The issue is the revolving door of the church and more importantly, the Christian care ministry of the local church.  Why do so many people who come to church leave the church?  Certainly there are a myriad of responses that could be offered to this question. The responsibility for answering the question must be shared between the people and the church they attend.

One immutable truth that may help answer the question!

Change in a person’s behavior clearly signals a change in the person’s belief. 

Consider the family who once attended and contributed regularly to the finances of the church.  Should their attendance patterns change or their giving decrease or drop to nothing you are receiving a message that something significant has changed in their belief about your church.  Their absence may be created by a change in employment, illness or some other tangible cause.

Still the absence may signal a significant change in their perception of your fellowship. While this is not an open-ended indictment against the fellowship it certainly represents a concern as well as an opportunity.  It is an opportunity for the church to function as an intelligent and agile organism.  

Intelligence and agility empowers the church to proactively respond to the challenges it encounters at the one member or one family level.  At the lowest level of church is the individual. He or she expresses the circumstances of life in church through attendance, giving, ministry engagement and study participation which can be viewed as patterns.  Stepping back from the grind of day to day church life and looking at the patterns that emerge from collected data can empower the leadership to proactively support positive trajectories or address negative trajectories in the church. 

Consider the Scripture’s instruction found in the Proverbs 27:23 “Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.” Knowing the condition of the people we are given to care for is the chief responsibility of the shepherd.  In fact it is the first work of mission for the church shepherds which includes the pastor, deacons and ministry leaders.  We can not afford to “damn” the sheep when we have not been diligent to know their state.

Endeavoring to know the state of our flocks may stem the tide of the growing “Dechurched” trend.  If the church is shrinking in attendance, we must ask the question, “What has changed in the members mind’s that is expressing itself through declining engagement in the life of your church? “

Olson’s conclusions suggest that the research reported by George Barna, author of “The Revolution” is inflated based upon inaccurate self-reported data.  Barna found that 47% of adults attended church on a given Sunday in 2005.  Is it possible that attendance dropped by 30% points in two years?  Was Barna’s data inflated by what Olson says may be, exaggeration of church attendance behaviors and over estimation of attendance figures when polled?

Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls…

Another interesting statistic cited by Olson is that Church attendance between 1990 and 2006 remained relatively static at approximately 51 Million attendees.   What makes the attendance figures telling is that the U.S. population exploded 17% or 50,688,611 during the same 16 year period while churches experience 0% growth.  It would be reasonable to assume a comparable growth in church attendance. 

Coinciding with zero growth in the church is the rise of the “Dechurched”.  According to research from both, Barna and many others these are people who once faithfully served in the church as deeply committed members and leaders.  One must ask the question, “what impact has this disconnecting from church had on the individuals, their families and ultimately the local church.

According to Olson approximately 3,700 churches closed their doors each year between 2000 and 2009.  He further suggests that at the current rate of decline in attendance the church will shrink from 20.4% of the population in 1990 to 10.5% of the population by 2050 if nothing changes. 

A Crisis For Who?!?

Who is concerned about the so-called, “crisis”?  Is this a crisis at all?  If it is, who is it a crisis for?  What has yet to be answered is why is this considered a crisis?  Does the decline in church attendance signal a decline in the number of people who are committed to Christ; is the invisible Church dying or is it being transformed?

The assertion behind the research is that the “established” Church is the only authentic expression of the discipled life.  Therefore, a decline in attendance must herald a decline in the number of authentic Christians.  While this may be true, it has not been proved true, nor asserted in any way aside from the tacit implication made by the use of the word, “Crisis”. 

Crisis Real or Imagined

The temptation of many in the church is to demonize the swelling ranks of the disconnected disciples.  It is easy to label them as apostate, backsliders and worse.  Yet Rob McAlpine offers an interesting analysis of the “dechurched” “movement”, “phenomenon” or “crisis” in his article Detoxing from Church.  He says,

“People are in detox because they love Jesus and have a vision for being His Body in an advancing Kingdom on this earth.”

He suggests that the reasons people disconnect are the same they used when they chose to connect with a particular fellowship.  The challenge is clearly an issue of perception and interpretation on both sides of the discussion.  The churched must not succumb to the temptation of believing that the dechurched have relapsed into a sinful lifestyle or fallen off the redeemed “wagon”. 

The reverse is also true, the “Dechurched” have a tendency to deride the “institutional” Church.  It is inaccurate to dismiss the Church as archaic, out of touch and off the mark in its expression of the work of Christ.

It is in the interest of both the “Churched” and the “Dechurched” to pursue their courses and fulfill their appointed work in the Kingdom as led by the Holy Spirit.  To maintain the integrity of their fellowship as believers and disciples of Jesus Christ; each group should rejoice that others are expressing Christ in ways that resonate with people that they can not reach.

Paul reminds us that how Christ is preached is far less important than the fact that Christ be preached, he says in Philippians 1:18 (NAS)

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice.

Failing that, we might benefit from the words of Gamaliel found in Acts 5:38 & 39

38 “And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will be overthrown: 39 but if it is of God, ye will not be able to overthrow them; lest haply ye be found even to be fighting against God.”

God is Sovereign and Christ is Lord over the “Churched” and the “Dechurched” and it is precisely because of that fact alone that both camps would benefit from a healthy dose of honest introspection regarding their motives for leaving and wanting to reclaim those who have left.

Five (5) years have passed since the book, Revolution, by George Barna first documented the growing phenomenon.  Websites have sprung up, books have been published and house churches have formed across the nation all focused on the “dechurched”.  The major denominations have engineered church plant strategies to “re-church” the dechurched.  The question is can the church truly address the concerns which have given rise to the “dechurched” phenomenon simply by redressing the church in the “Community Church” model? 

The proliferation of “de-churched” disciples is clear evidence of a problem.  “De-churched” people remain committed to the cause of Christ; yet they are disgusted by the perception of the corruption of the contemporary Church model.  Are these people who despise preaching or the Bible?  No, they are people who despise despotism in church leadership. Dechurched people desire an authentic and genuine fellowship with believers who reflect the Love of Christ taught in the Scriptures. 

There must be meaningful dialog between the "Dechurched and the "Churched" about the larger issues in order for there to be any hope of reconciliation.  One question must first be answered.  What is the intent of the "Churched" in trying to re-claim or re-absorb the "Dechurched" if there are other models of Christian fellowship developing to meet their needs?  The challenge with engaging in dialog is that the "Dechurched" have no identifiable spokesperson or leaders.  One of the greatest errors is to approach the "Dechurched" as a mission field in need of the Gospel message.

The de-churched have been and will be decried as the apostate.  The ones who have fallen away from the church as described in 2 Thessalonians 2:3

“Let no one in any way deceive you, for it [Jesus' return] will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,”

I have heard disciples speak of others who have left a particular church as “backsliders”, “unfaithful” or in other less than honorable terms.  Very seldom do I hear people ask the penetrating question, “What part did we or I play in the creating a climate where previously committed members become disillusioned disciples. 

We must reject the notion that the dechurched believer has in some way broken fellowship with Christ, or renounced their faith in the God of The Bible.  I have asked a question during leadership & church-wide workshops in the churches in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee that has yet to be answered in a compelling way. 

Why should a person seeking a church fellowship travel 15 miles one way to come to your church when they pass 100 others on the way?

I believe that once we can compellingly respond to this question, we will be able to recover from the weakened state of the Church and begin to build communities of faith and not corporate religious engines that crank out "energized" worship as its product. 

We are evidence that Jesus Christ truly is from The Father reclaiming His children in healthy, loving and life-giving relationship. We are evidence that the guilty are redeemed and that the condemnation of our separation from God is removed. As followers of Jesus Christ, purchased by his blood and adopted into the family of God as sons and daughters we are commissioned to carry this Great Salvation to His people.

God in Christ has freed us from sin and death that we might be freed to good works and life. As we follow the Living Christ we are called live as demonstrations of the love He demonstrated through ministry and definitively at Calvary. God through Paul writes in Romans 12:1&2a

Therefore, I urge you brothers in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (NIV)

Living Sacrificially

We are living sacrifices, completely devoted to God through Faith. The King James Translation says that this is our “reasonable service”. God is saying that to live as sacrifices to God is the minimum expectation for all the redeemed and only an unreasonable person would disagree.

A great many may take issue with the idea of Sacrificial Living, but we are compelled by the witness of Scripture that we are called, even commissioned to live in this way. What could it mean to Live Sacrificially? Is what God asking truly possible and if so, then how is it possible?

It is of no small consequence that God begins a discussion of the Gifts of the Spirit in this chapter. We would miss a great opportunity to “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” if we disconnect Sacrificial Living from the presence of the gifts in the Church.

God Frees Us to Think Correctly

We are called first to sacrifice our falsely inflated sense of our value in contrast to others around us. God says to us through Paul,

“For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

The First Sacrifice

The first sacrifice is our inflated egos, which are symptoms of poor self-concepts. We puff up because we are inwardly deflated. We talk big, yet think and live small. There is a blessing in sacrificing our false sense of self. By ridding ourselves of a false self-concept we are empowered to have a proper sense of self aligned with what God says about us.

When we release our pretension we embrace God’s view. Those who have shown themselves unworthy of Love, unworthy of forgiveness, yet worthy of enmity with God and worthy of His condemnation are now by the unilateral act of God; Loved, Forgiven, Adopted and Redeemed.

We were once the most unlovable before a Holy God, and now we are declared a holy people, beloved by The Most High. He has freed us from death and by Grace He has freed us to Love. By this love we are made personal witnesses to His will to transform the hearts and lives of His Elect.

Next Week The Sacrificial Living Through The Spiritual Gifts

“The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master.” NLT

Paul goes on in the next verse to explain the confusion we feel over our inward desire to do the right and good thing which is in constant conflict with our compulsion to do the evil thing. I have heard many people deny this compulsion, yet I have not seen many people demonstrate their ability to resist this compulsion.

The challenge is that many are in denial and therefore do not know acknowledge their need for release from this slavery. Even saved people continue to wrestle with the enemy within. One of my favorite quotes comes from Sally Kempton who said, “It is hard to fight an enemy who has an outpost in your head.”

The Scripture continues in 7:18 saying, “I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t” NLT

Psychologists, Philosophers and Theologians have wrestled with the human inclination to evil. There are many views of its origins and remedies, yet it is God speaking through the agency of Paul in The Roman Epistle who offers the definitive answer. He says in 7:24& 25:

“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” KJV

The Answer is In Jesus Christ

We can not stop our sin. We can however follow Christ who becomes our master. It is by His act of Lordship over our lives that we are freed from slavery and empowered to service. We are made free by Jesus Christ!

Freed From Death through Christ

Jesus broke the yoke of Sin over human life by becoming human and living under the Law and fulfilling all righteousness. By His work we are freed from the Law of Sin. We who are in fellowship with Jesus are free from condemnation. Are we guilty, Yes! Yet the Spirit of Life set us free. This is what Romans 8:1-5 says,

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Next Week:  Free To Live in Christ

In many ways they become the purported mouthpiece of God, the direct conduit through which God speaks a “fresh” word from His Throne room.

A generation of deceived and confused believers laboring under the fallacious notion that so-called and self-proclaimed “anointed” men and women can be more, say something more than the inspired Word of God. What of the Bible, as the inspired Word of God? What about Jesus who is the Word made flesh?

Do we need a “Fresh” word? More importantly, can there be a “fresh” word from God? Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the author and finisher of our faith. If He is indeed, as the Scriptures profess, the last word then are we not simply echoes of the revealed Word, Jesus Christ. We are at our best, our most effective as ministers by beinga clear, resonatingecho of Jesus Christ. We are the instrument of The Holy Spirit through whom the message of hope is delivered.

God tells us in 2^nd Peter 1:20&21, “Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scriptures ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.”

What can we say about the state of Christians in the 21^st Century? We can say that the simple and pure Gospel of the resurrected Savior has been clouded, convoluted and confused by the dissonant, yet charismatic voices of philandering false prophets.

What is the simple and pure Gospel of Jesus Christ? It is, that, God Loved His creation so much that He through His son put on the life of mortality and lived under the law to break the power of sin over flesh and human life. Because of Christ we are made free.  This is the Gospel.

Next: We are made free by the Gospel of Jesus Christ

Many believe that the issue of abortion is neatly split along Faith vs. Secular lines. Not so, there are adamant faith based supporters of “Reproductive Justice” which advocate for women’s rights to determine for themselves when they have children.

The Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, President, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, in an interview with the Pew Research Group said,

We must ensure a woman can determine when and whether to have children according to her own conscience and religious beliefs and without governmental interference or coercion. We must also ensure that women have the resources to have a healthy, safe pregnancy, if that is their decision, and that women and families have the resources to raise a child with security.

Based in Washington, D.C., the coalition advocates for reproductive choice and religious freedom on behalf of about 40 religious groups and organizations.

Rev. Veazey says that he is neither pro-abortion nor is he pro-choice. He further asserts that there are differing views about the moment of life, citing the Roman Catholic doctrine that life begins at conception and that Judaism teaches that it begins when the first breath is drawn.

Sorting out the issues between the Faith stances on abortion and pro-life present unique challenges as each is predicated upon the differing camp’s unique interpretation of the Bible.

Can the interpretation of the reference Scriptures be refuted to the degree that a believer can advocate for abortion? Is the issue different from the interpretation of Scripture? Rev. Veazey says that

“...the religious, pro-choice position is based on respect for human life, including potential life and existing life.

But I do not believe that life as we know it starts at conception. I am troubled by the implications of a fetus having legal rights because that could pit the fetus against the woman carrying the fetus; for example, if the woman needed a medical procedure, the law could require the fetus to be considered separately and equally.”

Can the issue be reduced to a battle of the rights of the unborn over against the rights of the mother? The Impasse created by the existential tug of war may never be resolved.

The Evangelical Christian position offers different Biblical foundations for its position on abortion. Specifically, Psalm 139:13-16; Jeremiah 1:5; Luke 1:41 and 2:12; Psalm 137:9 .

According to Evangelicals life begins at conception, meaning that abortion at any stage of the pregnancy is murder, or “killing an innocent.”

According to The LifeLeague, a Pro-life organization founded in 1999 there are seven (7) Biblical principles which establish their stance on abortion.

[1] By identifying living persons with their foetus (i.e. the unborn child) in Psalm 51:5, Psalm 139:13-16, Jeremiah 1:4-5, Luke 1:31-35 and Luke 1:41-44; the Bible teaches that the unborn child is a human being with inalienable rights to full personhood.

[2] By using the Hebrew words for ‘infant’ and ‘adult’, God identifies the foetus as a ‘child’ in Exodus 21:22, 1 st Kings 3:17 and Ecclesiastes 11:5. God looks upon the unborn as His children, whom He loves.

[3] Scripture places a strong emphasis upon concepts like: continuity of the race, children being a blessing from God, and, the taking of personal responsibility in sexual affairs.

[4] We find a high regard for life amongst the Jews of the Old Testament and Jesus’ day. In Psalm 139:13-16, Ecclesiastes 11:51, Jeremiah 1:5 and John 10:11 - the sanctity of life is taught, thus providing a safeguard against those who would seek to cheapen it. The Jews of Jesus’ time always understood abortion to be wrong, for example, Josephus, a famous Pharisee historian and thinker of that time, said; “The law forbids women either to cause, or to make away with the foetus; a woman convicted of this is regarded as infanticide”.

[5] In Exodus 21:22-23 and Job 10:8ff - the Bible teaches ‘the quality of life’. It does this in a way that ensures human life can never be measured in a manner that labels the deficient, deprived or unwanted as disposable.

[6] In Leviticus 19:14, Deuteronomy 27:18, Psalm 82:3-4 and Matthew 25:40 - the Bible teaches special care for the weak, thus protecting their rights and security.

[7] In Exodus 20:13, commonly known as 'the 6th commandment' - the Bible prohibits murder.

The above entry has been edited for length and references to the pro-choice movement position.

The LifeLeague originated in The United Kingdom and now boasts offices in Scotland, England and Ulster and partnerships with like-minded groups in Estonia, Malta, Crimea, Hungary, Romania and India.

The moral imperative of Faith based anti-abortion and Pro-life is rooted in its interpretation of and commitment to the “Truth” of the inspired scriptures and its traditions. The grounds for Pro-Life and Pro-Choice views are both compelling and persuasive.

Next Week: Faith Divided Over Abortion

Abortion and the debate surrounding it is fresh on the lips and minds of many Americans as President Obama delivers the commencement address at Notre Dame University. The issue of abortion stirs soulful passion on both sides of the debate.

On the one side, the issue of a woman’s right to control her body and what happens to it, and that as a right, it should be protected by law.

On the other side, is the personal and moral conviction that abortion is murder and should be legislated against as immoral and criminal.

There are many shades of gray that stand between the two divergent convictions about abortion. The varying shades are what make the issue so complex and difficult to clarify. At the heart of the debate is the issue of rights. Rights are precious in the United States, if only in principle.

The rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn are at odds in this epic battle. 

The issue is explosive and divisive cutting across cultural, political and religious lines of association.

Framing the issue from the Pro-life world view, specifically the Faith Community led by the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Right is not difficult.

According to the Catholic Church the issue has been addressed thoroughly from as early as the first century and is clearly and emphatically stated in the Gospel of Life (Evangelium Vitae) a papal encyclical issued by Pope John Paul II.

In 1995 Pope John Paul II declared that the Church’s teaching on abortion "is unchanged and unchangeable. Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his successors . . . I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written word of God, is transmitted by the Church’s tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal magisterium. No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church" (Evangelium Vitae 62).

For the Catholic Church the issue of abortion revolves primarily around the 6th commandment of the 10 Commandments found in Exodus 20:13. The issue of “killing innocents” which is murder suggests and as others say demands that to remain faithful to the Bible and obedient to God Believers must oppose abortion.

Next Week: The Evangelical Case Against Abortion