A friend of mine ask me to respond to an article titled" The coming evangelical collapse" by Michael Spencer. It's like a lot of other articles I have read that discuss the present state of the church in America. Why he wanted my input is strange. Maybe that in itself is a sign that we are collapsing after all. Anyway, what follows is my response. Read on if you care or dare.
"Wow - there is a lot to reflect on here but I will respond out of my accumulated ignorance.
Whether you agree with this guy in every detail or not you have to agree that the modern American church has come on hard times.
All the recent reports that Ive seen stress this - Willow Creeks Revel, Barna's surveys, Stetzers Essential Church, the book UnChristian, Present Future etc. By most standards our faith is superficial, our doctrine is polluted with heresy, and we are losing our youth. Most of our churches are in decline mode. There is very little significant evangelism going on. Add to that fact that almost everyone is saying that the center of Christianity has shifted to Latin America or Africa. It may be that evangelical movement is on the way out.
What is the evangelical movement anyway? A movement - not the kingdom of God. Well movements come and go. It may pain me to see it collapse but it will not destroy or hinder the KG. Ephesus was once a powerful church in the heart of Asia - essential you might say - now its gone, but has the church disappeared? There were once great churches in England and great men like Spurgeon, Wilberforce and others. They are gone and so are those churches. Has the KG disappeared? It won't disappear in America either, but it may take a new form. Is that bad?
We forget that our way of doing church is relatively new in light of 2000 years of Christian history. Are we so arrogant to think that God has developed the perfect model and that we must fight to keep our brand of church alive. God will do what He wants, how He wants, where He wants. If I'm blessed I might get to be a small part of that.
I'm no doom and gloom person but I do think the American church is in for even more change in the next 10 -20 years. I have already seen huge change in my brief lifetime. It might take the form suggested in the article.
I agree to some degree that we have tried to build the KG in America with politics and have failed. We used worldly weapons rather than spiritual ones and have not been able to tear down the strongholds. We have pretty much lived in ease while so many of God's children have lived in struggle. It may be the time has come for that to change as well. I have had a sense of this for a long time.
That being said - I believe that the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ is indestructible. The gates of hell will not prevail against it - maybe against me or my congregation or my denomination but not against the body of our Lord Jesus. Should I resign myself to the predicted collapse? God Forbid! I am called to serve the church in preaching the gospel, therefore I must, with the wisdom God gives me strive to keep the flock I serve on the cutting edge of the movement of God's Spirit. "The wind blows wherever it pleases". I must turn my sails to catch it and ride it - not sit back and curse the fact that it is moving me to a new place or drop my anchor and try to stay put. The early Christians sat in Jerusalem, indifferent to the Great Commission, until the fires of persecution broke out and scattered them into new places. Was God judging them for not moving out into the world as He had commanded by allowing the persecution to break out. Perhaps. If so then if persecution comes let's take courage in the possibility that perhaps God is once more stirring up his people to move out into new places.
I close with a quote. I found great encouragement from this. It comes from the book George Whitefield by Arnold Dallimore.
" For the past thirty years (the book was first published in 1970) numerous people have been saying, 'There can never be another revival! The times are too evil. Sin is now too rampant. We are in the midst of apostasy and the days of revival are gone forever!'
The history of 18th century revival entirely contradicts that view. It demonstrates that true revival is the work of God - not man - of God who is not limited by such circumstances as the extent of human sin or the degree of mankind's unbelief. In the decade between 1730 and 1740 the life of England was foul with moral corruption and crippled by spiritual decay, yet it was amidst such conditions - conditions remarkably similar to those of the English-speaking world today - that God arose in the mighty exercise of His power which became the eighteenth century revival."
No comments:
Post a Comment