Not necessarily in this order
1. People will not keep Jesus Christ the number one priority in their lives.
2. Those who attend church 3 times a month will drop to one or two attendences a month.
3. Those who are struggling to remain committed to church attendence will eventually find reasons why they cannot come and fall out of church. Most will struggle to ever start attending any church again.
4. Some think summer break from school, means summer break from church. Some have actually asked, when I was a youth pastor, "Do you still meet in the summer?"
5. Tithing will drop off because money will be spent to have a good time instead. Some people actually think that the government pays for the church to stay open. While others think that what they give cannot be that big of a deal. Besides, tithing is returning to God what we owe; it is putting Him first. This will turn into a spiritual problem. Many will have to save their tithe money for vacation so giving will have to come from another source.
6. More time will be spent entertaining others than spending time alone with Christ. There will not be any time for spiritual development because cookouts will occur almost every weekend. In addition, there will be weekend getaways every other week.
7. Community activities will increase and that means church will take the backseat to those events. Softball, baseball, and etc. will be more important on Sundays than attending church. As a result, many will be too tired to attend church even though night services are offered.
8. Some will decide to look for a new church since the one they were attending was not able to keep them interested during the summer. Instead, they will fail to realize that lack of interest was a result of failing to remain faithful in attendence because they chose to find something else to do that was more fun.
9. After summer, when fall comes, some will wonder why the pastor did not visit or pursue them since they have not been to church for some time. After all, they were not in church for 3 months and he, and others, should have cared. Naturally, this thought does not include those who are shut-ins.
10. People will say, "I will go to church next week." But next week will never come. Furthermore, others will say, "We need to spend more time with our family instead." As a result, "Jesus who?"
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2 comments:
5. Tithing. It's an OT law for the Jews. It doesn't apply to NT Christians. Were you aware of that? I hope so, so that you aren't putting people into bondage. Just stopping by. :)
Hi Donna,
Thanks for stopping by. You are right tithing is an OT law. Yet, Jesus plainly stated that He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. It could be argued that Jesus assumed that tithing, like fasting, were still practiced during His time in the 1st Century. He spent time talking about these, along with prayer. Here is a thought, many times in the NT Jesus did not say give 10%; instead, He said give "all." At best, this is a grey area, but I would choose to fall down on the side that would give 10%. Since I don't think that we can say with surety that tithing is no longer expected. God bless.
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