"The Western Church is in Trouble..." and What I Have to Say About It.

I hear/see it often online, in person, in school, in presentations, in meetings -- "the Western church is in trouble." I have one thing to say to that: obvy. Does it worry me? Not really, but that's another blog. But, let me alarm you. The Barna Study says that 3,500-4,000 churches close their doors each year in America. They also note that the church in America loses 2,765,000 people each year to nominalism and secularism.
Now, we must consider why the Western church is in trouble.
When I took my own realities into consideration, I could come up with one sole reason. But, we'll back track a little first. Here we go.

I owe an incredible amount of honor to Bible Christian Church in Garden City, Kansas and so many of her congregants for discipling me throughout my middle and high school years. Those people pointed me towards Christ, along with many other youth my age. Often times in the current, thanks to social media, I see what many of my former peers from church and school are up to. Sadly, I've also observed how many of them have fallen away from their faith. Their faith. As in, a faith they once owned and cultivated. This isn't an uncommon phenomenon. Scholars say "the Western church is in trouble" because our 20-somethings are leaving and they aren't coming back. (At least until they have children. And then some of them come back because it seems like the "right" thing to do -- to have their children in church and all. Good logic. But, not really.)

Lately, Kyle and I have been attending various churches around where we live. We were settled in one particular church for about a year and decided that our souls just needed something different. Hear me out when I say that leaving this particular church was a difficult decision to make, but we made it and have been attending churches since. It's been almost two months (the end is in sight, thank goodness) and we've attended some great churches. We've also attended some not-so-great churches.

Throughout this journey, I've discovered two things that relate to the trouble of the western church. First, from what I've observed, some pastors aren't preaching the Bible. I'm not trying to be judgmental here. I'm just being honest. We went to one particular service where the pastor didn't even read scripture and he mentioned Jesus once, in passing. (What did he preach on, you ask? I'm still wondering myself...) Second, somehow, children and youth who were raised in the church have left Jesus behind for other things. And they need to repent and come back. They just do.

The western church is in trouble for one reason: too many of her followers have forgotten who Jesus even is.