CHURCH DECAY - Bail or polish the brass, which is it?

The state of the Church in the United States reminds me of a cartoon I saw when I first became a pastor ... back just before the flood.

The comic showed a Cabin Cruiser sinking stern first. On the rear deck were all the passengers, one bucket among them ... one guy was feverously bailing while the others stood by waiting their turn. The crew was on the foredeck, feverously polishing brass.

If you receive the fleet award for "Best Brass of 2005," what do you get for letting your boat sink?

The Barna "State of the Church 2005" update says ...

Despite the media frenzy surrounding the influence of evangelical Christians during the 2004 presidential election, the new study indicates that evangelicals remain just 7% of the adult population. That number has not changed since the Barna Group began measuring the size of the evangelical public in 1994.

The has likewise been no measurable increase in the relative size of Barna's evangelical/born-again grouping in the same ten year period.

George Barna, who has overseen the measurement of these factors since the tracking process began in 1991, noted that religious change generally occurs at a glacial pace. “The meter hasn’t budged for most of the trends we have been following over these 15 years,” the researcher noted. “The only discernible increases have been in the number of unchurched adults, those who are participating in small groups or cell groups, and the percentage of born again Christians who share their faith with non-Christians. The decreases relate to church attendance, Sunday school involvement, the percentage of people who align with Catholicism, and the number who have a biblical view of God’s character. In general, predicting next year’s religious statistics is safer than foretelling whether the Cubs will win the World Series.”

This is frightening information for most of the Body of Christ in the USA ... clearly some individual churches are rowing against the current ... but these stats can only mean that the Bride of Christ got mugged or real sick about a decade or more ago. Barna's report continues ...

The long-term absence of real change on key measures of religious belief and behavior screams for a change of direction and a more radical approach to spiritual growth amidst a population that clearly has settled into comfortable spiritual routines and perspectives.

The prophet Amos knew this malady up close and personal, he knew it by name ... apostasy. The Christian PC crowd calls it backslidden ... "apostasy is a pejorative and divisive term." Barna closes with this ...

“Bringing about genuine and lasting religious transformation requires leadership that is more aggressive than simply constructing bigger buildings, replacing the overhead projector with a big-screen projection system, and introducing a few new programs. .... Effective leaders must spearhead a thoroughly conceived and highly targeted plan that runs a significant level of risk and promises attractive returns on people’s investment of themselves. Merely tinkering with the existing system is a recipe for irrelevance and abandonment.”

Amen, George!