I’m pretty sure that’s what the Pharisees would have said about the Early Church too, Dennis.

we are truly in the falling away where almost anything and almost everything goes in the house of God.

Jer 6:16  Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.

I know I know I am just and old person stuck in the past to you, but everything that passes for “church” today is not acceptable to the Lord and there will be many surprised people on judgment day thinking they were doing God’s work when in fact they were just doing their own will in His name.

I think.God wants us to be clear about who he is. He is our salvation out of a confused world. He knew we would before confused as we lived our time here. But not confused about who he is. And who we are. We are sinners every day.But out faith when we let him be a part of our life he is always there and our day is not one without him. Go quietly when he calls us home. Live a vivacious life in the meanwhile and do his work. We are one in him. He is many to many. I am a Catholic and I have learned to not just go to church faithfully. But everyday in my heart
Give him thanks.

To look at the American experience in the report “Exodus” [https://www.prri.org/research/prri-rns-poll-nones-atheist-leaving-religion/] which I think has application for the church in the West more broadly, it gives simply the most popular reason for under 18’s leaving as ” they stopped believing in the religion’s teachings (60%)” ie pretty much the attitude expressed by Gary Wearne. Well by carefully avoiding this Magasaur in the room you display a level of ignorance in the matter of recent science which has discovered God. After all if God is the truth and science is a search for truth then the two ought to come together nicely.. It was not hard for millions of new Christians over the years. Oh but I forgot to mention, we now know modern secular science is no longer searching for truth in the area of “origins”, because being married to philosophical naturalism or “Atheism” God and his miraculous works are not allowed. As an engineer with understanding of thermodynamics let me help you a little here..

The origin of all concentrations of matter in the universe (stars, galaxies, planets etc) and life are all “entropy” problems, specifically low entropy meaning ‘ordered’ states of matter. They are not just ordered but massively ordered. Now all we have do is wind the clock back and the law of increasing entropy with time declares (quite absolutely otherwise it wouldn’t be a law) that order MUST increase. Keep winding all the way to the beginning and the order MUST be a maximum. All naturalistic theories violate this principle. Only the biblical account of creation is consistent with this. You may look up for yourself the origin of any of these structures and you will find there is no explanation which does not use the words “we think” or “most likely” or “it is postulated” etc etc. Any giving a definite conclusion are just FAKE NEWS.

How do they get away with this you may ask.. peer reviewed science by many of qualified scientists and the thousands who agree! First they hide the meaning of four words:

[ ORDER, DESIGN, INFORMATION, ENTROPY ]

after which it is possible to make very big assumptions.. All of which I not only know and can respond to in any company.. but here I would remind you all of what the bible says:

“I thank you father for you have revealed these things to babes”

“He has made everything beautiful in its time, he also put eternity in the mind of man so he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end”

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside”

“the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to earth”

“He is a liar and the father of lies”

Lastly I would like to quote professor Paul Davies:
“A similar reception greeted the publication of Darwin’s theory of evolution. The claim that humans had ‘descended from apes’ (a popular but very inaccurate description of the theory) caused shock and outrage in some quarters. It was certainly a ‘big story’ by Victorian standards. The Church was no longer powerful enough to suppress the truth, but it did put up a spirited resistance in some quarters before conceding defeat.”

Even though it was known at the time the butterfly with two body plans could never evolve by any series of incremental steps fully conforming to what Darwin himself described as “if there can be found one creature that cannot evolve by gradual steps my theory fails”.. the Church was on this level DEFEATED. But Jesus said..

“I will build my Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it”

So we are now today as before faced with the question: Which Church do you belong to? I for one am one of those in the “spirited resistance” which never gave in then and will not now..

(biblical answers to questions can be found at creation.com in particular the discovery of blood cells, blood vessels, collagen and protein from T-Rex bones together with C-14 evidence finishes the case once and for all.. the creation – evolution war is now over you no longer have to apologise for he bible)

I though HEAVEN metal was quite a good idea!!

Thanks for your excellent article. I think you are right when you suggest that the tide may be turning. But it is only a slow and small change.

I think there are two key reasons for the general lack of missional fruitfulness. One is a general ‘Cultural Intelligence Deficit’ among many in church leadership. This is a failure to understand that the 20th century culture is now shattered into a mosaic of subcultures, and the one size fits all, ‘Sunday-Centric, In-Drag, Christendom-Form (SIC) model that the standard church still stubbornly clings to as the basic platform for mission is just not what is required. The need is in fact not for one (singular) new missional vehicle but a multitude of such new vehicles to match the kaleidoscope of sub-cultures which now forms Australian society.

But there is a second reason. This is that even the sub-cultures that now exist are not static but continually changing. This means that what is needed are missional vehicles which are organic and highly flexible, such that they are capable of reinventing themselves at regular intervals for today’s cultural mosaic will not be the same as that of tomorrow. This makes the missional challenge truly unique and therefore something never before faced.

I note the comments on what is happening in the UK. For some years I have been researching this and on the basis of two excellent reports by the Church Army Research Unit, I prepared a document which summarises and comments on their findings called ‘Gleanings from those ‘Already on the Road’.

The purpose of that document is to inform and stimulate current discussions on improving our missional fruitfulness. It draws on the experiences and thinking of those who have already travelled some of the journey, and in part may help us avoid reinventing the wheel, or worse the ‘Square Wheel’ (the one that didn’t work very well last time we used it!).
In case some of those engaged in the ‘new forms of church’ space may find it helpful it can be downloaded from the Unbounded Church website at Hi Mike.
Thanks for your excellent article. I think you are right when you suggest that the tide may be turning. But it is only a slow and small change.
I think there are two key reasons for the general lack of missional fruitfulness. One is a general ‘Cultural Intelligence Deficit’ among many in church leadership. This is a failure to understand that the 20th century culture is now shattered into a mosaic of subcultures, and the one size fits all, ‘Sunday-Centric, In-Drag, Christendom-Form (SIC) model that the standard church still stubbornly clings to as the basic platform for mission is just not what is required. The need is in fact not for one (singular) new missional vehicle but a multitude of such new vehicles to match the kaleidoscope of sub-cultures which now forms Australian society.
But there is a second reason. This is that even the sub-cultures that now exist are not static but continually changing. This means that what is needed are missional vehicles which are organic and highly flexible, such that they are capable of reinventing themselves at regular intervals for today’s cultural mosaic will not be the same as that of tomorrow. This makes the missional challenge truly unique and therefore something never before faced.
I note the comments on what is happening in the UK. For some years I have been researching this and on the basis of two excellent reports by the Church Army Research Unit, I prepared a document which summarises and comments on their findings called ‘Gleanings from those ‘Already on the Road’.
The purpose of that document is to inform and stimulate current discussions on improving our missional fruitfulness. It draws on the experiences and thinking of those who have already travelled some of the journey, and in part may help us avoid reinventing the wheel, or worse the ‘Square Wheel’ (the one that didn’t work very well last time we used it!).

In case some of those engaged in the ‘new forms of Church’ space may find it helpful it can be downloaded from unboundedchurch.com at the Resources section.

Blessings,

Martin Bragger
.
Blessings,
Martin Bragger

Im tired of people like you. Enjoy your church graveyard.