Today we completed lesson one of a three-part (church-wide) series titled "Why Should I 'Join' a Local Church?"
Statistics show a growing decline in church membership across America. With approximately 300,000 to 350,000 churches, the average attendance is estimated at 180 people each Sunday. The number is small because the majority of churches in the U.S. (280,000+) have weekly attendances of less than 500 and more than half of those churches (177,000) have attendances of less than 100. Most of the growth is found in the mega-churches having attendances exceeding 10,000. So what does this tell us? Why are church goers opting for the large mega churches? Could it be that people are looking for a place where they can be entertained and not be held accountable? Could it be that the motive for attending church is no longer to serve, but to be served?
Throughout the New Testament we see that the word "church" almost always is referring to a specific, local church, such as the church in Rome or the church in Corinth, or Ephesus, etc. As we looked today at numerous situations in scripture, we deduced that joining a local church and becoming a member of a local fellowship of believers was a fundamental commitment made by early Christians
Next week (lesson 2) we will look at what happens after a believer in Christ becomes a member of a local church.
No comments:
Post a Comment