I Quit!

“Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”  Galatians 6:9

Maybe you saw the news where all nine employees quit their jobs at Burger King in Lincoln, Nebraska because they were unhappy with the management. And then making their move even more dramatic, they posted it on the sign out front of the restaurant. Crazy!

As the pandemic recedes, millions of workers are saying, “I quit!” America is now facing the great resignation of 2021 where people are rethinking their employment. In fact, according to a recent survey by career site Monster, 95% of workers are currently considering changing jobs.

But there is another great resignation movement taking place in America, where people have already said, “I quit!”

Over the last 10 years, a dramatic number of Christians have walked away from the Church and said, “I quit!” In a recent sermon, I shared the alarming number of believers who have said, “No more church!”

John Dickerson wrote a fascination book The Great Evangelical Recession where he takes four large studies (including Barna) taken over the last few years, and they all came up with the same results.

Here’s the bottom line from the research: American evangelicals are only 7% (22 million) of our 329 million population (1 in 10 Americans). Not even 10% of American Christians attend church on a regular basis (twice a month). The church will lose 70% of it’s funding over the next 20 years. The Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest denomination, in the last 10 years, has lost over 2 million members.

I got to thinking about this, if you gathered up all 22 million evangelicals in this country, we could all fit in the State of New York. Kind of a sober thought! In fact, there are slightly more evangelicals in the entire U.S. than Muslims living in the city of Cairo Egypt (21 million).

Now for the really bad news! This research took place before the COVID pandemic! Now the number of Christians who have have said, "I quit church" has gone off the charts!

For the very first time in American history, too many are saying by their actions, that they can have Christianity without church. Biblically, that’s an impossibility for the majority of Americans who can get to a church this Sunday!

It’s time we move from the great evangelical resignation to a great evangelistic reformation in America!

So how do we get Christians off the couch and back in church?

1. We must commit to the fact that every believer is the church sent into the world from the church, not from the couch! We are the salt and light that our culture desperately needs to see and experience. As believers operating as authorized ambassadors on behalf of Christ, means that we also represent the Church of Jesus Christ. It’s interesting that all studies show most Christians never share their faith if they are not connected to a church.

2. We must be convicted that the church is the only sane voice in the wilderness speaking truth, grace, and hope to our broken society. So think about it, as salt, believers must be encountered in the culture, as light, believers must be seen in the culture, and as a voice, believers must be heard in the culture.

We have just as much a right to speak up and express our biblical worldview as the next person expressing a humanistic worldview. We have too much to lose if we remain silent! Actor Jim Caviezel said, “You weren’t made to fit in, you were born to stand out!”

3. We must be convinced that no one can have Christianity without Christ. Every church must recommit to the gospel of Christ (His death, burial, and resurrection) as the only saving power for sinners.

For over 300 years, the American evangelical church has been the driving force of the moral clarity and the social conscience of our country. We need to take this very seriously – because over the last 25 years we have lost the steering wheel to this great country. And if a Holy Spirit revival doesn’t break out soon, and believers don’t get back to being Christ’s hands and feet, not from a couch, but from a church – the American evangelical bus will crash. It has already crashed in Canada and Europe!

Satan is engaging America in a quiet war, one that is so subtle that most churches haven't even recognized the war. Over the last 30 years, Satan has pretty much left us alone, and the American Church has become plump with prosperity and no longer persevering with purpose or primed with its power.

We can change that today if we all say together, "I will" instead of "I quit."

God bless you,

Pastor Dave

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