“Zach, I’m not doing well,” Shellie said on the other end of the phone. She was calling me from the school where she’d recently taken a job as a kindergarten teacher. “What’s going on?” I asked. “We had a surprise fire drill and I could barely get my kids out of the room. Can you come over here?” she requested. “Of course. I’ll be right there.” I told her.
Secularism Fails
Several months ago, a few of the pastoral staff of Connection Point met with the directors of a local counseling center in West Lafayette. This center was started due to the increasing need for counseling in our area, and the need continues to grow.
Secularism
“Around 1995 a shift occurred in our nation,” a speaker shared at a conference I attended a couple of years ago. “Before this time the majority of our nation held to a Judeo-Christian worldview, after 1995, the majority of our nation transitioned to a secular worldview which has now become the predominant worldview in our country today. This transition in worldviews has greatly affected the church and how we will be able to reach the communities in which we live.”
A New Beginning
Many in the church today have created their own definition of what it means to follow Jesus, they have created their own definition of what it means to “do” church.
The Jesus Way
How did Jesus fulfill God’s big dream? How did Jesus launch a rescue mission? By inviting people to follow Him and then sharing His life with them.
Diminishing Glory
“What did you think about the church we visited with today?” I asked Shellie as we drove away from a church we had visited before going to Jerusalem. “It’s hard to tell if God is still there in the midst of that congregation,” she replied. I had sensed the same and was wondering if that was just my experience or hers as well. Unfortunately, in visiting with hundreds of churches across the U.S., talking about our ability to be part of God’s global rescue mission in fulfillment of His big dream, there were several times we had a sense God had left the building. But how can this happen?