Five Reasons We Don’t Evangelize
But it seems like something has gone wrong. Many Christians do not live like fishers of men. Not many people ask us about the hope that we have in Christ, and when they do we’re not really ready to give an answer. Evangelical churches talk a lot about evangelism, but according to popular surveys and anecdotal impressions most church members don’t share their faith very often.
The Number One Reason for the Decline in Church Attendance and Five Ways to Address It
Stated simply, the number one reason for the decline in church attendance is that members attend with less frequency than they did just a few years ago. Allow me to explain.
If the frequency of attendance changes, then attendance will respond accordingly. For example, if 200 members attend every week the average attendance is, obviously, 200. But if one-half of those members miss only one out of four weeks, the attendance drops to 175.
Did you catch that? No members left the church. Everyone is still relatively active in the church. But attendance declined over 12 percent because half the members changed their attendance behavior slightly.
From Moral Majority to ‘Prophetic Minority
‘The Bible Belt is collapsing,” says Russell Moore. Oddly, the incoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission doesn’t seem upset. In a recent visit to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Moore explains that he thinks the Bible Belt’s decline may be “bad for America, but it’s good for the church.”
Why? Because “we are no longer the moral majority. We are a prophetic minority.”
I still struggle with this, oh so much. See, I would do anything, anything, anything for my kids. You name it, I’ll do it if it’s for their own good. Anything. However, sometimes I can’t say the same about what I’d be willing to do for God and His people. And when that’s how I feel, I know I need to stop and think and consider what I am doing to grow in a personal, intimate relationship with my Creator and Father, to the point where I can also say “I will do anything for you. Anything!”
As a technique, tongues capture the attention but focus it on something meaningless (but understood by the speaker to be divine). So it is like meditation — but without the monkey mind. And the practice changes people. They report that as their prayer continues, they feel increasingly more involved. They feel lighter, freer and better. The scientific data suggest that tongue speakers enter a different mental state. The neuroscientist Andrew B. Newberg and his colleagues took M.R.I. scans of tongue speakers singing worship songs, and then speaking in tongues. When they did the latter, they experienced less blood flow to the frontal cerebral cortex. That is, their brain behaved as if they were less in a normal decision-making state — consistent with the claim that praying in tongues is not under conscious control..
And there is one last aspect to Duck Dynasty that has made it such a big hit: It shows Christian men and women living ordinary lives that are informed by their faith — informed by their commitment to God, and each other. These are not the dour, joyless Christians you so often see on the screen, and too often run into in life. They don’t go around quoting Scripture or heaping judgment on others; they’re too busy having fun and living good lives.
Ministry, and All Things Not Being Equal
There are some days you will remember why you keep doing this. There are some days you will forget who you are. Those days won’t always equal out.
3 Lessons Every Writer, Speaker, Blogger, and Musician Can Learn from Led Zeppelin
1. Don’t sell out to pop culture.
2. Don’t be afraid to debunk the conventional wisdom.
3. Speak well of your competitors.