Monday Morning Preacher represents a composite of forty-three years of pastoral ministry that explores behind-the-scenes reasons church attendance continues to decline in America. Many blame it on Satan’s relentless assaults. Others point toward a growing anti-Christian sentiment in the culture. I believe the answers to much church decline — and the solutions — can be found within churches themselves.
According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, the median weekend attendance has fallen from 129 in 2005 to around eighty today. Half of all American churches have a weekend attendance of eighty or less. The average tenure for a pastor is four years. Pastoral Care Inc. indicates that 250 evangelical pastors leave the ministry each month. The numbers are sobering. One is too many.
Over the years, when asked where I received my ministry training, I jokingly responded, “God’s School of Hard Knocks.” And truthfully, I wasn’t kidding. How many difficult challenges could have been avoided had I known then what I know now? My sincere desire is that pastors everywhere learn from my mistakes and successes.
I love the local church. And I don’t understand why so many Christians fail to share my enthusiasm. I am both a Christian and a pastor today because of a local church. So why are more and more believers treating regular church attendance as optional in their life?
Over 120 years ago, William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, prophesied, “The chief danger of the twentieth century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God and heaven without hell.” I have watched his words accurately and progressively unfold.
I’ve said it for years: “The church at its worst is better than the world at its best!”…