"Man looks at the outside but God looks at the heart," (1 Samuel 16:7). Too often, we desire an outward appearance of godliness - something any devil can muster up. If someone is perceived as being "good," we assume they are living a "holy" or "godly" lifestyle. Poor assumption for there is none good but God (Ps. 14:3; Rom. 3:12; Mark 10:18). Too often we focus on the numbers we're running in Sunday School rather than the numbers that are slowly trickling out the back door due to neglect, people who simply didn't find what they were looking for.

Christian leaders, something is rotten with the state of the ekklesia. Don't expect changes to come from among the people. As Leonard Ravenhill said, "Revival begins in the pulpit, not in the pew."

JESUS WANTS HIS CHURCH BACK

The Head of the Body is Jesus Himself. Too often, we attempt to serve Him as a consultant. Anything with two heads is a freak as you know. It's either going to be Christ or the Leadership Team at the helm. It will never be both. If we claim that it IS Jesus, working THROUGH our Leaders, then let's compare the methods of ministry, the doctrine being used and taught, to the things He did and said.

If they don't match up, logic screams that it's not Jesus.

Is there a sense of God's power and presence in your ministry (I'm not referring to goosebumps during worship or folks who speak in tongues during services but scream at each other at home)? When something apparently spiritual occurs in our midst, do we try and duplicate it again or see what other neat thing the Spirit may be wanting to do that's entirely different? Again and again we give it a title, slap a logo on an overpriced polo shirt, and charge and arm and a leg for a nicely packaged study workbook or tape series that, as one Catholic man observed regarding a radio ministry, "keeps more people from being able to afford it than can."

Over 53,000 people leave Christian churches each week (for perspective, 57,000 Americans died in the Vietnam war). Nearly 3,800 American churches close their doors annually. 43% of Christians surveyed, across denominations, say that they do NOT trust their church leaders. As supposed "fishers of men," what most churches refer to as Church Growth is little more than transfer growth as we put more effort into attracting the "churched" than we do in seeking out the "unchurched." Liken that to a preferance to eat fish at a restaurant than to catch and clean our own.

"Heaven, we have a problem!" It's one of Biblical proportions and it's happening all around us. Without Divine intervention, we are doomed. Wait a moment...Divine Intervention is all we've ever needed all along. Sadly, we've too often alienated the Divine One from our churches, preferring the traditions of men which have made His Word of no effect (Mark 7:13).