Mark C. Powers - Going Full Circle: Worship That Moves Us to Discipleship and Missions

I ts a recurring dream of minea nightmare, really. We are all together on this train. Its called the Church Train. Weve traveled the same track for many years. Those who grew up on the Church Train cannot comprehend any other track. After all, weve been on this track as long as we can remember. Traveling happily along in the club carthe church club carwe are very comfortable with the way we do things. The pastor and staff serve as stewards, keeping us inspired and happy, attending to our needs with great dedication as we travel this track. On occasion our train pulls into a station. Those of us on the Church Train eagerly invite those standing on the platform to join us. Dont they see that our train is a happy place to be? We cant fathom why anyone would refuse a ride in our club car. Weve done our best to decorate in a way that would be inviting to those outside. Yet, most of them refuse to join us on our train. We dont really understand why.

Lately, some riders on our train have upset us. They look down the track and say were headed for disaster. We havent paid them much attention. They say there is a landslide ahead. We are headed for a plunge into destruction, they claim. How strange to hear those on our own train say such things. Surely God would not allow such a thing to happen to the Church Train. Some keep whispering about how we need to build an alternate track that will take us to a different destination. The radicals say we ought to get off the Church Train and move among the people. But, as hard as I try, I cant get off the train. Its a recurring dream of minea nightmare, really. We are all together on this train. Its called the Church Train...

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, If you, even you had only known on this day what would bring you peacebut now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of Gods coming to you. Luke 19:4144, NIV

During Jesus entry into Jerusalem, he looked into the near future and foresaw the Temple under siege by outside forces. He prophesied that this institution of Jewish religion would fall to destruction. Just a few years from that day the prophecy was fulfilled.

Today, the institutional church is under siege. Just as in Jesus day, church people like you and me are blind to the part we are playing in the process of its downfall. If we stay on this track we are headed for a landslide.

Have you seen the latest statistics about the evangelical church? Its quite possible that you have not paid attention and are still assuming that all is well in our churches. We who have lived most of our lives inside the walls of churches have a tendency to live in our own world, dont we? But if you are paying attention at all, you have an inkling that things are not like they used to be in church. Attendance is down, budgets are tight, and friends are being released from staff positions. Statistics point to the churchs diminishing influence in society, and we are being laughed at in the secular media. Our Church Train surely is headed down the wrong track.

According to Thom Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources, in the United States 65 percent of the Builder Generation (born prior to 1946) is Christian, while just 35 percent of the Boomers (born 1946 to 1964) and only 15 percent of the Busters (born 1965 to 1983) claim a relationship with Jesus. The numbers for Generation X and Y (born since 1984) continue this dramatic downward spiral. In Great Britain and Europe, there are places where only one percent of the population is in church on any given Sunday. Even in the Bible Belt of America, church attendance is losing ground quickly. In a 2011 study, the Barna group discovered that 41 percent of all Americans are unable to identify any individual who they consider to be an influential Christian.

Those raised in church can hardly comprehend these facts. We have lived in the comfort and confines of the church club car all our lives. So our worldview is very narrow when we look out the window of the Church Train. But the bad news doesn't end there.

Church growth experts say that as many as 30 to 40 percent of our existing churches could close their doors within the next 25 years. This statistic is not limited to traditional churches only. Churches started just 10 to 20 years ago with contemporary worship styles are just as liable to fall into the church club car trap. Does it alarm you that 25 years from now, one out of every three churches in your community may be closed? Had you realized that the church today is going downhill that fast? Would it really matter to your community if your own church closed its doors today? Would your neighbors miss your church if it no longer existed? Those are tough questions, but we must ask.

This decline is not just limited to those outside the church. Among church members, too, the statistics are telling. According to the 2011 Barna study quoted above, most Americansroughly four out of fiveconsidered themselves to be Christians. For this group of professing Christians, the 20-year period from 1991 to 2011 was a time of substantial change in their religious behavior:

• The largest change in belief was the ten-point decline in those who firmly believe that the Bible is accurate in all the principles it teaches. Only 43 percent of self-identified Christians had such a strong belief in the Bible in 2011.
• Whereas 30 percent of the self-identified Christians volunteered at a church during a typical week in 1991, that figure declined to 22 percent in 2011. Its no wonder that churches are struggling to provide the number of programs and ministries that were once a staple of their existence.
• Not only has volunteerism declined in church, but also attendance at church services declined among self-identified Christians by nine percentage points across those two decades. These days less than half of those calling themselves Christian (47% in 2011) could be found in church during a typical week.
• Even more telling, less than one out of five (18%) of this group attended Sunday School or a small group Bible study during a typical week by 2011.

The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of this valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, Son of man, can these bones live? I said, O Sovereign Lord, you alone know. So I prophesied as He commanded me and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feeta vast army. Ezekiel 37:13,10, NIV

Please understand what I am not saying. The body of Christ is not doomed. The kingdom of God and of his Christ shall reign forever and ever! I am not saying we should be the voice of doom. A sign in a national tool distributor shows these words super-imposed over photos of all varieties of tools: The Bad News: Our World is Falling Apart. The Good News: Our World is Falling Apart. To us who have trouble using a hammer, the knowledge that the world is falling apart is bad news. But to those who earn a living by fixing things, a world falling apart means they will never run out of work. Our Almighty God has the power to fix this world. He uses our brokenness to heal, help, and move us to his purposes. The Church is his body, and he is the healer of broken bones. Ezekiel experienced firsthand Gods power to put us back together when the body of believers seemed dead and disjointed. So we need to remind ourselves every day that, though institutional churches are in trouble, Gods church for whom Jesus died will endure into eternity. May we never stop praying for revival in our land.