This past Sunday I listened on TV to the pastor of the largest church in the U.S.  I kept waiting for him to tell the people in that stadium of thousands the kind of thing Jesus would say.  Isn’t that what we pastors should be all about?  Instead I heard one of those “feel good” sermons…..how I can become wealthy if I just believe it will happen.  Wow, you certainly can’t reconcile his sermon with what Jesus said in today’s scripture, can you!

Now, I don’t think Jesus meant that we should spend our days crying and moaning, but I do think he meant that each one of us has an option:  Becoming a follower by denying our selves of the many luxuries we all enjoy if it means our brothers and sisters will be helped.  Pick up that cross and live, …….or sell our souls for pleasure, for the almighty dollar?  He made it pretty clear. [By the way, there was no cross to be seen in that stadium filled “church.”]

As I drove to church later that morning, I listened on the radio to another preacher.  He stated very firmly that if I were “born again” I would be assured of a place in heaven.  Now, I have met many people who believe they experienced such a moment in their lives.  I did. But, thank goodness, most of them and I don’t believe being “born again”  is an easy pass into heaven, as this pastor indicated.

I think this kind of theology would make a liar of Jesus, or at least one of those repugnant individuals who talks out of both sides of his mouth.  Didn’t Jesus threaten that a lack of compassion ended up, not at the pearly gates, but in that gnashing of teeth, fiery place?  We like all the nice stuff in the Bible, it’s easy to preach…..but are we really teaching all it means to be a follower of Christ. Think about it!

View this video by a pastor who asks:  Click:  Has Christianity failed. 

“Take up your cross!”  and live.  Could it be that the watered down Christian message, rather than its option for the poor, is a vital reason for the decline of Christianity?  Who needs to get up on a Sunday morning to go to church if being a Christian doesn't stand for much?

The Christian Church in the U.S. has declined 10% in the past 10 years.  Church attendance varies according to which survey is used....most believe it to be about 20-25% of its membership.  Some surveys report 40%.  The difference many surveyors contend is that most people don't want to admit that they are not regular churchgoers. 

The decline in Europe exceeds  25% in the past 30years.  According to a major survey in the 1990s, the percentage of people attending church on an average Sunday in some European countries is a mere fraction of the total population: England (27%), West Germany (14%), Denmark (5%), Norway (5%), Sweden, (4%) and Finland (4%).  I've read that it has even more dismal numbers recently.

Over the period of 1961 to 2001 the Canadian region of the worldwide Anglican Church has lost 53% of its members, with numbers declining from 1.36 million to just 642,000.

The numbers of "unchurched" people has increased rapidly in the U.S. These are individuals who have not attended church in recent months.

.'The reasons people give for changing their religion - or leaving religion altogether - differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert. The group that has grown the most in recent years due to religious change is the unaffiliated population. Two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated and half of former Protestants who have become unaffiliated say they left their childhood faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, and roughly four-in-ten say they became unaffiliated because they do not believe in God or the teachings of most religions.

Additionally, many people who left a religion to become unaffiliated say they did so in part because they think of religious people as hypocritical or judgmental, because religious organizations focus too much on rules or because religious leaders are too focused on power and money. Far fewer say they became unaffiliated because they believe that modern science proves that religion is just superstition.Why the decline?'  -Pew Forum

View this video by CNN: Christianity on the decline: 

I heard a story about a recruiter for the peace corp who went to speak at a rather affluent college.  He began his talk by revealing his lack of hope to entice any of the graduates to join.  "The graduates of this school," he explained, "are facing lives of comfort and affluence and all I have to offer is extremely difficult, grueling years of service.  He described at great length the lack of creature comforts...;.the heat, the insects, the long hours, etc....the only reward was helping people in dire need.  Almost as an afterthought, he asked those who were interested to come forward.  It was a shock to him when a huge number of the students crowded the table. 

Perhaps we should spell out more clearly what it takes to be a true Christian and ask our members to recommit.  One U.C.C. pastor in a California church required all the members to sign up for membership each year....pledging they would live up to Jesus' requirements for his followers.  That church grew!