There's a song. It isn't an old hymn standard or a selection from the contemporary Christian genre. It's a James Taylor/Don Grolnick tune with a haunting premise, "That Lonesome Road". It's about being on that lonesome road because of burned bridges. It poses a group of rhetorical questions about how being on that "lonesome road" happened. Taylor released it in the 1981 album "Daddy Loves His Work". You can catch Taylor's You Tube version here.
The entire song evokes deep reflection. One verse is particularly profound. "If I had stopped to listen once or twice. If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes. If I had cooled my head and warmed my heart. I'd not be on this road tonight". The line, "If I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes" crashes on me with mega weight. As we ponder and think through the condition of the American church these days there's a lot of open mouths and closed eyes. What is more, if we look around, stop some of the verbiage, and practice the theological discipline of discernment, the answers are not as perplexing as we'd like to make them. Hey church! We must open our eyes!!!
So, churches are closing at the rate of 15 per week, 85% are plateaued or declining, all the measured demographics are trending downward, including baptisms, and we're all running our mouths---deliberating, debating, deciphering, declaiming, and all the other buzz words of the fortress church. Everybody has an opinion about the times, including me. But, all the lip-service demonstrates a head in the sand ignorance of simply connecting the biblical dots. It's not rocket surgery, church. Lets open our eyes and observe the obvious.
Think about the harvest. Jesus said it was plentiful (see Luke 10:2). He told them to pray for workers in the harvest fields. So, OBVIOUS FACT 1 is that there must be a need for workers to be deployed to the fields. Paul wrote about the harvest in two or three places too. He wrote, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth"
(1 Corinthians 3:6). We love to debate this one too, whether it's a about harvest or about spiritual maturity. Get a life! OBVIOUS FACT 2 is that only God can make any- thing grow in either case. Now, connect the dots.
If the harvest is plentiful, and only God can make a harvest, and we're to pray for workers in the harvest field, there must be a conclusion. What is it? The reason for dismal numbers, not that numbers are always the definitive story, must be that (1) we're not going to the fields, (2) we're not sowing seed, or (3) for some reason in the mystery of His ways God is not producing a harvest just now.
A month or so ago a few of us had dinner with Henry and Marilyn BLackaby before he spoke to the LifeWorks Charleston quarterly event. We join many other believers in rejoicing in Dr. Blackaby's ministry over the years and his safe return after a heart episode last Friday, and heart surgery as soon as possible. Anyway, in the course of the conversation he related his belief that the next world revival would come from the business community and not the church. He said he was convicted God could not trust the church with revival today. Truly, our record of making disciples isn't all that impressive. All of these declines could be His way of getting our attention.
The three scenarios are not good, no matter how you spin them. And, it doesn't take pie charts and mission-speak to explain the dismal state of the church. His church is either disobedient, or He is providentially withholding the harvest in pronouncing His displeasure and judgment. In either case, all the talk is just cheap. Like the Taylor song, maybe it's time for us to close our mouths and open our eyes. Truth is staring us in the face and we're too busy talking to see it. The world is in trouble, Jesus is still the answer, and we're so taken with our slick analysis and prophetic rhetoric we've forgotten to show them the one that can change everything.
Our life-song may just be a sorrowful lament, pondering "if I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes".
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