Shameless plug: My wife has a great post today…really got me thinking. You can check it out here.
Wanna know what happens to these ‘barely breathin’ churches?
Usually? Almost always?
They dwindle…
120…
80…
50…
25…
Can’t afford the utility bills…
SOLD!
to the first developer who wants to put up a high-rise or to a housing developer or perhaps for shopping center fodder. It doesn’t matter. The point is, a living, vital, once dynamic part of God’s program to reach planet earth ends up being replaced by something, anything, other than what should be there.
What’s that, pastor Rob?
A living, vital, dynamic church!
But surely, with the cost to build today and the fact that new and thriving churches have to meet in schools and theaters and wherever they can afford rent, these dying churches could offer their buildings! The new church could fill the place again with the sounds of children laughing and youth learning about Christ and families restored and marriages saved and lives transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ, and!…
Nope.
Doesn’t happen. Not typically anyway. Sure, it happens once in a blue moon like someone hitting all seven numbers in the 300 million dollar powerball lottery, but those are pretty depressing odds.
So what give?
Religiosity.
Religi—what?!
Religiosity. It’s a religious spirit that often infiltrates the church and spreads like a slow moving cancer. You can function normally for years with this killer present but eventually it’s going to get you. And it’s claimed thousands upon thousands of churches. Where once there was a dynamic community of people living abundant, victorious lives for Christ there remains only a building and a few diehards who won’t let go of “the good ole days.”
But the good ole days have long since let go of them. The Holy Spirit has moved on. The Lord constantly seeks people whose hearts are sold out to the most important mission in the history of the universe.
Reaching others with the good news of Jesus Christ…in schools, theaters, brand new churches, revitalized churches, shopping malls, grass huts. stadiums.
The building doesn’t matter but it sure would be nice to see some of these empty ones used again for their original purpose.
Just a thought.
Rob Singleton is the lead pastor and founding pastor of 
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Dee and I always grin and joke around when we pass by or hear that a church is having a “revival”. You know the kind, complete with good old fire and brimstone yelling, (I mean preaching) with the covered dish buffet, and baptism under the tent. Well the baptism part is great but we always ask ourselves, what needs “reviving” so bad that they need to have a revival in the first place?
To expand on the topic of your blog about “A Death A Day”, during one of my travels across the “net’ I stumbled upon an article that contained some great insight on this very topic. The article was paraphrased or excerpted directly from three 1991 issues of The Trinity Review. Never heard of the publication, maybe someone out there has, but check out this powerful paragraph:
“Do we need revival? No! We need transformation. And this transformation cannot be achieved by “weeping and wailing” before God (as the revivalists would have us do), brought on by some “unusual” outpouring of the Spirit. The transformation that the Bible talks about is the continual sanctification through the Word and the power of the Spirit (Rom. 12:1,2; Phil. 1:6; 2:12,13; 3:20,21). Transformation is the product of our prayers for the courage and the grace of the Holy Spirit; standing fast with the Word in battle; not wavering, not compromising, not being overcome with fear, but steadfast in the cause of the truth — TRUTH! — a word foreign to most of the revival movement, both past and present.” – http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/Psychology/revival.htm
Forrest Gump’s voice in the background, “That’s all I have to say about that”.
Oh! Who won the “date story” contest?