire generation our mission is not being accomplished and our message is not being heard. What are we going to do?
