5 Listen, you people of Israel! Listen to this funeral song I am singing:
2 “The virgin Israel has fallen,
never to rise again!
She lies abandoned on the ground,
with no one to help her up.”
3 The Sovereign Lord says:
“When a city sends a thousand men to battle,
only a hundred will return.
When a town sends a hundred,
only ten will come back alive.”
4 Now this is what the Lord says to the family of Israel:
“Come back to me and live!
5 Don’t worship at the pagan altars at Bethel;
don’t go to the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba.
For the people of Gilgal will be dragged off into exile,
and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”
6 Come back to the Lord and live!
Amos 5:1-6a
Dear God, I was emailing with some friends who are pastors yesterday about a new statistic from Barna that, in 2000, 45% of Americans professed to be “practicing Christians, ” and that number has now dropped to 20%. They defined “practicing Christian” as they self identified as Christians who value their faith and attend church at least monthly. While some will object that “you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian,” it’s still a striking shift for this many people to now be out of Christian community. It makes me wonder what has replaced that community. News? Social media? YouTube? Straight up loneliness?
The pastors and I exchanged emails about the solutions to Americans’ drift away from you. What idols have we pursued and cherished? How do we get them back?
As I’ve thought about this since those emails, more questions have come to my mind: For the remnant that is left, are even we being faithful? What percentage of that 20% is actually pleasing to you in our worship and service? In our discipleship and growth? And which side of that cut line do I fall?
Before I went to bed last night, I was reminded of a question that has burned in my mind since last summer when Pope Francis found himself in some controversy when Christians did not like how he answered a question on 60 Minutes: “When you look at the world today, what gives you hope?” His answer was actually very fitting with Catholic theology and, when that theology is understood by the hearer, wasn’t wrong. But those without context were critical. But it left me to answer the question for myself: “When I look at the world today, what gives me hope?”
My best answer: You put something in all of our hearts that makes us long for you. We know we need something bigger than ourselves. We know we need something to worship. We know we need something to put our certainty in. The problem is we will be rebellious and Satan will offer us all kinds of idols that promise but fail to deliver that certainty. And he knows that we will suffer in that disappointment and it delights him. And when we are disappointed in an idol, we get angry. He loves it when we are angry because a lot of the time we will take that anger and lash out which causes division. Our hearts can be so dark! My heart can be so dark!
I’ve referenced this before, but the movie Jesus Revolution had this great scene between the old-school pastor and the hippie evangelist. The hippie tells the pastor that the other hippies are looking for the right answers (God), but they do not know they are looking for God. So they look in drugs, sex, or even just longing for a society that will reflect their values of love and peace. But they are always disappointed by these gods. Then when some of them find the real God–YOU–they are amazed.
Father, help me to know how to take the people in my immediate sphere who are looking for you but they do not know they are looking for you. Help me to know how to introduce them to you. Help your church to know how to introduce them to you as well. And when I say “church,” I don’t mean just the pastors and staff, but your people. Help that 20% of Americans who are self-professed “practicing Christians” to legitimately be discipling under your Lordship (that includes me), and help us to know how to offer you to our neighbors. Revival will not come from the top down. We cannot mandate revival. But your Spirit can stir and move. And it can grow like wildfire. Help us, Father, to grow in you so that your glory might be realized in all the earth and so that your kingdom will come and your will might be done on earth as it is in heaven. In short, to paraphrase Amos, help us to come back to you and live!
I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,
Amen
Emails to God 