WAKE-UP CALL

I’m an eclectic reader. I scribble notes when I find something that deserves more thought or deeper consideration.

Today was a long-needed ‘clean my study’ day!  I’ve been eliminating piles, sorting books, clearing my study carrell and sorting through various piles of articles, notes, clippings, jokes, memes and cartoons in hopes of establishing a friendlier [and less cluttered] workspace.

Mission accomplished!

I now have a GREATLY REDUCED pile of clippings that I don’t know what to do with. I’m eliminating one of those clippings by writing this blog. 😊

I apologize for not knowing the source for the information that I’m about to share.  It’s a half-page of handwritten notes that I copied from somewhere or something.  It’s clearly a fragment from a frequent topic I write about: the decline of Christianity in America. 

If you just rolled your eyes, you might be best to bail out now and save yourself some potential aggravation.

Here are the things that caused me – sometime during the past year – to scribble on the back of a piece of ‘scratch paper’:

Ø  88% of those raised in Christian homes in America leave the church when they leave home.

Ø  In America, it now takes 85 Christians to bring one person to Christ per year!  [Based on church reports:  An average church of 85 people tends to report one convert per year!]

Ø  In recent decades not one county in the United States could report a percentage increase in church attendance.

Ø  Christianity is increasing around the world but has been consistently declining in America for over fifty years.

Ø  In 1900, there were twenty-seven churches for every 10,000 Americans.  In 2000, there were twelve churches for every 10,000 Americans.

Ø  Less than one out of every four born-again American adults have shared their faith with a non-Christian in the past twelve months.

If these propositions have any semblance to an accurate portrayal of Christianity in America, then we have serious problems that need to be addressed!  You must  evaluate the authenticity of these reports.  I can’t verify their source, but my perception tends to confirm these observations! 

Upon returning from three years of living and teaching in northeast PRC, I painfully watched my home conference close the church that I led upon my return to the conference after attending seminary in Kentucky [1976].  At this time [2015], I had accepted a part-time ‘commuting pastor’ role in Kittanning, PA.

My appointment in 1976, to the Jeannette, PA Free Methodist Church was complex, challenging and fraught with complication!  I was twenty-three. I had led a small, rural church in the Hoosier Mountains of southern Indiana for a year and a half. I was highly educated. I was passionate and full of unrealistic expectations!

For those interested, I have written about this experience in a blog titled “HOW TO GROW A PASTOR”  -  Hal-lelujah!: HOW TO GROW A PASTOR

At Jeannette, I found myself leading a small congregation of about forty who were mostly older. We had a brand-new building on twelve acres in the middle of a growing neighborhood, however, the conflict over building had split the congregation!  With God’s help, the church began to grow as new converts joined us! Within two years I was preaching to over one hundred. It was exciting – of course!

A somewhat humorous story springs from this period. I was gone a great deal of the time, leaving my relatively new wife at home with our six-month-old son, Travis. One night I came home to find my suitcases on the front porch and the door locked!  When I called to Debbie, she shouted through the door: “If you want to be married to the church, you can just live in the church!”  It was – needless to say – a WAKE-UP CALL!

Some of my most effective ministry took place during this period. However, the opposition from the membership was cruel and controlling. So much so, that I requested a move after two years.  Within a very short time the congregation drifted back to forty!

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And now, thirty-four years later, the conference had closed the church and was selling the building and property!  Something in me wanted desperately to contact my superintendent and volunteer to try to revive this place of ministry! But, of course, doing so was totally unrealistic! And besides, in addition to reverse culture-shock, our lives were devastated by the fact that our son, Travis, had just died of cardiac arrest! I voluntarily retired a year later!

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WHY DO CHURCHES CLOSE?

The answer is simple!  In almost every case, churches close because they can no longer pay the bills!  They simply run out of money!

BUT WHY DO THEY REALLY CLOSE?

Because they lose their vision and get distracted and/or divided! 

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My experience has taught me that satan takes notice of growing churches! He finds a way to divide congregations. Conflict arises. Attendance drops. Tension fills the air.  Hostilities are exchanged.  Bitterness pervades the relationships that continue to strive for survival. 

In a message I gave recently at a church I had previously led, I included the following comment:

“I have learned a great deal about the devil’s tactics over the years.

For instance, do you realize that he leaves a great many churches alone? It took me a while to learn this, but many churches rarely have any spiritual opposition from Satan.

Why?

Because they’re not a threat to his kingdom!

o   They’re not growing by convert growth.

o   They’re plateaued or dying.

o   They don’t care about their community.

o   They’re in a state of internal conflict.”

I never want to be a part of a church that is not a threat to satan and his kingdom! We’re not propping up an institution! We’re the living body of Christ! We are His representatives intended to influence those who are lost and distracted! 

Broken churches lose their sense of mission!  Conflict passion replaces evangelism passion!

In American culture, we’re SURROUNDED with distracted people who are living with a false sense of security!  They think they’re good people – and indeed, in many ways, perhaps they are! But they’re NOT people on a mission for God! They’re NOT serving His purposes! So many pseudo-Christians have been inoculated with an infection-belief that they’re spiritually safe and secure and headed for Heaven. But in reality, they ignore God almost completely, fail to engage with His Word and make no effort to influence others to find their purpose in Him!

And churches decline – then close!

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CAN THIS TREND BE CHANGED?

Absolutely!  It IS CHANGING in some places across our country!  New ministry forms are surfacing that are genuinely making a difference in people’s lives! Some of these, we might barely recognize as part of the Church! Different methods and forms are being utilized that would likely feel strange to those of us who have been raised in the church. 

I can testify that creating change in the church is one of the hardest things to do on this planet!  It seems as though conservative, legalistic, predictable people have been most likely to align with Christianity throughout the last seventy years!  Creative individuals, innovators and inventive thinkers have been restricted, persecuted, excluded and ridiculed.  We’ve chased the ones away who could have been a catalyst for dynamic change and authentic renewal!

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WILL THE CHURCH REALIZE THIS AND ADAPT?

Remember Winston Churchill’s famous and brief speech?

“Never, never, never give up!”  😉❤️

Churches with people who sincerely love God and desire His will may be able to adapt and change to reach the lost with the transforming truth of the Gospel!  They will be people who care less about things being pleasing to THEM – but actually care about their family members, their neighbors, their co-workers and their friends and their future destiny!  They will be people who desperately want as many as possible to see and hear the Truth and adopt it into their lives! 

I want to be part of that movement – do you?

SUBTERRANEAN SADNESS

I have a faint memory of slipping into my bedroom during the Christmas season when I was a young boy, where I would lay on my bed in the darkness and brood.  It didn’t happen regularly, but I seem to recall it happening several times.  What was this about?

I lived in a healthy, happy home where I was loved and cared for. My needs were met and I had no real problems in my young life.  Why do I associate these few random times with Christmas? 

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I am proud of the churches that offer a ‘Blue Christmas’ service.  It provides an opportunity and gives permission for people to have trouble while processing through the Christmas season.  I wish that I had thought of this idea when I was leading the church. 

As a counselor who has worked with hundreds of couples and individuals over the years, I think this is a worthy topic to address.

Why do some of us have periodic bouts with depression?  Why do they occur when they do?  Are there any tools we can employ to help process these times?  Is there knowledge that can help us understand and cope with these times?

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There is no way to address this topic comprehensively in a single blog post – but let’s at least introduce the topic. 

Many draught-ridden areas around our globe have learned to benefit by tapping into underground rivers and reservoirs.  That’s a positive thing!

Similarly, I have come to understand that some of us have rivers of ‘subterranean sadness’ that periodically find their way to the surface and cause us problems.

What provokes these eruptions of sadness? 

Sometimes – like the Christmas season – it could simply be the emphasis on joy and celebration!  The simple expectation that we should be happy may – in and of itself – trigger sadness.  We’re speaking of the emotional realm here where things are not always governed by laws and principles!  Our emotional make-up is integral to who we are and how we experience life. 

Some psychologists suggest that our minds log everything!  Everything?  That’s a lot to process and keep organized [or suppressed].  Everything includes bad experiences and sad moments that marked us significantly.  It’s easy to understand how memories that we’ve repressed tend to gravitate to the surface and become a problem for us again.

REPRESSED is a term used by counselors that implies pushing down uncomfortable feelings, experiences and memories into our subconscious without fully dealing with or understanding  their ramifications. 

Counselors believe that these memories percolate on a deep-memory-level.  Consider this a dormant stage.  However, when circumstances in our life provoke these memories, they are believed to migrate back into our consciousness along with their recollections of pain, sorrow, anger, hurt, etc., etc..

So, we’re rolling along, doing pretty well, when suddenly – through life’s normal interplay of people and events – we find ourselves feeling vulnerable and distracted.  We don’t understand what’s going on.  Emotions are POWERFUL!  They handicap us!  They have the power to distract us and distort our normal way-of-being. 

The result – DEPRESSION! 

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Most of us need help, instruction, comfort, and trust to navigate our way through these complex, emotional sand traps. 

The best place to turn is to a trained and qualified counselor!  By doing so, we gain:

·         Their objectivity

·         Anonymity [We see them for a period and then move on…]

·         Their expertise.

Many turn to friends and/or family, but this incorporates risks.  Sharing secret hurts and past experiences with those from our closest circles runs the risk of changing the dynamics of those relationships  -  something that we may not anticipate, but may regret.

Some pastors have training and gift packages that allow them to be effective interventionists for these life-interruptions.  Others, however, have no interest and no skills that are appropriate to this challenge. 

Before closing this article, I’d like to mention three observations that I have made through the years that have helped me cope with and learn from my depressive dips.

1.    Having served as a spiritual guide through the years, I have observed that there is always a satanic factor involved in these depressive episodes and that it usually has most to do with their timing!

It might be helpful to sit down with a journal and ask yourself some questions:

·         Why am I experiencing this depressive episode right now?

·         What is going on in my life that has triggered this sadness?

·         Is there a particular memory that is pervasive right now?

·         When have I felt this way before?

     This is an excellent opportunity to exercise the ancient, spiritual practice of meditation!  Sit quietly and uninterrupted and talk with God about your present experience.  Ask God to shed light on this unwelcome experience.  Write down whatever thoughts that may come to your mind – however unrelated they may seem.  At a later time, these observations may make sense! 

2.    I have to talk if I want to grow through this experience!

So many have protested through the years: “What good does talking about it do?” 

Well, the science is now in!  The evidence reveals that the process of talking changes the chemical make-up in our brain! 

Talking – especially with a properly trained person – can indeed help!  We gain perspective from a guide who has our best interests at heart.  We have truths and observations reflected to us that allows us to look at a situation in a new way.  We gain insights!  These insights will help us with future eruptions. 

3.    There is usually a spiritual factor that I need to recognize, work through or confess.

Here is where speaking with a pastor might truly be helpful. 

It is also a point where an increased exposure to scripture might open doors of understanding. 

There are books that might be helpful.  Two that I would recommend are both by the late David A. Seamands:  HEALING OF MEMORIES and HEALING FOR DAMAGED EMOTIONS [both currently available on Amazon for very low prices]. 

When I deal with a persistent depression, I turn to D. Martyn Lloyd Jones’ book, SPIRITUAL DEPRESSION: It’s Causes and It’s Cures.  It’s heavy reading that most would not respond to.  I don’t believe I’ve ever finished reading it!  Usually after the first five chapters, I have gained insight and perspective and have made adjustments to my spiritual life. 

Do an honest self-search!  What does God want you to learn from this experience?  How is He working to create in you a greater dependence on Him? 

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I hope these ruminations have provoked some hope in you as you address the ‘subterranean sadness’ that is rattling your life currently.  There is hope!  You can grow as a result of this depressive experience.  You can gain understanding that will equip you to be more effective in dealing with these interruptions in the future!  GOD BLESS AND HELP YOU!