This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"
A list from
Bill Easum:
- Concern for membership rather than discipleship
- Concern for size rather than quality
- Sin
- Lack of spiritual direction from pastors (especially mainline)
- Pastors who won't tell it like it is and hold problem people accountable
- Sin
- Too much emphasis on current theology rather than living missiology
- Christianity becoming a way of life rather than a life and death movement
- Bultmann and all that crowd
- Sin, did I mention that already?
- Removing salvation as the primary emphasis of Christianity
- Putting Christianity on an equal plane with all other major religions
- Sin
- Affluence
- The removal of the supernatural from the mainline tradition
- Too much reliance on the emotional among some of the side line groups
- Development of the institutional church in place of the missional or organic church
The solution to the problem lies in the undoing of at least the above and problem much more. I know this seems simplistic, but the good news is simple. We just make it either too difficult for people to understand and thus live it, or too simple for people to believe and thus live it.
This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"
Some good quotes
found in the comments at
DashHouse.com from my brother Arthur, including this one:
The Church has to face society and not turn its back on it. If you're facing away from someone and you're trying to talk to him, he can't hear you - you're mumbling; you're not interested. What you're saying is, "Come over here. It's better over here," as opposed to saying, "I'm going to come to you - I'm interested in you; how can I serve you?" The days of "tell me" are over. The days of "show me" are in. (Jim Stewert)
My brother Arthur left a few quotes in the
comment section below. They're all good; here's a sample:
The Church has to face society and not turn its back on it. If you're facing away from someone and you're trying to talk to him, he can't hear you - you're mumbling; you're not interested. What you're saying is, "Come over here. It's better over here," as opposed to saying, "I'm going to come to you - I'm interested in you; how can I serve you?" The days of "tell me" are over. The days of "show me" are in. (Jim Stewert)
Right on.
The church is in trouble - Some individual churches may be doing fine, but the stats are in and the church in North America is in trouble. Our levels of effectiveness are so low that, in many cases, we could have more impact if we quit our churches and started working for IBM. The solution isn't tinkering - We've tried lower levels of change (reacting, restructuring, redesigning) but these aren't enough. We need to go deeper: to reframe (look at the loads of mental models and cultural assumptions we never question) and regenerate (ask questions about why we are asking certain questions; focus on the meta-questions) instead. There were very few "how-to's" at Velocity; the answers to the big questions are not at the pragmatic level. One size doesn't fit all - Or rather one size fits everyone poorly. What works at Westwinds won't work here. MapQuest (indigenous) leadership is key. The solution to your problem may not be in any book written; you might have to write that book. Creativity matters - Art and design are not for those who have ascended Maslow's hierarchy of needs and have nothing else to worry about. It is part of our essence; it's part of who God has created us to be. The more conservative the church, the more we've dissed art and sanitized our buildings (a product of rationalism). Art is the craving and yearning of the human heart. It may mean that our creative endeavors are not optional in ministry. We're in Act Five - What if we stopped viewing the Bible as an answer book to life, a source of knowledge, or as a rulebook? We often reduce it to a set of principles. What if, instead, we saw the Bible as the first four acts of a five-act play? Our job is to improvise the fifth act by submersing ourselves in the first four acts. Our job isn't to just learn the first four acts, but to prepare for living in the fifth act while honoring the first four. We're not called to mimic the early church, but see them as a model that helps us live God's call in our context. It's tough work - Engaging culture is relatively easy. Engaging theology is relatively easy. Okay, not easy, but doable. Engaging both culture and theology at the same time is difficult and necessary, and there seem to be few who are doing both. Still coming - Top books recommended by Ron at Velocity.