THE AUTOMATIC CHURCH CHALLENGE

Every congregation will have to do battle with itself somewhere along the way. Some will find success. Others will lose.

What is the battle? Staying young.

If not careful, older members will interpret staying young as going liberal. Such might be the case. However, often vigor and energy is sacrificed at the expense of keeping those who have been around happy. One doesn't need to be 80 or 90 for this affect to strike. It can happen when 40 and 50.

Churches are withering because they are stuck. They are stranded upon a verse that gives them great, but pseudo, satisfaction; many are called but few are chosen. Remember the narrow path....they say.

What are we going to do about these young people, older ones ponder. That's the wrong question. I'm in the older group; I'm 62. The question is what are we going to do to keep the older ones new?

Though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed, wrote Paul. The automatic church challenge is to keep the inner man from traipsing close behind the outer man's decay process. We who have been around the church block will find ourselves increasingly challenged to be attentive to God's leading of the entire church....not just the way we always done it before.