Flipping the Stats

We live in a time in which we greatly need the wisdom of God - we need His direction, and as we devote ourselves to studying and meditating on His Word, we can sense the leadership of His Spirit.
Isaiah 30 says:
21 Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left.
22 You will also defile the covering of your graven images of silver, And the ornament of your molded images of gold. You will throw them away as an unclean thing; You will say to them, "Get away!"
23 Then He will give the rain for your seed With which you sow the ground, And bread of the increase of the earth; It will be fat and plentiful. In that day your cattle will feed In large pastures.

The Bible, in the book of James, instructs us to be doers of the Word and not merely hearers.  So, we can not only know God's voice, but we then realize that we have to obey.  But, obedience is a product of our willingness to love and serve Him, as well as our dependence on the Spirit of God to give us the power to do His will.  The admonition in Isaiah is twofold: we can hear "This is the way," but we're also told to "walk in it."

+++++

In Jeremiah 6, God speaks through the prophet Jeremiah to and about Jerusalem.  We read this
appraisal:
13 "Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is given to covetousness; And from the prophet even to the priest, Everyone deals falsely.
14 They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, Saying, 'Peace, peace!' When there is no peace.
15 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; Nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time I punish them, They shall be cast down," says the Lord.

But, God provides the prescription for healing:
16 Thus says the Lord: "Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'

There is a startling new report that has been released that attempts to document the direction that the Church in America is heading.  I have to say, I don't know much about the compilers of the survey, the Pinetops Foundation and the Veritas Forum.  But, I trust Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share, who has been a guest on The Meeting House, and in response to the information, he wants to "steer," pun intended people to experience revival, because that will alter the trajectory of this spiritual decline that this inventory, called, The Great Opportunity, predicts.

According to The Christian Post, the study took research data from organizations such as Pew, PRRI, and Gallup and, as the report states, "Based on those primary data sources, we built out religious switching scenarios for the next 30 years, using the most up-to-date switching and attitudinal data, harmonizing assumptions across primary data sources..."

The Christian Post article says:

The report uses compiled data to project the decline in Christianity for three different scenarios: a “base case” (if trends continue in line with how they are), “worst-case scenario” (if trends worsen) and a “better case scenario" (if trends improve to Generation X rates).

The report estimates through its “base case” scenario that as many as 35 million youths raised in the Christian homes will disaffiliate from the faith by 2050.

Additionally, Christianity in America will make up just 59 percent of the country’s population by 2050, compared to 73 percent today. Meanwhile, the “base case” indicates that the population of the religiously unaffiliated will double to 30 percent of the total population in 2050.

Greg Stier asks the question: “How about not just slowing down the bleeding, what if there was a revival that flipped those stats?” and adds, “That is what we are praying for. How do we flip the switch?"

The report authors call for hundreds of thousands of church plants and a change in the approach to youth ministry.  Stier adds:

"Revival is something God brings about but it can change paths pretty quickly. The first Great Awakening happened when America was a pretty dark place before we were the United States," he noted.

“Jonathan Edwards, his revival, had been chiefly among the young. So it was a student youth movement that prepared us to become the United States. What if it was a student youth movement that would bring us back to our roots and unite this nation and transform it from the inside out?”

He calls for youth groups and leaders to have a "serious" approach to the "mission."  By the way, the Dare 2 Share Live event is coming up on Saturday, October 12 - equipping and mobilizing students to share their faith.

The epilogue of the Great Opportunity report says:

We are hopeful. There is much good in our churches. There are millions of faithful followers of Jesus in the cities and towns of this great country. There are extraordinary pastors, evangelists, teachers, missionaries, parents, professors; future saints waiting to be called forward into greater love. We have churches that show God’s manifold, unifying, confounding love across race and tongue; who care for the poor as if it was the very person of Christ they serve; who train the next generation with such passion and joy that it might last a hundred years.

If we can, as leaders in our churches across our country, help them to see the times, to lead them into the call of Jesus, to live the Gospel faithfully, we believe we can see a great move of God in America.

Certainly the statistics here do not have to be the future of the Church.  I guess that's the point.  And, while someone might see this report as being dismal, it can also serve as a wake-up call.

But what do we change?  Certainly there could be changes in model or ministry approach.  But, we have to be careful when we start to change the message, as some are prone to do: you see references to "re- this" and "re- that," as it's been pointed out.  Why, just recently, there was a conference on "Liberating Evangelicalism."  A liberal theologian wants us to "rethink" Jesus.  This weekend, there's a conference on "Evolving Faith," wanting to take Christianity into a bold and erroneous model that calls for greater social emphasis and de-emphasis on holy living and Biblical principles.  And, of course there was "Revoice," that was devoted to exalting gay identity over identity in Christ.

I think the operative "re" might be return.  Jesus taught the model, the Bible provides the principles. Perhaps if we were to try to de-emphasize being so culturally relevant and just live for Jesus, the way He intended, we would get a lot further in winning the world for Christ.  Perhaps we each need to return and (another "re" word) reclaim a sense of what He wants to do in our lives - that will bring the spiritual awakening or...re-vival that many have so desperately sought and talked about.