In places all across America, church buildings are overflowing with Sunday attendees.
You may think religion in the United States is on a steady decline, and while its true that fewer and fewer people are identifying themselves as “religious” with every census, religion in general is not a dead fad as atheists would like (or as some church-goers worry).
No, the problem with religion in America is not getting people to show up; it’s getting them to do something to make their showing up worth it in the first place.
Too many church-goers are to content with church-going. They treat attendance as the ceiling of their faithfulness and all that God expects of His people. On the contrary, attendance is not the ceiling, it’s the floor. It’s not the peak of one’s faithfulness, it’s the bare minimum.
It’s not just the attendees but also the preachers who are guilty of misunderstanding that fact. Desperate for numbers and in love with the spectacle of a full house (whether that number is 50, 500 or 5,000), they beg and plead for members to come…and come back. To that end the need for sound Gospel preaching goes out the window. It’s not about teaching people, it’s about “netting” people. And while it is important (critical, even) to bring new souls to Christ, the thought process often is: “we don’t need to worry about expounding the Word to the ones who care enough to come; better to use gimmicks and props and smoke and mirrors to appeal to the ones who don’t care enough to come.
Gimmicks have replaced the Gospel. Style has replaced substance. Instead of opening the Book and learning, we have to have a dog and pony show. We need a concert. We need games. We need a mystery pew that has $50 hidden underneath!
Nonsense. We need the Cross.
It’s high time preachers across our ADD-addled nation start delivering that Message and not sermons that sound more like motivational speeches or self-help seminars.
It’s high time parents stop asking “what does this church offer my children?” Because if the answer isn’t “Truth” you don’t need to be there. And if the answer is “Truth” but that’s not satisfying, well then you need to reevaluate your priorities for your children’s souls.
The Bible is a rich and engrossing collection of 66 works of inspiration. If that’s not enough to captivate, if that’s not enough of a resource to expand the knowledge, if that’s not enough to move someone to change their lives for the better then whoever is preaching is in the wrong profession, and whoever is listening (and bored by it) is in the wrong religion.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee…
Hosea 4:6
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