The Church is always a topic concerning spiritual tenure. Still, today, it is being duped into a statute of mediocrity by those finding more relevance in societal dominance than in the supernatural existence of God.
When you spend time looking at articles concerning America’s churches, you see those stating data and inciting on the exorbitant amount of closures or those that talk about the concern over the statistically outlined decline in numbers of those who claim to be Christians. Though one is relevant to the other, both tell a story of a Church in spiritual remise of its proprietary status.
There is an alarm to be vaulted when the data shows that for America alone, over 4,000 church closures occurred, and only over a mere 3,000 opened in 2022. But is that to be the genuine concern regarding this subject? I say no, as churches will continue to close and open, but some information in the data indicates a severe problem with the mainstream denominations.
In just over two decades, most have declined by an average of 23%. While that doesn’t appear alarming, it tells us that people are either changing their spiritual sightedness regarding religious tenures or no longer seeing a need to attend churches that still garner existence from outdated religious acts and scripturally out-of-context ministry.
We would be right if we say that it is more from the religious context than that of any scriptural debate. Typically, once people accept the standards that define their faith, they are acceptable to whatever traditions and customs support it. And yet, in a scripture alignment to the truth in the bible, the scripture itself is the primary relevance to one’s faith. Rom 10:17 Then faith is of hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
In the aspects of a decline in denominational congregations, much of the cause is from pulpits moving into what is called today a more dynamic posture that has a greater dexterity of worldly context inserted to align to the latest social trends. In other words – less literal scriptural truth and more blends of worldly exorcisms.
However, amidst all this, the elephant in the room is that mainstream churches do not revel in the work of the Holy Spirit. They maintain diligence by an institutional order. While the Holy Spirit is recognized as the interim of any ministry efforts, He is not in control. Since for centuries, that is a statute that has belonged to the facet of leadership, whether by a papal or pastoral role or an oversight committee.
If you question this, may I remind you that the Methodist Church has agonized over LGBTQ authority for quite a while and recently has divided itself because it refused to follow the truth the Holy Spirit reveals from scripture? The aged Catholic Church continues to debate the relevance of pre-mandated celibacy as its coalition of local parish attendance reels from decades of sexual expression upon its youth? These and other relevant spiritual issues result from smug leadership and its approach concerning the Holy Spirit’s church participation.
The point of this blog is that regardless of whether it’s church decline or people decline, the most evident factor is that Jesus’s efforts by the Holy Spirit have not been a paramount issue among denominations. If the Church comprised of these organizations exists by the truth as the Holy Spirit reveals, then that Church would be the most spiritually dynamic presence on earth.
BUT IT IS NOT!
As a matter of fact, the spiritual near-sightedness of denominations actually operates by a religious gambit. One that has been here for almost the whole 2000 years of Church existence. Thus, as denominations neglect His accountability to God in bringing about a world filled with a replenished population of sons and daughters, a religious facade appears placed by leadership for the sake of tenet authority.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
I hold my position on this based on the fact Scripture reveals that if the truth, as presented by the Holy Spirit, is folded out and followed through by faith among a body of believers, Christ’s power and authority would flow over all the earth, bringing forth the supernatural promises God has made to His creation.
Though salvation and the prominence of the gospel that affords it are focused upon, the one entity that manifests Christ’s power and authority, outlined as the Holy Spirit, is not rendered control. Therefore, any decline is not the result of anything He has or has not done but solely that of those leaders who see themselves as the sole spiritual authority.
If scripture has any prominence (at all) among today’s believers, then what Paul writes in the book of Ephesians is most important to a change in this status quo of Holy Spirit abstinence. Eph 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself as the glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Religious authority upheld by denominations has been the darkest spot in the history of the Church and has prevented it from being what God in His word says it is to be. But there is coming a day of change that can only occur by the truth the Holy Spirit reveals, and it will be a change so dynamic that the world will be in a state of awe as the results of it garner the presence of Christ’s power and authority supernaturally all over the world just as God says.
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