Wednesday, March 15, 2006

We Must Go Deeper

A recent survey of American pastors reveals that the average pastor believes that 70% of the congregation consider their faith in God as their number one priority. However, the same survey reveals that only 23% of church goers consider God their number one priority. Why the discrepancy????

The discrepancy exists in part because of how the pastors measure the spirituality of the congregations. If a lot of people volunteer, if church attendance is good, if the people SAY they have had a religious experience then the pastor is likely to think that they value God more than anything else. ALL of these measures are very superficial.

We must go deeper than this. How do we know when our brothers and sisters are "doing well". It cannot be based on attendance. It cannot be based on claims that "everything is fine" or "I've been doing well". The Bible tells us that each of us is responsible to "see to it" that "none" has a sinful, unbelieving heart in departing from God (Hebrews 3:12-13).

Let's take this seriously! Let's not live in a dream world where we think everything is fine with the church but in reality we don't know, we haven't CARED enough to find out, and we haven't been vulnerable enough to really open our lives up to each other. Let's CARE!

Well, that's all for now... the study I referred to earlier can be found at the following link. It's quite interesting and may be worth the read:

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=215

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What an important message and responsibility. The Lord has been trying to show this to me and used your blog to give me more understanding of his Free Grace and his Sustaining Grace. I haven't completely understood what God is revealing to me through his word, but it has just gotten a little clearer. May God continue to use you Jason!!!

mbh said...

A thought.....God isn't number one. He's life or he is nothing. He's incomparable.

Anonymous said...

A good thought it is "mbh!"

Anonymous said...

Yeah good thought mbh. Thats pretty much stated in Luke 14:33
"So likewise, whoever of you that does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple"