Tag: revival

For many years, I wrote this blog post because I firmly believed that churches and Christians were too often compromising God’s word for the sake of grace, acceptance, and tolerance. ALL of those things are good, godly qualities for Christians to embrace—unless we offer those loving qualities without the permanent help of God’s truth. Scripture teaches us to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), and most of us are better at one of those things than the other. 

A very real story of love without truth

My husband was a pastor for many, many years. I worked alongside his calling, teaching, ministering, etc. I remember the first church discussion I had on the subject of grace and truth. We were pastoring our first church, which averaged about sixty people most Sundays. When one of our teenage girls became pregnant, everyone in the church was aware of the situation. She had grown up in the church, her parents were in the church, and her pregnancy quickly became a discussion. People were, as you can imagine, in two different camps. When it came time for the baby to be born, some wanted the church to host her baby shower, just like we traditionally did for someone else. (By the way, one of those someone else’s was me!) The discussion centered around, “Are we offering love and grace, or condoning and rewarding sin?” “Are we joyfully accepting the mom with forgiveness, or are we accepting/tolerating her choice?” And finally, “What’s the best thing we could do for that baby?”

As with most church discussions, everyone was a little bit right and a little bit wrong. I was twenty-six years old and a very inexperienced Christian and preacher’s wife. I knew how grateful I was to have had that baby shower for my first child, and I wanted that young teenager to have the same help as well. She wasn’t nearly as involved in the church as her parents, and I thought this might be a way to help her return to church, which could bless her life and eventually her baby’s life. I was too young and too confused to be of much help. I wish I could bring my older, wiser self into that important discussion.

We should have ministered to that young teenage mom and helped her out. I wouldn’t, however, have thrown the “party.” It seemed good in theory, but it just didn’t honor the biblical truth of God’s word. We should have loved that young teen and blessed her with gifts, but we should also have taken the time to tell her why we couldn’t celebrate with her like we wished we could. That young woman received love, gifts, and encouragement but never returned to the church while we were there. What she needed, even more than formula, diapers, bottles, and onesies, was the knowledge that God wanted to redeem her wrong choice, forgive her sin, and come back to a righteous, holy relationship with him as her Lord. Everything we gifted her was used up in those first months, and we failed to give the eternal gifts that would have changed her and her baby’s lives. 

As a church, we made a mistake. The discussion was whether or not we should offer love and grace or the truth about sin. We decided to choose the first option, and we didn’t have the right to make that choice. God’s word told us that he wanted us to do both.

Interestingly, that is the new direction we see the church taking. And the younger generations are leading the way!

Genuine, life-controlling faith is making a comeback

A recent article from Barna research has been widely used as encouraging news for God’s people and his purpose. The article begins by noting a “historic reversal” for the church in America in recent years. Barna reports, “For the first time in decades, younger adults—Gen Z and Millennials—are now the most regular churchgoers, outpacing older generations, who once formed the backbone of church attendance.”

Why are young people coming back to church? The Barna article says, “For decades, older adults—Boomers and Elders—were the most reliable churchgoers. Today, the pattern has shifted. Gen Z and Millennials, often labeled as disinterested in faith, show the highest levels of regular attendance.”

There has been a lot of discussion about this new trend. Older adults have often felt disenfranchised by the newer trends in worship. They like hymns and the theology of hymns better than they like the newer choruses. They prefer the reverence of vertical worship directed toward God more than the focus on horizontal relationships with fellow worshippers. Their preference is what people over fifty were taught was meaningful worship while growing up in the church.

Most of today’s young people began coming to church with the goal of community, and they still do. What is changing is their new yearning for genuine, strength-building faith. College campuses are having amazing revival experiences. Young people have been greatly influenced by the internet, but they have also realized that it has reams of false information that just isn’t truth. The places young people have looked to for guidance have often let them down.

That is crucial information for everyone. When younger generations are returning to church, they will need to be able to look to the older generations to tell them that a vital relationship to church and God’s word really works. Sadly, the faithful numbers in the older generations are growing smaller each Sunday.

Is that what young people see on faces when they come to your church? Are the older people truly worshipping, or are they simply warming their spot until it’s time for Sunday School (or whatever your church calls Sunday School)? Do they see happy marriages that actually made it fifty+ years and know that maybe they could have that too? And, most importantly, are they hearing and being taught that the richest blessings in life are a by-product of a faithful, albeit imperfect, whole-hearted commitment to walking each day with God’s direction in obedience to God’s biblical truth?

Genuine faith is always about speaking the truth in love.

In many ways, things are improving

I loved the Barna article, and I hope you will follow the link and read it for yourself. It was hopeful, but it was also convicting. We can study the truth of the trend, but we should also ask God’s Holy Spirit to convict our hearts with that truth.

These are important days, and we must be ready to serve this trend with foundational values. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t need to be reminded that we exist to be disciples, witnesses for the gospel truth of God’s word.

Vintage Faith

I hesitate to say this last thing, but I’m going to do it anyway. I don’t for one minute want someone to think this is why I wrote this blog post. That said, one of the reasons I loved the Barna article is that it affirmed and confirmed God’s calling in my own life. I spent most of last year writing a Bible study workbook called Restoring Vintage Faith. Henry Blackaby’s book Experiencing God had a huge impact on me as a young preacher’s wife. God used, and continues to use, those lessons in my life today. 

I wrote Restoring Vintage Faith because I wanted to teach this: The Bible has been unchanging, proven truth for thousands of years. If it has always been true for God’s people it is still truth today. Hence the title, Restoring Vintage Faith.

I felt this was an important workbook to print so that it could become a valued resource that someone could return to over and over. As you know, we are a non-profit and rely solely on the donations of those who consume our content. This study is being offered as a thank-you gift for a donation. I hope and pray that it will do for others what Experiencing God did for my spiritual life. 

Please know, I’m not selling a book with this blog post. I just want to let you know it is there if you or someone you know needs to seek God’s truth for the first time or return to God’s truth with renewed conviction. God’s word is truth, given to us because of his great compassion and love. Obedience is our best life and our highest joy this side of heaven because obedience is the path to blessing. 

Our job as disciples is to speak the truth with love. God has renewed my calling and conviction to this ministry of sharing God’s biblical truth.

How will you do that for the rest of your life?