End of the Church?

As I was outside helping my Mom burn some brush tonight, I couldn't help but think about the church and the responsibilities that lay inside and outside her walls. She stands tall with her steeple reaching high to the heavens. Her bells used to be tolled to invite all those listening to come and walk through her white doors with stained glass windows. Those bells toll no longer. The white paint on her doors are chipped and her windows now dusty with cobwebs. Few people walk through the doors and sit in the once packed pews. Fewer and fewer people join in singing praises to God. The church used to rattle with a thunderous boom of voices singing song; now, an echo maybe fills a few cracks on an Easter or Christmas Sunday morning.

The church is not as majestic as she used to be and she certainly is not our town's most important building any longer. The members from past decades were on fire for the Lord and would bring their family and friends each and every Sunday. Family vacations never took the place of church, so everyone's shadows would rest on her doors each and every Sunday morning. Now time has past, and those members have passed on; leaving a new generation of "Christians". Vacations and get-aways come first in this new society, so church is usually passed up on. People are living a dead faith and children going to Sunday School is as optional as joining a sports team.

What has happened? Has the church age come to an end?

Perhaps the church age is coming to an end; but people's faith or lack thereof is causing the Spiritual decline in our nation and in the rest of the world. If Christ's people are not on fire, who will testify? We have mouths, but will we let the rocks cry out instead? It has nothing to do with the church or a "church age". It's all about God, Who is ageless! He is present, past, and future. The church building will pass away, be destroyed. It is God's temple here until He says 'No more'. For many Christians, the church is something we go to on Sunday and forget about for six days. The church is not to be worshiped or adorned; but it is God's house. A place to worship in and adorn Him in! We are to take care of it, to grow in numbers. And we can only grow in numbers if we are willing to take the torch that has been handed down to us by our predecessors: Jesus' disciples. They were the light in a dark world and preached anywhere and everywhere. It's not about a pastor preaching for an hour on Sunday; it's about our responsibility to reach the lost. Where they are.

"If the dog doesn't come home on its own, go out and search for him". We must do the same for the lost "sheep". We cannot expect the sheep to come to us, the church. They have no ear for the Master's beckoning. The Master has asked us to find those lost sheep and to tell them the good news. We have to meet them where they are in order to bring them in.

So in conclusion, does it matter if this is the end of the church age? No. What does matter is that any age, right now, last spring, 2,000 years ago....it was and still is the "God Age". And that age will last forever!