Christ First Forum

Religion may be choking the growth of Christianity in America.

It's not so much postmodernism that many Christians lament of, or the "harder hearts" of the younger generation, or a less interested God that's causing more and more pews to be empty. Rather, the culprit seems to be religion, as one Durham, N.C., pastor pointed out.

"Religion seems to choke out the Gospel among God's people," J.D. Greear, lead pastor of The Summit Church, told hundreds of pastors at Advance, a conference on the resurgence of the local church.

And until Christians repent of religion, no program, energy, or strategy will help them to grow, Greear said Friday.

Greear, 36, helped grow The Summit (originally Homestead Heights Baptist Church) from 400 people to some 3,000 and is continually reaching people from throughout the Triangle area. He doesn't claim to be an expert at church "revitalization" but he says he knows there are some things that have to happen in order for a church to revitalize around the Gospel.

And looking around the churches in his community and across the Bible Belt where churchgoers are getting fewer and older, he sees people asking "why?"

Why is God not moving? What is it about us? Greear posed.

continues here> http://www.christianpost.com/article/20 ... index.html

How can anyone be save with such a 'dead sermon?'

There's your problem!

Watered down sermons and pastores who have lost the zeal to preach against sin and uplift the righteousness and holiness of God are few and far between in the typical church settings.

Sometimes when I drive by some of the old baptist churches with the graveyard beside them, my wife and I talk about how it is so representative of a lot of Church's today. Dead!

Jeani wrote:What I consider 'God moving' within a church is someone being saved~

Haven't seen someone saved in a long time now in our church~

How can anyone be save with such a 'dead sermon?'

I think many Pastors quince the spirit, as thought they can Preach better than the Spirit.. they can't and the Church sleeps, and non-believers snore with the believers
Many Pastors today are afraid to let the Spirit lead, afraid someone will come and lock their door, well, Churches that are not under attack, is because they are no threat to the world
Need another Great Awakening , Pastors that Preach hell fire and brimestone and then Christ at Calvary, Who saves whosever will , from death , hell and the grave
Too many Churches are like clubs, everything going on in them but people getting saved