The church is dying?

I would like to state for the record that the church is still very much alive and well! If you cannot kill God what makes you think the church is dying? I have heard it said many times that the church is in decline. This may be true of many churches but it is not true of all churches. I have noticed that churches that are not culturally relevant are very much in decline. I have also noticed that we often accuse thriving churches of preaching some type of watered down gospel. I agree that there are churches that do this but it is not true of the majority. It is foolish of us to try and discredit what is happening in other churches when there is nothing of true value happening in ours. If the church we are in is in decline the greatest thing we can do is ask why and realize that we might be the problem. It also would do us well to ask why others are successful rather than assuming it's due to some form of compromise. I often feel as though we have lost the heart of God for reaching the lost. We have failed to realize that there is a world full of hurting and broken people looking for answers. If you have legit answers for the real problems they have you won't be able to build a building big enough to hold them. We can no longer blame our impotence in the church on "the great falling away". The truth is that we have fallen away and are holding a form of Godliness that has no power to set people free. If we are to reach the generations that are missing from the church we must engage the culture that they are living in and bring the truth of God's redemption into their messed up lives. We can no longer make excuses, that time is past...we must square our shoulders like men and be the change that needs to happen.

James