Why Churches are Dying

[Mark H. Stevens, Th.D]

I was in church one Sunday and one of the old Missionaries was leading the early morning prayer, she cried loud and shook the rafters as she prayed. She said at one point “Lord send the sinner man into this church!” It was uttered with the utmost sincerity and piety, but she was very much wrong! God doesn’t send sinners to church! He expects US to bring people to Jesus Christ! Jesus told His disciples to pray for laborers for the sole purpose of harvesting LOST SOULS! Too many pastors expect their churches to be like “magnets” and sinners will just come to church! We must invite sinners to Jesus first and foremost, and we must also invite people to our place of worship. It is not enough to have a nice edifice! Churches HAVE to aggressively share the Gospel of Jesus in their communities. This is the primary reason Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to the church, so we could preach the Gospel and make disciples (students). Too often pastors want everyone to embrace and support HIS vision, but he forgets that others vision (purpose) helps support the church as well. Every Pastor NEEDS an EVANGELIST in their church to bring people to Christ so the PASTOR can nurture them, The TEACHER make them disciples and helps them go from milk to meat. The PROPHET inspires people to press into the perfect will of God.
(Act 1:8; Luke 5:1-11; Matt. 28:18-20; John 14:26 and John 15:26)

[Evg Tan]

This deserves a two fold answer. Yes God does send sinners into the church and yes we are to go out and get them. I am the founder of a Street Deliverance Ministry in the City of Los Angeles and yes we go out into the streets for souls, but often times lost souls have walked in off of the streets during our monthly Evangelistic Deliverance Service. When God is dealing with a soul that He has claimed as His own and ready to mold, that obedient soul while being led by God will walk into a church. When souls are so tired and in need of hope, they will walk into a church. "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that wins souls is wise" is our call to beat the pavement in parks, downtown on skid row, the dope houses, the street corners, the gang meetings, the gay bars. We are to start within our own households first, truth be told we have some lost souls living in the house with us. Then we can go to our other family members from there, on to our communities and other areas. The problem I have with the churches today is they have gotten relaxed in their salvation, waiting for someone else to do it. The spirit of slothfulness. If that's not the problem then most of our churches have lost their fire. They but God on a time clock and scared to say hallelujah past 1:30pm on Sundays. We as the body of Christ need to get ourselves together before we can bring anyone else in. Start preaching heaven and hell again and stop giving everyone a mansion here on earth. If a church service is going on and their is unity and fire in the midst God can, will and has sent souls there to be delivered so don't count out what the old pioneers believe in because in their day many souls walked in off the streets.