The COVID-19 pandemic continues to shake and shape the world, so much sickness, death and economic destruction. Our first concern should be the hurting, but often our thoughts turn more inward. I am concerned about life after the pandemic, but maybe not in the way you may think.

As your Associational missionary, I am first deeply committed to following Christ and join Him in accomplishing His clearly stated mission. I wrote in last month’s journal that “If our agenda is anything other than glorifying Christ by fulfilling the Great Commission and the Great Commandment we will get derailed into matters that divide us rather than unite us. Those commands bring us together.” It is to that end that I will always seek to serve.

While many say that “things will never be the same” I am less concerned that the church will forever changed by this pandemic but rather am more concerned that we will snap right back into our old ways. In my lifetime as a student of history and trends, the best predictor of future behavior is the immediate past. Ed Stetzer writes, “While history doesn’t always repeat itself, it does tend to rhyme.”

WE MUST NOT GO BACK TO NORMAL. Instead, we must learn and take the BEST of what we are seeing now and continue those things (like live streaming our services) focusing on small group discipling, reaching people street by street in our neighborhoods, and using other online technologies to accomplish some meetings and allow people to be at home instead of away from home.

WE MUST CONTINUE TO DEPLOY THE CHURCH. Small Group/Sunday School leaders/Deacons are functioning like servant leaders/lay pastors to engage and care for the flock. I have seen people caring for one another more. I think God could be using this time to raise up NEW LEADERS (I Timothy 3) for a NEW NORMAL. I don’t want to go back to our consumer driven church that exists on the preferences of members like a country club.

WE MUST APPRECIATE GATHERED WORSHIP BUT NOT MAKE IT AN IDOL. Gathered worship IS one of the marks of a biblical church. When it was taken from us, it was hard. But look at how people have DEPLOYED in serving! WE

DON’T WANT TO LOSE THE SCATTERED CHURCH AS WE RETURN TO THE GATHERED CHURCH!

We have been given a chance in a fresh, new way to JOIN JESUS IN HIS MISSION! It’s a chance to be better and do better. Let’s not miss this...the eternity of countless souls are at stake.

I love serving alongside you.

Following Him,

JIM

I know nearly everyone is struggling mightily with the quarantines and social distancing caused by COVID-19. Nerves are growing short. Tempers are beginning to flare. Nationwide, the most increased occurrence in crime over the last month has been a spike in domestic violence. Suicides are on a steep rise. Drug and Alcohol abuse is even MORE rampant.

This is unsustainable. We need a new perspective. We need an attitude of praise.

I have enjoyed partaking of MANY services while at home and I am extraordinarily impressed with how our Pastors have adjusted to a new season on ministry using social media. One of the Pastors I love to hear is the incomparable senior pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, GA, Dr. Crawford Loritts. He spoke on the power of praise in the midst of COVID-19. His focal passage was God’s deliverance of Judah from 2 Chronicles 20.

The following are 7 Benefits Of Praise During The Coronavirus COVID-19 as provided by Dr. Crawford Loritts:

1. Praise gets our focus off ourselves and back on God.

2. Praise brings us to a place of humility.

3. Praise makes the enemy run.

4. Praise leaves no room for complaining.

5. Praise makes room for God’s blessing.

6. Praise invites God’s presence.

7. Praise also paves the way for God’s power and brings refreshment to our hearts and minds.

This is the mindset we must take as we continue toward re-entry in our churches. Much planning is taking place to help every church prepare so that we can have a safe place for people to gather in the coming days/weeks. Each church will make making decisions about meeting and addressing the guidelines from the CDC and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

It’s too easy to lean into being critical, calling into question the motives of others and feed into the hate and negativity that already exists on all types of media. WE HAVE TO BE DIFFERENT! WE HAVE TO BE BETTER! THIS IS THE TIME FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD TO STAND OUT with a VOICE OF PRAISE....HITTING OUR KNEES IN PRAYER...AND SERVING OUR COMMUNITY THROUGH ACTS OF THE GOSPEL THAT POINT PEOPLE TOWARD JESUS! So many wonderful stories are being told through our churches and the great sacrifices that are taking place to help our vulnerable population! Watch our Facebook wall for story after story on this!

In the meantime...let’s adopt an attitude of PRAISE as we re-enter our buildings and take that spirit of PRAISE back into our communities! THAT may be the greatest result of COVID-19 to the local church...WE EMBRACE THAT THE CHURCH IS AT IT’S BEST WHEN WE ARE SCATTERED! It has made us appreciate the opportunity to GATHER.

I hope you are following the 40 Days of Prayer many of our churches have been involved with during this time as we pray for a cure, for those who are hurting, for those who are lost and far from God, and for God to REVIVE HIS CHURCH! As I write this today we are 20 days in...I am looking forward to what is next and I commit to following Christ each step of the way with the spirit of PRAISE for all that he has done...all that He is doing...and all that He WILL DO IN US...THROUGH US...and DESPITE US!

I love this song by Hezekiah Walker: “EVERY PRAISE IS TO OUR GOD, EVERY WORD OF WORSHIP IN ONE ACCORD...EVERY PRAISE...EVERY PRAISE IS TO OUR GOD! SING HALLELUAH TO OUR GOD! GLORY HALLELUHAH TO OUR GOD! EVERY PRAISE, EVERY PRAISE IS TO OUR GOD! GOD MY SAVIOR! GOD MY HEALER! GOD MY DELIVERER! YES HE IS YES HE IS!

I can’t wait to hear the voices of praise as we GATHER and as we SCATTER!

Following Him,

JIM

JIMS JOURNAL APRIL 2020

WOW...HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED IN THE LAST THREE WEEKS! It beckons me to think back to Esther 4:14 (CSB) “If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father’s family will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.”

Former General Colin Powell wrote that “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”

We are in phase one of this crisis. We have not seen the worst yet. We are in a TRIAGE situation where we are scrambling to determine how we operate while we are out of a regular meeting pattern (The expectation is a minimum of 8-12 weeks). TRIAGE involves stabilizing your local situation. It means you hit PAUSE (NOT CANCEL) and PIVOT. We are not going to be able to do things the way we have always done them, but we have a great opportunity to try some new methods to communicate the greatest story ever told at a time where I believe people are going to be seeking HELP, HOPE, PRAYER like never before in my lifetime. This phase will ideally last (for those who are proactive) 2-3 weeks.

Phase two is we look to RENORMALIZE. We are going to prepare and plan for a “NEW NORMAL” as a people moving forward...to join Jesus in His mission. We can either choose to join Jesus or we will be left behind. PERIOD. Each year over 4400 churches close. I expect that number to be over 10,000 this year. Much of that will depend on people’s willingness to join Jesus in His mission to redeem a lost world. (see my four M’s later in the article) Phase three is to MOBILIZE. I said earlier that we are not at the worst of the crisis. Currently, as I am writing this, we are about two to three weeks away (into late April). It is impossible at this moment that I am writing this to see into a crystal ball and tell you how long it will take churches and our nation to recover from this. In the meantime, while we are assessing and doing triage and seeking to create a new normal, the mission of Christ goes on. We have ministry and mission ongoing in our communities that is going to be more important than ever. Those of you who have food pantries, your need are going to intensify exponentially. The same will be true of clothing rooms. Our inner city missions, the Moore Activity Center, The Cornerstone Fellowship (Covington), First Baptist Covington Ninth Street, Ninth Street Baptist (Covington), Oak Ridge and others are regular feeding sites for the homeless and children who are out of school (Help us add to this list by reporting any activity in your community). We are going to need to rally around them to help these missions through a season nobody expected. This is true of ALL our missions, including your Association staff and all the LOCAL ministries we support. The NKBA is taking immediate steps to cut back our budget 20% to anticipate possible shortfalls and then evaluate every 30 days. BUT AT THIS TIME NO NKBA missions (ongoing) are being negatively impacted. The NKBA is totally dependent upon the gifts of our churches to

continue supporting a wide range of ministries in our region, including our church plants and language missions (Chinese, Burmese, African Immigrant, Hispanic, Korean).

The fourth phase is FUTURIZE. This is when we can truly begin to recover and re-emerge as a NEW, leaner, more efficient, more focused ministry arm for Christ, taking back ground that has been lost and advancing for the cause of Christ!

All of this can be framed around the following: MEETINGS (using digital and other formats) that we will adjust with our delivery system, MESSAGING (using phones, social media, and everything at our disposal to communicate HOPE, POSITIVITY, ENCOURAGEMENT, HELP, and to NOT ADD TO ALL THE NOISE already going on in our media driven society. Most of that produces fear and panic and we need to encourage FAITH and PRAYER! MINISTRY (looking at local needs in mission, resourcing families and parents, to tell the story of Jesus in the way we LIVE, LOVE, and SERVE!). Connect with local schools and agencies and work hand in hand to build bridges of relationships that lead to Gospel conversations with a serving towel over our arms. Finally, MONEY. It takes money to do ministry. But we are being forced to look at this in a new way, from new ways of giving (online, etc..) to talking about money from a biblical viewpoint, of GENEROSITY and stories of God’s amazing grace in difficult times. We serve JEHOVAH JIREH-GOD IS OUR PROVIDER! IN HIM WE TRUST!

Here is my prayer for you all:

May the Heavenly Father, God of Creation keep and sustain us in all ways and at all times, including the next few weeks and months of uncertainty. May the Savior Jesus Christ, in whom all things hold together, grant us healing by His miraculous power to bring life and health out of what is intended for death and suffering. May the Holy Spirit soak us with the peace that passes understanding. And may the Church recommit to dependence on God’s provision in all things and at all times and recommit to joining JESUS in His redemptive mission like never before. In Jesus name, Amen.

Follow our social media pages:

Facebook: NKBA Northern KY Baptist Association and Praying For NKY

Instagram: 10K4NKBA (Jim Woolums)

Twitter: @NKBAJWool

You Tube Channel: Northern Kentucky Baptists

Our greatest days are ahead! Pray with us...pray for us...and let’s take back ground that we have lost and claim it for JESUS!

Your Lead Follower, JIM

I’ve been reading Will Mancini’s new book “YOUNIQUE: Designing the Life that God Dreamed for you” and it has been just rich with some great instruction. Here are a few thoughts I felt would be good as we are at the front end of the “Roaring 20’s.”

Parker Palmer, in his book Let Your Life Speak, makes this statement as he recounts evaluating his life around mid-life: “I realized that I was doing an incredibly noble job of living someone else’s life.” Those words are haunting. For far too many of us, those words name exactly what we sense to be true deep inside. Who we have become and who God designed us to be are two very different people. With all the best intentions in the world, we have nobly become someone we are not.

Professor Howard Hendricks (who has done more for Christian education than just about any other person over the past 100 years and was Professor of Christian Leadership at Dallas Theological Seminary) knew just how easy it was to become someone you’re not. So to help his students think about their lives, he would draw a funnel on the chalkboard. At the top of the funnel he would draw several Xs and tell his students, “These are all the things you can do. ” Then he would draw one large X at the bottom of the funnel and say, “This X is the one thing you must do.”

After Professor Hendricks let the diagram sink in, he delivered his lesson. “The more successes you have in your life, the more can-dos fill up the top of your funnel. But most opportunities are distractions in disguise. If you’re not careful, you will spend your entire life doing all the things you can do and never find the one thing you must do. So what’s the one thing you must do?”

What burns within you that you can’t deny? What lives in you that you must let out?

Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “The two most important days in life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”

So, if calling is about what you can’t help but do, then your convictions are the things you can’t do without. Calling answers the “what” question of our lives: what am I called to do? Convictions, also called “values,” answer the “why” question of our lives: why am I called to it? Your calling and convictions name the essence of your unique identity. Without these things, life is numb— we exist but we don’t truly live. The fire shut up in our bones ultimately consumes us. We live lesser lives and become a lesser version of ourselves.

I don’t know about you, but as I head into this decade (and it may be my last of serving in this capacity) I can’t afford to be a lesser version of who God created me to be. I want to be EVERYTHING He created me to be! The ONE THING I MUST DO? BE THE DISCIPLE OF JESUS HE CREATED ME TO BE...as a father, grandfather, friend, and Barnabas (son of Encouragement). That means LIVING, LOVING, and SERVING like Jesus. No time for the things I CAN DO, but all my focus has to be on the ONE THING I MUST DO! How about you?

Your Lead Follower, 

 Jim

Helen Keller, a great woman of faith who, though both blind and deaf, left a lasting legacy in our world, was once asked if there was anything worse than being blind. Her response? “Yes, being able to see but not having any vision.”

It’s a remarkable statement if you think about it. Here was a woman who couldn’t see but had so much vision for her life. It’s a statement that pierces through the ability that so many of us often take for granted every day and points us to a greater reality that too few of us ever really take hold of. We know how to see, but we lack vision.

When it comes to seeing and vision, clarity is essential. Which is why so many of us wear glasses. Even if we don’t have any problems with our eyesight, most of us wear glasses of some kind. Some of us wear prescription glasses because we are near-sighted or far-sighted. Lots of us wear sunglasses, because on a bright summer day the glare of the sun keeps us from seeing clearly without them. Some of us wear fake glasses, because we believe we look more scholarly or just plain better with glasses on. But another pair of glasses we sometimes wear is 3D glasses.

Whether we are headed to watch the newest release of Star Wars, Avengers or Toy Story, there is just something that comes to life when we watch these movies in 3D. The glasses look and feel a little goofy at first, but if you have ever tried to watch a 3D movie without them you know just how important the glasses are. Without the glasses, the film is more of a blur than a movie. But with the glasses on, everything comes into focus.

I think that what happens in the theater also happens in our lives. Too many of us are watching a 3D version of our life in two dimensions. God is writing a story in our world and wants to write the story of our lives that leaps off the pages of Bible and into the places we live, work, and play. But for many of us, all we see is a blur.

What do you see when you look at your life? For some of us, all we can see are the obstacles, challenges, and opportunities that are standing right in front of us. We’re living kind of near-sighted...able to see clearly what we’re facing right now but incapable of seeing beyond it. For others, we live kind of far-sighted...with a clear vision for the future, but all the obstacles we face each day get in the way of us arriving at a preferred future.

But what if we all could live with a vision for tomorrow that not only inspires us to our future but helps us know what do right now? What if we all could live with 20/20 Vision for Life? Aware of who God has made us to be. Completely committed to what God has called us to do. Compelled by an exciting picture for the future, one that makes the future more than a wish. What if your future was a God-dream that not only came into greater focus and became more real each day but also left a legacy beyond the years of your life?

This is 20/20 Vision for Life. Since this IS the year 2020...what better time than to seek out a clear vision and to hear the call to live your life for all that God designed it to be. It’s a call to stop settling for a lesser version of you than God had in mind when He crafted you in His imagination before you were born. It’s a call to get a clear view of who you are and what you were made for. It’s a call to step into that version of you with the kind of confidence that not only changes you but the entire world around you. See, God has been having a dream about your life from the beginning of time. So why settle for anything less? This is 20/20 Vision for Life, and it’s time for you to get a clear view of the true you.

The NKBA will have a Training Day on  January 18 from  9AM to noon. Training will be provided how you can use God’s Word and Will Mancini’s new book “YOUNIQUE” to help others to find clarity in their personal mission. I look forward to embarking on a great journey in 2020 with you to join Jesus in His mission!

Your Lead Follower, 

 Jim

Hi, I'm Dennis Pethers, the Founder and International Pioneer of The Rooftop www.therooftop.org
I want to invite you to a special event that is taking place at the Garden of Hope in Covington on Sunday 8th September 2019 at 6.00pm.
I invite you to join with me and many others from churches across Northern Kentucky, to gather together high on the hillside overlooking the city of Cincinnati.  As we gather together, we will look across the city and seek a fresh vision of God's heart for the lost who are beyond the walls of church.  There are so many people who don't know Jesus and these people face a lost eternity and don't even know it!  Somebody must tell them before it is too late.  
As we look across the city we will also engage in an ENCOUNTER with God,  we will cry out to the Lord and ask Him to help us to see these people as He sees them and then to be willing to Join Jesus in His Mission to 'seek and to save the lost' (Luke 19:10)
This special event is one of numerous Rooftop ENCOUNTERS that have been taking place across the United States and around the world over the past 5 years.  It is a significant step towards a unique event that is happening across the word in 2020.
On 10th October 2020, a global event is taking place that we pray could awaken the church across the world to join Jesus in His Mission and make disciples beyond the walls of the church.  This event is The Rooftop GLOBAL ENCOUNTER a unique event that will be taking place in up to 100 countries across the globe.  Christians will be gathering in cities, towns and villages across the America's, Africa, Europe and Asia and asking God to fill them with His passion for the lost and then be willing to Join Jesus in His Mission.
I hope, like me, that you long to see an awakening that will raise the church from her slumber into a new movement of evangelism and disciple making that will change the world.  To be a part of this, please make it a priority to be at the Garden of Hope and come prepared for God to change you and through you to change the world.
I lam looking forward to seeing you.

Dennis Pethers
International Pioneer

Two thousand years ago Jesus Christ broke into history and paid the ultimate price to seek and save lost people. He began a movement…

…Today, He is looking for followers who will become part of the movement, to join Him in His Mission to make disciples—everywhere!

The Rooftop is a global movement that is giving Christians a new passion and desire to Join Jesus in His Mission. To see lost people as Jesus sees them and then, with Christ-like compassion, to tell them the good news and make disciples of people who are beyond the walls of the church. The Rooftop is led by our good friend Dennis Pethers.  Dennis will be leading us as he has led so many other Rooftop gatherings around the country and around the world.

On September 8, 6:00 PM at The Garden of Hope (699 Edgecliff Street) in Covington we are asking all the churches of the NKBA to join together for ONE NIGHT to pray over our region for those who are lost and far from God and to covenant to JOIN JESUS in HIS MISSION of making disciples.

The vision for the NKBA is to see 10,000 NEW DISCIPLES through our churches over the next ten years. (#10K4NKBA) This will NOT be possible without the people of God gathering in brokenness to pray over the vast lostness that exists in our area. The number of unreached people varies between 68-85% of all those who live in our NKY counties.

My hope is that we will have hundreds of people gather to pray and that we will see a harvest that is greater than any of us can imagine.

Our greatest days are ahead!


Your Lead Follower,

Jim

I’ve been reading Ephesians a lot lately and have been working on some messages on the theme of what I see as the greater calling of God to MORE for today’s follower of Christ and His Church! MORE of HIS GRACE…HIS LOVE…HIS MERCY! Every great gift demands a great response. What is our response to the great gift of Jesus? “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him will have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

I celebrate 43 years of ministry this year (and 38 years of marriage to my wife Pegge). I’ve learned a few things along the way, most of them from my mistakes. Time and time again when I have been ready to throw in the towel, I have seen the hand and grace of God reaching down into my story….reminding me that even in my failure and sin, God is not done with me. Neither is he done with you! If you’ve still got breath in your body, that means you’ve got purpose in your chest. He has called you to MORE! Despite your failures and sins as an individual and we as a church, He’s not done with us! If He was done with YOU, you wouldn’t have gotten up this morning. It wasn’t the alarm clock that got you up. It was the GRACE OF GOD!

Jesus comes and calls you to MORE, not just from failure, but He also calls you from your comfort. In reflection, I see one of the biggest threats to our lives as followers of Jesus as well as His Church to walking into your Kingdom calling and purpose is not your failure, but your comfort. We have gotten so comfortable in our holy huddles that we have missed joining God as He is at work right around us in our Jerusalem.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross to give you comfort; He died on the cross to bring you into the Kingdom, to His purpose and mission. Our comfort was NEVER His goal or intention. We have allowed ourselves to become distracted by so many things that have NO eternal significance that we have missed the divine invitation to MORE. We miss the invitation for the GREATER because we have settled for the LESSER.

It’s time for us to be refocused as followers of Jesus on His mission and not our comfort, convenience, or the illusion that we are in control. GOD IS! HIS mission trumps our petty preferences and with so many lost and far from God around us, we have no room for being comfortable. I’m convinced that so many Christians have been Christians for so long, and in the church, that we have forgotten what it was like to be lost and far from God, without any hope of an abundant life today or an eternal life tomorrow.

God is ready to work. Every great gift demands a great response. What will our response as His church be?

It is a joy to be working alongside you in this mission!

Following HIM,

JIM

Last week the research department at LifeWay released the results for the 2018 SBC Annual Church Profile Data. Unfortunately, the data and change is not good. This will make 12 consecutive years of losses in membership, churches, and baptisms (in some statistics it could go back 20 years as the decline has slowly eaten away in our convention). This is not shocking news to me because I have always been fascinated by statistics and the stories they tell. I recognize that statistics can often be shaded to tell a story that fits a particular groups narrative. In this case, I find no such good news no matter who is trying to spin it. Straight up...if the people of God don’t wake up soon we are facing absolute and total irrelevance. While I believe and have EVERY HOPE in the GOSPEL and the one who embodies it JESUS, and while I believe that the church of Jesus and its mission WILL PREVAIL (read the GOSPELS and the last chapter of the NT, Christ WON over sin and death and ultimately the battle), there is not a lot of good news on the immediate condition of His church or His mission.

That all being stated, it makes the challenge I placed before our churches at the Fall meeting of 2018 for each church to re-commit themselves to the GREAT COMMISSION and seek to engage those lost and far from God all around our churches and communities. I challenged our churches to baptize 10,000 NEW DISCIPLES over the next 10 years (#10K4NKBA)! Each local church pastor has been sent a goal to reach that is based on each church’s history. If you want to know what the goal for your church is, feel free to contact us at the NKBA and we will share that information with you, but I hope your pastors have already done so.

To me, this all comes down to OBEDIENCE. Are we willing to be obedient to Christ and His Command? Are we willing to live under His Lordship? Do we REALLY BELIEVE that the Bible is the Word of God? If so, why aren’t we obedient to the absolute clarity of the call to “Love one another” and to “Make Disciples?”

In five years as your DOM and in 42+ plus years of ministry experience in the local church I see many churches operating with an insider mentality, one of scarcity, not abundance, and overwhelmingly decisions are being made because of COMFORT (personal preferences), CONVENIENCE (don’t ask me to do something I’m uncomfortable with even IF the Bible DOES say so), and CONTROL (I WANT WHAT I WANT! PERIOD!) The legend Pastor, Warren Wiersbe said, “Sometimes God’s greatest judgment is to give us what we want.” I believe this is why the church is in the situation that it is in America. We have followed the same path that Christians in Europe did and we have a very similar result...to a great extent MANY CHURCHES ARE DEAD AND DYING (NOT the churches that are walking in OBEDIENCE, but the ones who are walking in DISOBEDIENCE)!

Pastor Michael Catt at Sherwood Baptist Church in Georgia said, “This trend will continue and the downward spiral will increase IF WE DON’T REPENT and cry out for God to revive His church. Our dependence on “programs” have gotten us in this mess. PRAYER IS THE KEY TO GET US OUT OF IT!”

AMEN...SO BE IT! My prayer his that whatever it takes to get our attention, I pray God will do it. We have little margin to work with...people are dying and going to Hell while many of our churches and leaders act as if they do not care. Can I say it any more clearly?REPENT...PRAY...OBEY! There is NO OTHER WAY! WAKE UP SLEEPING CHURCH! FOLLOW JESUS!

Your Lead Follower,

JIM

 "I didn't see it coming..." Which is what I hear SO MANY people say as their church declines (and a record number close) over many years because these things tricked them into believing their church was OK. So they did not need to make any changes:

1) The church has money. (Money in the bank has nothing to do with congregational health. In fact, it often points to sickness, even to the point of death. What are we going to do with it? Take it with us?) 

2) Members still had their friends in the church. (This is called a HOLY HUDDLE)

3) Guests still came to the church. (BUT they never came back)

4) Mission giving was still good. (If a church is no longer reaching anyone in the community who is lost and far from God, you simply can't continue to live)

5) Meetings were well attended. (Same people come and nothing is accomplished).

I am deeply concerned for churches that are in denial about their present situation and circumstance. It’s no time to blame culture or anyone else, but the time to get on your knees, cry out to God, and REPENT of not doing the mission that Jesus gave to the local church (Make Disciples/Seek and to save that which was lost).

Read Thom Rainer's book "Autopsy of a Deceased Church" It is sobering. Five years ago that book was published and it is a surgical view of the situation faced by thousands of churches across the country and more than a few right here in our Jerusalem. It is better for a church to recognize and acknowledge decline and decay and DO SOMETHING, than to pretend that everything is going to be ok if we just keep the doors open. THAT is NO WAY to do the mission of Christ.

I read a book within the past few years that I am re-reading now (much like Rainer’s Autopsy) entitled, Change (Your Church) or Die by Josh Hunt. One thing that I am becoming increasingly convinced of is that in many of our churches, PEOPLE FEAR CHANGE MORE THAN THEY FEAR HELL. Not necessarily their own eternity (they believe they are saved and safe), but to make any changes in the church to keep people out of Hell is not relevant or personal to them, so they just don’t care. They weigh their personal preferences over the eternity of those who are lost.

Change is constant. That is a fact. The only unchanging aspect of the Christian life is God Himself, His Word, and His mission. (Hebrews 13:8, Matthew 28:18-20, Luke 19:10) Your church is perfectly tuned to get the results you are now getting. If you keep doing what you have been doing, you will keep getting what you have been getting. PERIOD…

Life is a series of choices. Churches die because of decisions people IN those churches make. I am praying constantly and crying out to God that churches recognize their situations, REPENT and RETURN TO THE MISSION…RETURN TO THEIR FIRST LOVE…and let God change us and His church to reach those who are lost and far from Him.

Your Lead Follower,

JIM