Sleeping, Giant the Church, Arise and Shine and Take Your Rightful Place (eBook)

CHAPTER 2

What is happening to the church?

I just recently read an interesting article written by Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor. It mentioned that a study found that millennials are leaving the church in droves. The article was written in May of

2015. The highlight of the story was a survey conducted by Pew

Research Center, which showed Christian population dropping to 70%—it found that more than one-third of millennials said they were unaffiliated with any faith. The survey of 35,000 American adults showed the Christian percentage of the population dropping. The study also found that almost every major branch of Christianity in the United States had lost a significant number of members, mainly because millennials were leaving the fold. This demographic group saw a significant drop in people who call themselves Christians—more than one-third of millennials said they were unaffiliated with any faith—up 10 percentage points since 2007, according to the article. It also stated that according to the study done by Pew, “It’s not just millennials leaving the church. Whether married or single, rich or poor, young or old, living in the West or the Bible belt, almost every demographic group has seen a significant drop in people who call themselves Christians.” Greg Smith, Pew’s associate director of religion research, said, “We’ve known that the (number of) religiously unaffiliated has been growing for decades. But the pace at which they’ve continued to grow is really astounding.” When I read those statistics, it didn’t surprise me because you can see it every Sunday in most churches across the nation. And if you ask most leaders, they could probably give you more insight into the falling numbers of people attending church on a regular basis. I have young adult children. When I gave my twenty-six-year-old son those statistics, he wasn’t in the least bit surprised. He told me that a great deal of the younger generation views the church as judgmental and oftentimes hypocritical; sometimes they have a difficult time relating to the church. As Christians, we have to focus on the next generation and how to win them back. We have to make sure that we stay in tune with the will of God when it comes to reaching our young people. It is so crucial for leaders to have a close relationship with Jesus Christ in order to see the true gift within the people that God has entrusted them with.

I would like to share a true story about two siblings that were young and impressionable, and started off using their gifts in the church. They both were gifted with the ability to sing and write music, and they had been singing and dancing since they were two and three years of age. Even though the siblings were seven years apart in age, and were gifted in different areas of music, they both shared the same love of music. The sister could sing, write music, and create melodies.

The brother could sing, and with his worship, usher in the presence of God into a room. He had the potential to be a great worship leader one day. The two siblings decided to join the Praise and Worship Team at the church they attended. The Praise and Worship Team was full of young adults. The siblings were flourishing in the team, and enjoying going to every service singing to the glory of God. They had formed a bond with the team. The atmosphere in the sanctuary was saturated with the presence of God during every service.

One day the worship leader announced that he was leaving, and that was the start of a downward spiral. The pastor hired a temporary worship leader who was well-known and very talented. But Sunday after Sunday, the atmosphere during service changed, and some members of the Worship Team began to leave the ministry. The siblings, however, remained faithful even though they did not feel the same bond and joy they felt in the past. Serving became more of a task than joy, so eventually, the sister went away to school, and the brother remained faithful. Finally one Sunday, when the part-time worship leader was away at another event, the remaining sibling got his opportunity to lead a worship song. His worship during that service changed the atmosphere to what it once was before the sudden change. You could sense the anointing of the oil all over that young man, so much so that the members of the congregation came up to the young man after the service to let him know how much they enjoyed his worship. So you can imagine how confused and discouraged the young man became when service went back to the status quo that next Sunday. The young man hung in there for a month, until finally, his spirit was broken. After a month or so, he too quit out of frustration. One Sunday, he was sitting down with the congregation during the worship service, and next thing you know, he was no longer a part of the ministry that his gift was meant for. The saddest fact about this story is that instead of someone from the leadership reaching out to the young man, the leadership eventually tried to push him into the media ministry, which included recording the services, and taking pictures and posting them on social media.

This, in turn, pushed the siblings away from the ministry altogether. I am not sure if the leadership just did not recognize the gift in the siblings, or maybe the need to have the media position filled became a larger priority. The result is almost three years later the body of Christ has two young adults not using their gifts for the kingdom of God. It is important for leaders to stay close to the source to develop sensitivity towards them, to remain vigilant, and to assist in developing the gifts within the sheep. After all, souls are more important than positions.

1 Peter 4:10 “Just as each one of you has received a special gift (a spiritual talent, an ability graciously given by God), employ it in serving one another as (is appropriate for) good stewards of God’s multi-faceted grace (faithfully using the diverse, varied gifts and abilities granted to Christians by God’s unmerited favor).” We must continue to seek God for direction on how to change the negative view of the church. As believers, we have to be mindful of our actions; realizing we are ambassadors for Christ, so our words do matter. We should be consistently praying that God will direct us on how to reach the next generation. I believe that it is critical that as believers, we are in tune with all the challenges that millennials are facing. We have to use effective communication to reach out to the next generation, and that does not always mean we should be speaking. Sometimes, it’s better to just listen; sometimes, we can learn and accomplish more by just staying silent. As Christians, we want to understand everything but we often forget that God’s ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. We have to ask the Holy Spirit to help us see people as God sees them. We have to love people with the love of God, and that means with flaws and all, no matter what a person’s skin color is, what their beliefs are, and no matter what lifestyle they choose to live.

I know we can accomplish this as Christians, if we stay close to God’s love. We have to remember that our supreme purpose as Christians is to aid in winning souls for the kingdom of God through the Holy Spirit guiding us and by our God-given assignments. We should be walking in our purpose daily but often; it is hard to do. We have so many distractions in our lives that it becomes difficult to focus on what is important—purpose. Most of us develop so many wounds throughout our lifetime that we hold onto, and this in turn stops us from being whole. We have to recognize that as long as we live on this earth, there will always be problems that we will come up against. But the wonderful thing is, if we have a relationship with Jesus Christ— the one who died for our sins and rose again—we will come out on the winning side. We will never face those problems alone if we stay close to the source and never let go. The tighter the grip, the betteroff we will be. “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” Psalm 63:8

As Christians, we often fail to realize how important it is that we stay under the wings and protection of God by praying and staying in constant communion with him, especially in the volatile times that we are living in. We can know him by praying and staying in constant communion with him, which will help us in forming a relationship. The more we get to know him, the more we will know and become who we were called to be in Christ Jesus, and this will bring us closer to walking in our purpose. The church is supposed to be a refuge for the lost and the brokenhearted. It’s more than just any old building. It should be a place for us to feel safe and secure, a place of forgiveness and love without strife… A place where as soon as you walk into the doors, you feel the love and peace of Christ. So, if this is the case, why do we have people leaving the church in droves? The foundation of the church is important to the structure of the church. If the foundation is not solid, then the structure will begin to crumble all around the foundation.

I recently went to a training session dealing with promoting church growth. An interesting thing that I learned was that most of the church models today are modeled after a corporation or a democracy. The democracy consists of members, who could be compared to registered voters. In an election, they have a vote and they use that vote to determine who the President and the members of Congress will be. In this church model, the members get to vote for a pastor and decide how long that pastor will get to lead. They also have the power...