Why another stinkin church?

From time to time someone will ask me, “Why in the world would you start ANOTHER STINKIN CHURCH?! Look around, we have enough churches around here!”

Well first of all, when you look across the landscape you see buildings, not churches! The church is not a building, it is people. Christ did not die for for a bunch of two-by-fours and a pile of bricks! (Although, I have known a few church members that seemed to have the same intellect as the bricks and boards, but that is for another blog.) Christ died for people!! Repeat after me; “The church is not a building, the church is people!”

Second of all, have you noticed the traffic, or lack of it, on Sunday mornings? There are not that many people crowding the roadways, clamoring to get through the doors of most churches. Think of the difference in the traffic on a regular weekday in comparison to Sunday morning. Statistics tell us that 85% of the people in the area are not going to church on Sunday morning. There are a lot of reasons for this, but primarily we need churches that can take the message of Jesus and reach those that are the most unlikely people to go to church.

In Ed Stetzer’s book Planting Missional Churches, (this is a great book for those interested in church planting or reaching out to people in our culture) he gives us some alarming numbers.

• In 1900 there were 28 churches for every 10,000 Americans.
• In 1950 there were 17 churches for every 10,000 Americans.
• In 2000 there were 12 churches for every 10,000 Americans.
• In 2004 there were 11 churches for every 10,000 Americans. (These were the lastest numbers available at the time of printing.)

This doesn’t even take into account the fact that people attending church continues to decline.

I personally believe that those living in their 30′s and 20′s are the first two generations born and raised in a post-Christian culture here in America.

They are not going to church. What are we going to do about it?

Why don’t we become like Jesus and roll up our sleeves and get to know those people that are far from God.

If we get close enough to them without a condemning attitude, they might just see Jesus in us!

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