Build a Better Sunday, October 1
Question/Challenge/Song/Verse
A Question
Last time around I asked for your biggest reason for optimism in the church today. This time, we go the other direction:
What do you believe is the biggest challenge facing today’s church?
A Challenge
When you attend worship tomorrow, ask at least one person how you can pray for them this week. (And then be sure to write their request down and actually do it.)
A Song
My family has taken up the habit of singing hymns on the way to worship and I couldn’t recommend it more. This week’s suggestion:
Marching to Zion
The hill of Zion yields
A thousand sacred sweets;
Before we reach the heav’nly fields,
Before we reach the heav’nly fields,
Or walk the golden streets,
Or walk the golden streets.
A Verse
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
-Jeremiah 31:33-34
The question was, "what do you think is the biggest challenge facing the church today?" How do you not list Lack of knowledge, Indifference, Identity? I have selected Leadership as the biggest problem. When we survey the brotherhood today, what do we see? Congregations are splitting, dying and embracing false patterns (instr. Music / Role of Women) due in large part to a lack of Godly (think men of the book) leadership.
God’s plan is for men to oversee the work (the sheep) in a local congregation.
The scriptures are clear in defining the work of elders. They must “take care of the church of God” (I Tim. 3:5), they are to “rule well” (I Tim. 5:17), they should be “examples to the flock” (I Pet. 5:3), they are to exercise the “oversight” of the congregation (I Pet. 5:2), without being “lords over God’s heritage” (I Pet. 5:3). They have no more important role than the duty to “watch for your souls, as they that must give account” (Heb. 13:17).
So, in simple words what might this involve: Knowing the congregation, Feeding the Flock, Watching for Souls, Rescue the Fallen, Guard against False Teachers, and Discipline the Unruly.
John Simmons, MD. Elder and member of the Lads to Leaders Board of Directors, “Leaders do not just happen; they are developed and the sooner the process starts, the better. Where will these people, these leaders come from? Will they just appear someday? The church must deal with these questions and provide a solution.”
Complacency is another reason people are too busy teaching their children sports and worldly activities rather than teaching them about God no more Bible studies in the home letting girls dress worldly not teaching them how to be Domestically inclined. Women have left the home to get a career rather than loving their husband and children and being homemakers We all need to repent and get back to the Bible because we all have left God's word and we need to do better