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To laugh is to risk appearing the fool
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental
To reach out for another is to risk involvement
To expose feelings is to risk exposing, your true self
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To live is to risk dying
To hope is to risk despair
To try is to risk failure
But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing
They may avoid suffering and sorrow but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love or live
Charmed by their attitudes they are a slave, they have forfeited their freedom
Only a person who risks is free
In forty years of involvement in his church’s visitation program, Wilt Durant had led one person to Christ. You know what they say, if only one person comes to Christ its worth all the effort, right?
When he retired in 1992, he moved to Rogers, AR and joined Immanuel Baptist Church. One Sunday, his pastor preached on Soul Winning and Durant responded to the invitation and devoted the remainder of his life to winning souls. Since that time, he’s prayed with over 600 people to receive Christ. He isn’t casual about his witness, he averages visiting in over 60 homes a week. What does he consider the secret to his success? "A willing heart."
While on vacation a few weeks ago, I was in the hotel room and, like the rest of the family, unwinding from the day’s travels and events. We had the TV on and a Promise Keepers commercial came on. Promise Keepers, I would remind us, is a wonderful organization, that reminds men of their God-given roles as a husband, dad, and man of God.
The commercial started with a boy in the back-yard who had rigged some kind of contraption that would mimic his dad’s voice that spoke words of encouragement and involvement to a pitching/hitting nylon backstop. The expression on the boy’s face was what caught my attention – it was sad and somewhat hallow. He was seeking to artificially relate to his father who was not in the back yard with him.
Where was dad? Dad was in the family room crashed in the large recliner in front of the TV with the remote on his hand. He sees out the large windows into the backyard and his expression too, says much. He is dressed in a shirt and tie and looks both exhausted from the events of the day and guilty for not being out there with his son. The tension is evident in his face. He knows that he should be out there but his body language says that he is exhausted – mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Pastor E. V. Hill was talking about the racial violence in downtown Watts, in the Los Angeles area. He is as a Baptist Preacher and was caught up in that kind of tension. There was another of the black pastors who had already been killed because of their involvement in this racial tension. E V Hill got a threatening phone call and he was told that if he did not cease his involvement in the racial conflict that he would be killed.
They told him that they would put a bomb in his car. The next day when he woke up he noticed his wife was not there. When he looked out into the garage the car was gone. He looked out the window and saw his wife was driving up in the car. When he asked her what she was doing she said, I just wanted to be sur...
"You can live on bland food so as to avoid an ulcer; drink no tea or coffee or other stimulants, in the name of health; go to bed early and stay away from night life; avoid all controversial subjects so as never to give offense; mind your own business and avoid involvement in other people’s problems; spend money only on necessities and save all you can. You can still break your neck in the bathtub, and it will serve you right."
Eileen Guder, God, But I’m Bored, quoted in Holy Sweat, Tim Hansel, 1987, Word Books Publisher, p. 48
** IS THE CHURCH ON THE ENDANGERED LIST?
Many Americans are on a spiritual quest. This should be good news
for the church. But, according to researchers, many of them are
choosing noninstitutional forms of religion. A recent poll by Gallup
shows that weekly church attendance is holding steady at about 40
percent of the population - the same rate as in the 1950s. But other
researchers - like Dave T. Olson, director of TheAmericanChurch.org
- claim only 17.7 percent of the population attends a church service
any given weekend.
Olson, who bases his numbers on annual church attendance reported by
individual U.S. congregations, says, "People who only go to church
now and again exaggerate how often they go."
Albert Winseman, religion and social trends editor for the Gallup
Organization, says people are shopping for alternatives to church
and that is one reason 3,000 local churches close their doors
annually.
"Most denominations are either declining or stagnant," says
Winseman.
The Assemblies of God is one of the few Christian groups to show
steady growth in recent years. The Yearbook of American and Canadian
Churches reports the Assemblies of God and Southern Baptists are the
only Protestant faith groups of the largest 25 to report an increase
in membership for 2004.
An April Gallup poll indicated 65 percent of Pentecostals attend
church weekly, second only to Church of Christ (at 68 percent) among
Protestant groups.
VANISHING PROTESTANT MAJORITY
Half a century ago, two-thirds of the population considered
themselves Protestants. Officially, for the first time last year,
self-identified Protestants dipped below half of all Americans,
according to Gallup research.
Evangelical and Pentecostal church attendance looks stable, but
membership isn’t keeping pace with population growth. Olson says
although the same number of people are attending church as 15 years
ago, there are an additional 48 million people living in the
country.
But people are not necessarily flocking to other faiths. J. Gordon
Melton, author of the Encyclopedia of American Religions, says
tabulating all the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews and New Agers
accounts for only 7 percent of Americans. Self-professing atheists
comprise another 10 percent of the population.
"In the culture today we don’t have the churchgoing momentum we did
in the 1950s, when ’respectable people’ attended church every week,"
says Earl Creps, director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at
Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri.
"There’s no guarantee anymore that people are going to come to
church."
Although only 17 to 40 percent of Americans attend church regularly,
about 80 percent of the population professes Christianity.
Pollster George Barna, who last year wrote the book "Revolution:
Finding Vibrant Faith Beyond the Walls of the Sanctuary," believes a
transformational shift is occurring in how Christians view church.
He claims more than 20 million committed yet disaffected
"revolutionaries" have struck out on their own to form house
churches, family faith communities and cyberchurches.
WHAT CHURCH OFFERS
Creps, author of "Off-Road Disciples," believes these
"revolutionaries" are forfeiting a great deal by not being involved
in a local church. "A great church offers relational connections,
people modeling how to live faith, accountability, the enormous
power of a group worship experience and the operation of the gifts
of the Spirit," he says.
Theologian J.I. Packer says the reality of corporate church life
pervaded first-century Christianity and should today as well.
"Individuality is not correct, according to biblical standards,"
says Packer, author of "Knowing God." "The church is central in
God’s plan. God uses the church to set up His kingdom - the
corporate relational reality where people respond to Christ as King.
We can’t dismiss the structure God has established."
Many observers believe house churches and cyberchurch movements are
short-lived trends that will never amount to more than 5 percent of
Christians.
Melton says such methods don’t represent a new phenomenon. "For
decades people have been saying they can be a good Christian and
never go to church," he says.
Gallup sees a strong link between individual spiritual commitment
and church attendance by measuring factors such as prayer, Bible
study and small group involvement.
"People can say they are a spiritually committed person without
attending church, but it happens only 5 percent of the time,"
Winseman says.
Creps says merely getting people into the sanctuary isn’t the goal.
"The issue really is the need for every person to come to God
through His Son Jesus Christ. That involves a connection with a
community of Christians - which we call church."
"The church is God’s primary vehicle for the proclamation of the
gospel," Winseman says. "The abundant life is found most abundantly
in the community of the local church."
--John W. Kennedy, Today’s Pentecostal Evangel
This article reveals the current condition of the church and some new trends in Christianity but for the church to be the Acts New Testament church we need to continue to explore and discover from acts what it looks like and what it does.
Eileen Guder, author of God, But I’m Bored:
“You can live on bland food so as to avoid an ulcer; drink no tea or coffee or other stimulants, in the name of health; go to bed early and stay away from night life; avoid all controversial subjects so as never to give offense; mind your own business and avoid involvement in other people’s problems; spend money only on necessities and save all you can. You can still break your neck in the bathtub, and it will serve you right.”
According to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, a father’s involvement with a child increases the child’s IQ, the child’s motivation to learn, and the child’s self-confidence. In addition, children with involved dads are more likely to
develop a sense of humor as well as an “inner excitement.”
...
SHIRLEY MACLAINE ON SELF
Actress Shirley MacLaine said one time, "The most pleasurable journey you take is through yourself...the only sustaining love involvement is with yourself... When you look back on your life and try to figure out where you've been and where you're going, when you look at your work, your love affairs, your marriages, your children, your pain, your happiness... When you examine all that closely, what you really find out is that the only person you really go to bed with is yourself... The only thing you have is working to the consummation of your own identity. And that's what I've been trying to do all my life."
What a mixed up woman she is! Shirley MacLaine is consumed with herself. Her philosophy is, "All I really have to do is take care of me. All that is important in life is me." WHAT A SELFISH WAY OF THINKING AND LIVING. She is like so many people in our world.
From Steve Shepherd's Sermon "Tis the Season to Live and Give"
"I DIDN’T KNOW HER."
A few years ago, a man named David Cash and a friend and his friend Jeremy Strohmeyer were in Las Vegas. Strohmeyer followed a young girl into a bathroom and began to physically assault her. Cash came upon the scene, made a half-hearted attempt to intervene, and then left the girl to her fate. Not only did he fail to stop the assault, he also chose not to report it.
On their way home that night, the friend told Cash he had raped and killed the little girl. Still, Cash kept quiet. Police finally caught up with the friend, who pleaded guilty to all charges.
This story has appalled and outraged many Americans. But in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Cash defended his non-involvement. Without a trace of remorse, he said, "I’m not going to get upset over someone else’s life...I just worry about myself first. I don’t think of it. I didn’t know her."
(From a sermon by Stephen Sheane, "Love Your Neighbor" 2/10/2009)
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