Nate

Can I have a link to your review?

And this is why teaching on the three uses of the law is important.

my administrative weakness:

Starting an email
looking something up for that email
leaving that email as an open draft for two months
Finally remembering I never sent that email.

a watched amazon delivery guy never arrives.

I'm learning, at least in my church, there is a big gap between the actual history of the church and the history that is said by those who are still there. These two different stories become a source of conflict because both can be used to leverage advantage for one's preference.

10. Lastly obsession over facilities. This doesn't necessarily mean all the facilities, it could be a particular room or a particular item like the carpet or a pulpit. Lots of fighting happens around these things, but it too is a symptom of a greater sickness.

9. Lack of purpose: The church has no vision, which means there no hope, because they don't know what they are doing or what they exist for. They need guidance to have hope, to remember why they were there in the first place.

8. Lack of prayer: In particular a lack of the members praying together. Prayer is essential to the life of the church, and when prayer stops so does everything else. It's a symptom that something has gone terribly wrong.

7. Short Pastoral Tenure: Data shows the best years of a minister are after he has been there for 5-7 years. As the church becomes sicker, those tenures are no longer possible. Pastors begin to only last 1-3 years. Its enough time for a honeymoon, and lots of frustration. He leaves.

6. As the church grew smaller, it ceased to be a place that existed for the benefit of others. Now its dominated by individuals preference as they work and politic to keep things the way they personally want them rather than what might serve the needs of others.

5. No more Evangelism: Folks use to evangelize, but now they just remember when they did, and there is no present energy from the church going into reaching anyone or inviting them into the church on a personal level or an institutional level.

4. Budget moved inwardly: folks stopped budgeting towards outreach and ministries that didn't directly serve the present congregation. All the money went into salary/building/ministries focused just on the remaining congregation.

3. The church stops looking like the community: At one time the congregation was in the community and represented the community, but over time folks moved away while still attending. (Think White Flight in Saint Louis) The next gen.(s) went to churches that were closer. the church got old.

2. Veneration of the past: Think of the folks who think the pew is important because great grandma sat there 20 years ago, but miss why the pew is there at all. The past is turned into a Hero, and everyone reminisces about then rather than what God is calling them to now.

He gives 10 Symptoms of Sickness.
1. People not noticing: They see their church day by day and don't notice the decline that has happened before their eyes and are convinced things are as good as they always were.

It's going to be a lot of work to get it back to healthy, but if I can at least get it from possibly very sick to just somewhat sick over the next 3-5 years that would be a massive victory.

This leaves us with the other 80% the ones in the 40% of somewhat sick should have efforts done to revitalize them.

The 40% that are very sick, it's a bit of a toss-up. Im currently trying to Revitalize a church that's somewhere between sick and very sick.

He claims 10% of Churches are healthy.
40% have Symptoms of Sickness
40%are very Sick
10% are Dying.

so if he's right. 40-80% of Churches in America need some degree of Revitializaiton.

The 10% that are dying, he says the best thing they can do is die well. 10% don't need revitalized.

Another thread on another book about church revitalization.
I'm basically using Blue Sky to keep track of notes as I read, so consider all of these cliff notes, and if you want the details please by the book. This time it's "Autopsy of a Deceased Church" by Thom S. Rainer.

Okay what is the deal with Christians getting into "zone healing" and "Reiki"? This is not a vin diagram I ever thought I'd have to deal with.

anyone have any experience getting grief share going in a small church?

Dealing with Hostility:

1. Good Preaching and Staying is essential
2. Many come and Preach but do not stay
3. Some Stay, but they do not Preach.
4. Listen to those who don't like your preaching
5. You need a supportive but unimpressed person to evaluate your sermons. He suggests your wife.

Simeon's story is crazy. He was appointed to a church by a bishop against the will of the congregation and they hated him. It took him 12 years to win them over.

Do you like it better than the ESV? What about the NRSV?

It's fun seeing Dr. Collins argument about the New Covenant show up in Calvin's Commentary on Isaiah 42:6

I loved your book. Very helpful and it's timing was perfect.

Lest we think this is limited to biblical characters. They then give the stories of Charles Simeon (hostility); Jonathan Edwards (apathy), and Charles Spurgeon (Adversity).

They begin by saying the notion of show up and preach faithfully and everything will be picture perfect is a form of prosperity Gospel for reformed preachers, and then show the difficulties of Moses, Elijah, and Isaiah.

Recently purchased several books on Church Revitalization. The first one I'm reading is Facing Snarls and Scowls by Brian Croft and James Carroll.

So far the argument is preaching is the most important part. However you should expect Hostility, apathy, and adversity.

The Mystery of Food Deserts They didn’t materialize around the country for no reason. Something happened.

1. The conventional explanation for food deserts—that these places are too poor or too rural to generate enough spending on groceries, or too Black to overcome racist corporate redlining — fail to grapple with a key fact: food deserts didn’t used to exist. My new piece in The Atlantic.