Why We Need to Immediately Stop Doing ‘Church as Usual’

„I just can’t sit through one more church service!” This is the cry of our current remnant generation. Pastors, are you listening?

My wife and I were so excited to reconnect with a couple of friends yesterday. This couple has been invested in the prophetic and in the local church as powerful regional leaders for years. We spent the evening talking about the state of the church, and how the new wine simply must come, yet the church is far from ready.

One of them simply stated, „I just can’t sit through one more church service!”

Such a simple statement, yet it resonated powerfully in my spirit. I can’t either.

People Are Leaving The Church in Droves

So, What Is Church As Usual?

Boring Preaching

Fear of Man

Tired Order of Service

No Revival Emphasis…

Read the full article here:
https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/79763-why-we-need-to-immediately-stop-doing-church-as-usual-2

Young Christians are leaving the church – Here’s why

„A new, 2018 Pew Research Center Reportpolled a growing group in America: “religious nones.” This group describes themselves as “nothing in particular” when asked if they identify with a specific religious group. The vast majority are ex-Christians, and most are under the age of 35. Pew asked a representative sample of these “religious nones” why they now reject any religious affiliation and provided respondents with six possible responses...”

Read more here>>

9 Marks of an Unhealthy Church

By  Kevin DeYoung

April 11, 2018

„Thanks to Mark Dever, many of us have become well acquainted with the 9 Marks of a Healthy Church. While these were never meant to be the last word on everything a church should be or do, the nine marks have been helpful in reminding Christians (and pastors especially) of the necessary substance we often forget in an age fixated on style…”

1. The more peripheral the sermon topic, the more excited the people become.

2. The church staff does not enjoy coming to work.

3. The pastor and his wife do not get along.

4. Almost no one knows where the money goes.

5. The leadership team never changes or always changes.

6. No one is ever raised up from the church for pastoral ministry or sent from the church into missionary service

7. There is a bottle neck in decision making.

8. The preaching has become erratic.

9. There are issues everyone knows about but no one talks about openly. 

Why Are Millennials Leaving Church? Millennials Explain

„Nearly one year ago, Sam Eaton, a millennial from Minneapolis, wrote a blog post detailing „12 reasons millennials are over church.” Since then, he has received thousands of hateful and angry comments. But what he wants Christians to know is that that was his love letter to the American church.

„I got a lot of hate for this,” said Eaton, an elementary school music teacher and founder of a suicide prevention ministry called Recklessly Alive. „I love the church like Christ loved the church. I want to see it prospering and I look around and I see my generation has left.” ,, 

For one, millennials want to be mentored, not preached at…

„Millennials crave relationship, to have someone walking beside them through the muck. We are the generation with the highest ever percentage of fatherless homes. We’re looking for mentors who are authentically invested in our lives and our future. If we don’t have real people who actually care about us, why not just listen to a sermon from the couch?”…

Read more>>

Source : Christian Post

Hundred of Churches Will Close Down This Week: 9 Urgent Changes We Must Make

„It broke my heart.

Another church closed. This church had unbelievable potential. Indeed, it had its own “glory days,” but only for a season. But, 10 years ago, few would have predicted this church’s closure. Today, it is but another statistic in the ecclesiastical graveyard.

I know. We don’t compromise doctrine. I know. We must never say we will change God’s Word.

But many of our congregations must change. They must change or they will die.

I call these churches “the urgent church.” Time is of the essence. If changes do not happen soon, very soon, these churches will die. The pace of congregational death is accelerating.

What, then, are some of the key changes churches must make? Allow me to give you a fair warning. None of them are easy. Indeed, they are only possible in God’s power. Here are nine of them:

1. We must stop bemoaning the death of cultural Christianity…
2. We must cease seeing the church as a place of comfort and stability in the midst of rapid change…”Read The Full Article HERE

Nicolae Geanta in vizita la Bisericile Romanesti din Michigan si Illinois

Program:

• Joi  13 aprilie va fi la First Romanian Baptist Church of Troy http://bisericanoastra.org/ si la Bethesda R.P. Church of Troy http://www.betezda.com/
• Duminica 16 aprilie dimineata la Bethel Romanian Church of Taylor http://betheldetroit.com/  iar seara la Hosanna Christian Church of Royal Oak http://www.hosannachristianchurch.com/
• Duminica 23 aprilie dimineața la Logos Baptist Church Chicago https://logosbm.org, iar seara la Bethany Romanian Church Chicago http://www.bethanynewsite.com
• Luni 24 aprilie la Seara de Rugăciune si Miercuri 26 aprilie la  Seara de Tineret la Alleluia Romanian Church Dearbon Heights Mi http://www.alleluiaro.com/

http://nicolaegeanta.blogspot.ro/

Most Americans Attend Small to Medium Churches

„As far as Barna is concerned, regular church attendance is central to understanding faith practice among American adults. Whether their church is large or small, charismatic or traditional, significant numbers of Americans sit in the pews each Sunday to worship together. Despite the enormous cultural impact of megachurches and megachurch pastors like Joel Osteen and his 40,000+ Lakewood Church, the largest group of American churchgoers attends services in a more intimate context. Almost half (46%) attend a church of 100 or fewer members. More than one-third (37%) attend a midsize church of over 100, but not larger than 499. One in 11 (9%) attends a church with between 500 and 999 attenders, and slightly fewer (8%) attend a very large church of 1,000 or more attendees…”

Read more here >>

5 WAYS TO KILL THE MISSIONAL MOVEMENT IN YOUR CHURCH

„…I’ve seen churches be excited about mission, try to implement different methods and ways to create a missional movement only to fail. There are 5 missional killers that are deadly for your missional movement and there are ways to overcome them…”

1) Bypass the Message for the Method

2) Implement without an Assessment

3) Copy and Paste Someone Else’s MethodRead the full article here

4) Have No Vision for Leader Development
Read the full article here

12 Things a Pastor Should Never Ask a Church Member

„I’m thinking of one-on-one conversations in which a pastor might ask this of the church member. … Not a good idea. Do not try this. …

1. How did you vote on that issue?

2. Are you a Democrat or Republican?

3. Will you support my political candidate?

4. Why did you not support me in that project I was pushing?

5. Have you ever committed adultery (or any number of other things)?

6. Would you give me money? Would you lend me money?

7. How much money do you make? How much do you give?…”
Read more here>>

„The Church Obsessed Over The Facilities”

„One church split and eventually died when the old pulpit was replaced with a new one. The church actually had a business meeting and a major battle to vote on the new pulpit. Members who had not been in church for years showed up for the vote. Indeed the s0-called inactive members often became active for a contested business meeting in the dying churches…”

„The new pulpit group defeated the old pulpit group in close vote. The old pulpit group took the pulpit and started a new church…”

„Jesus words apply to all of us. We are to be good stewards of personal finances and possessions…But if we focus on things , no matter how meaningful they are, so that we become distracted from the eternal, we have lost our focus. And a church that has lost her eternal focus is one step closer to dying and death.”

Autopsy of a Deceased Church