“In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:13–14, CSB)
For almost 4 decades I have followed a multitude of studies indicating a significant decline in church attendance and membership in the United States. On close examination of the extant data, I note the following little-known trends: as significant as the overall drop in membership and attendance has been, faithful churches who proclaim the gospel without equivocation still thrive. The Gospel finds eager hearers among the young today. The message doesn’t have to be reinvented, for the decline is found primarily where the bible has been abandoned.
The problem is not with the Gen Y and Gen Z. Youth today do not generally have low esteem for the Church. The fact is they have no opinion of the Church whatsoever. Most have no clue about Jesus Christ because they haven’t really heard about Him. They are not, as a group, closed to hearing the Gospel but have instead never heard it. When the Gospel is faithfully and lovingly proclaimed it is precisely the message that these generations are ready to hear. But they will reject local churches who do not live what they proclaim; they want an authentic Church.
So, why the decline? One must look at where the decline has come and in contrast where growth still occurs. Most of the decline is due to the implosion of the mainline denominations. They have lost 50% of their attendance in the last decade. They have overwhelmingly exchanged biblical Christianity for a counterfeit. The message that dominates their pulpits and seminaries is, in fact, an atheist message: positing a metaphorical god who only exists as an idea in the mind and not as the true persons of the Trinity. They teach a re-imagined Christ without divinity, without atonement and without the bodily resurrection. The catholic faith has become an embarrassment to them. So, why would anyone be interested in such a dead faith without a Savior and without the risen Christ? What value is there in a post-Christian heresy proclaiming that God cannot act and leaving political action as the only course to a better world. Such dead theology in a non-personal god is obviously not worth pursuing. For unless we meet the living God in the Church, it has nothing to offer young or old alike.
Our world craves the Good News. In the Incarnation, Christ Jesus took on His human flesh out of His great love for the world. On the cross Christ Jesus is the atoning sacrifice and Himself the priest. The empty tomb is the promise of our eternal life. The reconciliation of the world can only be accomplished through Him. And we can only obtain salvation through faith in Him. The message does not need revision, it needs proclaiming.