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Thom Ranier, is now CEO of Lifeway, the publication arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. He formerly taught at Southern Seminary at Louisville and is highly regarded as both a leader and thinker. The introduction and main points are his. All that is added in italics after the main points must be blamed on me. It’s long, but many pastors of smaller or traditional churches really need to read it.
“I was their church consultant in 2003. The church’s peak attendance was 750 in 1975. By the time I got there the attendance had fallen to an average of 83. The large sanctuary seemed to swallow the relatively small crowd on Sunday morning. The reality was that most of the members did not want me there. They were not about to pay a consultant to tell them what was wrong with their church. Only when a benevolent member offered to foot my entire bill did the congregation grudgingly agree to retain me.

    “I worked with the church for three weeks. The problems were obvious; the solutions were difficult. On my last day, the benefactor walked me to my rental car. ‘What do you think, Thom?’ he asked. He could see the uncertainty in my expression, so he clarified. ‘How long can our church survive?’ I paused for a moment, and then offered the bad news. ‘I believe the church will close its doors in five years.’ I was wrong. The church closed just a few weeks ago. Like many dying churches, it held on to life tenaciously. This church lasted ten years after my terminal diagnosis. My friend from the church called to tell me the news. I took no pleasure in discovering that not only was my diagnosis correct, I had mostly gotten right all the signs of the impending death of the church. Together my friend and I reviewed the past ten years. I think we were able to piece together a fairly accurate autopsy. Here are eleven things I learned

1. The church refused to look like the community. The community began a transition toward a lower socioeconomic class thirty years ago, but the church members had no desire to reach the new residents. The congregation thus became an island of middle-class members in a sea of lower-class residents. They should have either moved or committed to reaching the community as it was becoming - in reality they became what many smaller churches actually are - a commuter church.
2. The church had no community-focused ministries. This part of the autopsy may seem to be stating the obvious, but I wanted to be certain. My friend affirmed my suspicions. There was no attempt to reach the community. Probably because many of the members showed the shallowness of their Christianity by holding themselves to be “better” than the riff-raff among whom they were located.
3. Members became more focused on memorials. And memories. The point is that the memorials became an obsession at the church. More and more emphasis was placed on the past. The people were focused on a past that really never was and could never be again even if it actually was what they dream of. When the older people were in the prime of life, it was wonderful so the real desire was to go back to having a church like that.
4. The percentage of the budget for members’ needs kept increasing. At the church’s death, the percentage was over 98 percent. Well, we have to take care of our own, don’t we?
5. There were no evangelistic emphases. When a church loses its passion to reach the lost, the congregation begins to die. An annual “evangelistic meeting (where almost all those who attend are saved folks who don’t even know any unsaved person to invite).
6. The members had more and more arguments about what they wanted. Oops, no one read even the first line of The Purpose -driven Life - it’s not all about you. In reality it did become all about them, and you can find this attitude among the older element of many other churches., Don’t bother me with what I can do for the church; concentrate on what the church can do for me - after all I am retired. As the church continued to decline toward death, the inward focus of the members turned caustic. Arguments were more frequent; business meetings became more acrimonious.
7. With few exceptions, pastoral tenure grew shorter and shorter. The church had seven pastors in its final ten years. The last three pastors were bi-vocational. All of the seven pastors left discouraged. It became what we sometimes call a “pastoral grave-yard” or a good place to “run out the string until eligible for Social Security.
8. The church rarely prayed together. In its last eight years, the only time of corporate prayer was a three-minute period in the Sunday worship service. Prayers were always limited to members, their friends and families, and their physical needs. It became more important to pray people out of heaven than to pray sinners out of hell.
9. The church had no clarity as to why it existed. There was no vision, no mission, and no purpose. Don’t bother asking some traditional churches to see their vision or purpose statement; they don’t have one. One of the nice things about having no goals is that you never miss meeting a goal you don’t have.
10. The members idolized another era. All of the active members were over the age of 67 the last six years of the church. And they all remembered fondly, to the point of idolatry, was the era of the 1970s. They saw their future to be returning to the past. I mentioned this above, but I am convinced that a lot of the problems churches have with older members when they try to move into the present Century revolves around this point.
11. The facilities continued to deteriorate. It wasn’t really a financial issue. Instead, the members failed to see the continuous deterioration of the church building. Simple stated, they no longer had ‘outsider eyes.’ You don’t have to tell me when a church was built or last renovated; I can see it with my own eyes on just a single visit. The old cry of, ‘We don’t need an architect,’ was not only wrong but also created some jumbled monstrosities that are almost impossible to correct. Let’s face it, the unsaved, especially the younger ones, are not attracted to a church that looks like June Cleaver’s kitchen. “

“Though this story is bleak and discouraging, we must learn from such examples. As many as 100,000 churches in America could be dying. Their time is short, perhaps less than ten years.”

From time to time, I like to add a fresh voice to this blog with the idea that there are some great writers out there who need a broader audience.  Today’s blog is one of those occasions and is written by my friend and fellow elder at Life Fellowship, Matt Hatfield.  You’ll find more information about him at the bottom of the page.  Take a few moments as he takes a deeper look at this week’s announcement by Jason Collins that he is a homosexual.  He was met with much affirmation from the media, sports world, politicians and other elites.  So what can the Believer learn as we digest the changes in cultural that appear to be unfolding with amazing rapidity.  Matt pokes us in the brain with this essay…

Are we ready for… the Pursuit of Happiness?

“I think, I know, in my personal life, I’m ready, and I think the country is ready for supporting an openly gay basketball player,” Collins told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Jason Collins, on his “coming out” as a gay athlete in the NBA.

Evangelicals will certainly look upon this moment as a continuation of the decline of morals in our country; the inevitable outcome of a society that has moved God from the back-burner into the garbage can.  The average American citizen?  They will think quietly to themselves, “well that’s not the way I roll… but who am I to judge?”  And life will go on as normal. 

But is there something that could be done?  Something that should be said?  How does the Christian respond in the face of a moment like this?  You know the moment.  It’s that instance when we find ourselves “not ready” for apparently what “the country is ready for.”

I don’t know Jason Collins… other than what he has said and what has recently been written about him.  He seems like a genuine enough man.  Likeable.  Not intent on doing anyone wrong.  Not wanting to stir the pot.  Just want to be who he wants to be.  A gay man in a culture wrestling with the whole idea of homosexuality… and tolerance… and acceptance. 

But in our spirit, there seems something amiss.  In a curious twist of fate, we find ourselves like the man coming out of the closet… wanting to speak up, needing to say something… but knowing that it may not be well received.  Knowing that we may be rejected.

What is it that we would say?

I think I’d say, “this isn’t right.  This is not God’s plan.  This is not what His heart desires.”  I know that the culture has applauded the courage of Mr. Collins to stand up for what he feels, how am I to applaud that which I believe grieves the heart of God?  And while I know the chorus of “thou shalt not judge” would rain down… I think I’d know that declaring what is right & just is not what was being rebuked by Jesus when He warned His followers about judging one’s neighbor.  Warning about consequences is different than rendering the judgment.  The former is to be undertaken by God’s children… the latter is certainly up to God.

You see.  God has a set of rules.  And for the most part, these rules are set in place to maintain order.  Keep us healthy.  Keep us safe.  These principles allow us to know God’s heart and to know what is pleasing and displeasing to Him.  And while one of the things we discover when we study His word is that His love for us is immeasurable.  We also discover that God cares little for man’s opinion on things.  He is not a politician.  He doesn’t take votes.  The majority doesn’t rule.  Frankly, God is about God – and that which would oppose Him is often met with severe consequences.  Further, while God wants His children to have joy… defining our own basis for happiness is not all that important to God either.  Which makes Mr. Collins’ following statement both naïve and frightening.

“I hope that every player makes a decision that leads to their own happiness, whatever happiness that is in life,” Collins responded. “I know that I, right now, am the happiest that I’ve ever been in my life.”

In this short little statement, we can find the crux of the problem with not just Mr. Collins, or our country… but with the psyche and condition of all men.  The pursuit of happiness. 

Now such a phrase will evoke almost universal positive feelings in the heart of any red-blooded American because it harkens to the core of our country’s value system.  Such is why the founders of our country felt compelled to include the proclamation in the Declaration of Independence.  And though it was penned with noble intentions by mostly noble men… there are consequences for even the best of intentions.  As an aside, Satan is a master of twisting good intentions to serve his purposes.  Thus, the quandary we are in today.  By slowly allowing the rhetoric of literal definitions to expunge the meanings of original intentions… man now, cannot just pursue happiness, he can define it.  And once man is given the opportunity to take a Sharpie marker and strike out God’s definitions, we are in trouble.

And to be sure, we are in trouble.

Not just because Mr. Collins “came out” but because of the underlying rationale behind.  Mr. Collins is not unlike most of us.  He believes that he has a right to pursue happiness.  This, however, is an American endowment.  It is not from God.  God calls us to pursue, Him, first… not happiness.  If pursuing personal happiness becomes our mantra, then we have indeed declared our independence from God.  What irony.

What we will discover in our pursuit of God is that He has standards that are far different from those which flow naturally from our bodies.  Honestly, our personal appetites would generally make God wretch.  People don’t like to hear this.  But somewhere along the way, we bought into a doctrine that equated our happiness with God’s happiness as if God’s sole objective is to create and raise “happy” children.  We even have a phrase for it… “God wants me to be happy.”  This little cliché has become the magic potion that dissolves marriages, erases debts, covers over wrongs… It’s a cure-all – a man-made tonic on an oblivious but welcoming conscious, dulling our senses and mind until we no longer know right from wrong. 

What God wants is for His creation to pursue Him… and leave the defining of “happiness” up to Him.  He warns us to “take every thought captive” for a reason.  Thoughts can be dangerous.  Many should be jettisoned.  Too many thoughts start with the premise, “how can I make this work out the best for me?” rather than simply, “what does God’s Word say?”

Now when most of you started reading this article, you probably thought that it was going to give a Biblical response to homosexuality.  I don’t think that is really what is needed.  The Bible is quite clear on the matter – to suggest otherwise is simply putting one’s head in the sand.  Homosexuality is a sin.  Whether by nature or nurture, it is out of the scope of God’s desire for His children.  But He has a plan of restoration for all sin – including this one. 

In the end, I think what is important is that we do an honest assessment.  One that has less to do with sexual orientation – as most of us do not personally struggle with homosexuality.  But we all struggle with sin.  And sin at its core is a feeding of personal appetites to make us happy.  So… are you pursuing happiness… or are you pursuing God?

Matt Hatfield is a businessman and one of the founding elders of Life Fellowship Church in the Lake Norman region of metropolitan Charlotte, NC.  He has a degree in Philosophy from Davidson College and attended Dallas Theological Seminary in pursuit of his Masters.  He is married and has three children and lives in Huntersville, North Carolina.

This just reminds us that liberals have no interest in “Free Speech” in spite of their rhetoric. They only want “approved speech”. Don’t burden their straw houses of thought and their extremist agenda with counter arguments or other perspectives. “Tolerance” is only a demand they hurl at their enemies which is code, for “Shut Up if you disagree.” These people are far more hateful, narrow-minded, fascist and tyrannical than the imaginary caricatures they create for enemies. What is sadder still is that uniformed and uneducated low information people are just letting them destroy legitimate dialogue for fear that someone might call them “intolerant” or “bigoted” or some other 2-cent epithet that perverts that historic lexicon of civilization. Political correctness is destroying our character, our morality, our intellectual integrity and our Liberty. Orwell predicted all of this — and yet, most people have never read 1984 or Animal Farm. We will be damned by our laziness and lack of courage.

Perhaps THIS professor or THIS one would pass the political perspective of Johns Hopkins liberals.