This blog will alternate weekly between two subjects. One week will address why churches are not growing, and the coming move of God. The alternate week the blog will continue with the in-depth study through the Book of Proverbs.
Always remember however low you set the bar in life you will come in yet lower, just below that bar; so you might as well set it very high, at least then, you will make it eighty-five percent of the way.
I will start out by making it plain that this blog topic is not meant to tear down The Church but instead to build up The Church through an honest call to repentance and change. If The Church refuses to look honestly at itself then it will not be capable of turning back to what Jesus intended it to be at its conception. An honest appraisal and review will go a long way toward restoring our, meaning the Body of Christ’s, reputation with the world and our own members. Refusal to assess where we are at is a call to march toward death. The Church is hemorrhaging now from its wounds and we must be willing to stop the bleeding in order that we might survive, and even thrive.
That said let me be the first to say as a Child of God, Christian Writer, Christian Spiritual Leader, and fellow member of the Body of Christ; I have made MANY mistakes in my forty plus years of Christian life and service that have reflected poorly on The Church, God, my family, my fellow Christians, and myself. I am the first to say, ‘I have failed many times to live up to Christ’s ideals.’ Yet, my failure to live up to those ideals does not make those ideals, God’s Standards, any less true, any less God’s Principles, or any less the real ideals of our Savior, the Christ, Jesus.
Therefore, since none of us are without sin, without failings, let us approach this issue within the Church and Body of Christ with humility and hold fast to the truth that we are to have mercy over judgment. We are only to use this blog discussion to make us, as the Body of Christ, better not condemn or judge the Body of Christ or any member therein, in an ungodly way. Never forget how much mercy your Heavenly Father has shown you. We as a Body of Believers can discern the truth, face the truth, and tell the truth without crossing that line into condemning or judging. That is all this blog seeks to do and all I want it to exhort others to do. Do you love people? Do you love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ? I love people so I need to “speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.” – James 2:12
The stories and examples given in future blog entries are real accounts which have been witnessed by me, told to me by the person it happened to, happened to me personally, and/or told to me through a third party or anonymously. No names or actual locations will be noted in the examples. Therefore, the privacy or confidentiality of no persons, including myself, will be violated in anyway.
Let this blog discussion be a tool in the hands of the Master Craftsman so that His Church might arise once again and be an example to the society in which they live.
Spiritual/Political Disclaimer:
This blog will not be for the faint of heart or the easily offended. It will not be in any way politically correct. It will make every effort to share the truth in love, [Ephesians 4:11-16], to a decaying and dying society and church. I share what I share not to hurt, harm, or offend any person[s] or group; I do it because Christ’s Standard and Truth is not being represented by enough of His Followers, and I do it out of love. I love enough to tell His Truth.
Ephesians 4:11-16 NKJV
11And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.