What made the Church of God special when I was growing up and in my early ministry was the loyalty people had to their church. No matter what happened good or bad they stood committed to their church. They didn't question every little detail or try to find a reason to leave. They stood firmly on the fact that this was the church God had placed them in. If things got bad they would pray and seek the Lord for the proper changes to be made. They didn't fuss or pack up and leave, but they trusted that God would bring something good out of a bad situation.
When the Charismatic movement began it opened up a whole new generation to the power of Pentecost, but in doing so somehow created an atmosphere based more on the personality of the church rather than the person of Christ. Most Mega-Churches today are tied to an individual or a series of events that draws a crowd and becomes the in-thing to do. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, because many of these churches have reached far more people than I will ever reach. However, it has created a system of who can do this better or who can offer this to the public. Basically, what ever is new that brings people in is what is going to be done regardless of the cost or the effort.
In doing this the individual churches seem to have lost their own personal identity. What happened was people from many different church backgrounds congregated together and formed these ministries. Again, there's nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that instead of trying something new and refreshing, they tried to maintain their identities from their previous church experience and mesh them all together with the new ideas and projects. In doing so, personal satisfaction became more important to the individual rather than what was the best for the church family. I believe this is what lead many Xer's and their offspring to begin the process of putting church secondary and their personal spiritual responsibility at an all time low. That plus the fact that many churches overbuilt, overspent, and many under created ways to bring people together and develop that sense of loyalty that the church once enjoyed.
The lack of loyalty from the Xer's and the Mill's to most Pentecostal churches and their heritage dates back 25 + years. Why?
(1) Many of them never received basic Biblical training because since the mid-80's forward Sunday School for many has become an out-dated method of training and discipleship. Maybe it was an unprepared teacher or one that was boring. Maybe it was someone that used that time to downplay everything the Pastor was trying to do in the church. For some reason the majority of Xer's started skipping it and so now the Millennials don't have the fundamental teaching that many of us got (like it or not) in Sunday School. Even today, in the church I pastor, we only have three small Sunday School classes because there were more standing in the foyer during Sunday School time than there were in class. That's the way it was when I got here and it seems to be the same way in most other churches. Those who have strong Sunday School programs ought to be thankful and make sure they continue to work.
(2) The small-group meetings seemed to be the way to go for most churches. These were created with the hopes of building friendships and fellowship by meeting in one another's homes like they did in Acts 2. Well, for some they have been successful and have served the purpose well, but for others they have not. In fact, I have heard and read horror stories that have come again from untrained folks trying to organize and run these programs. Sadly enough, for every successful ministry formed from small groups, you read about another that has caused division and discord in the body. Many of the Xer's remembered more good about the churches they grew up in than they did bad. Yet when some of these small group ministries went bad it revived other memories about what folks did to hurt the church or the pastor in the past. So again the devil presented a plan to divert their loyalty from something good into something negative.
(3) We all know the Xer's are in personal debt more than any previous generation and it has affected the way they give to the church. I have always disliked fund-raising events to pay the bills of the church and have expressed that from the pulpit. In one church I pastored the WM's wanted to have an invisible cake sale. ?????? I said just ask the people to give you a donation rather than me get up in the pulpit and try and sell invisible cakes. My personal opinion is that if everyone would just pay their tithes regularly every need of the church could be met. Then any fund raising done could be to help the needy, the homeless, and the hungry. However, due to that debt the Xer's have, the church is suffering today because it depends mostly on retired folks to foot the bills.
One more thing-if you don't tithe you don't have a right to vote or to tell the church how to spend it's money. If you're not committed enough to give, it's really none of your business.
I could rant and rave on several more issues, but the bottom line is the Xer's
Sadly, I must confess that some people I have dealt with from that generation, who had great potential, were not committed to the church and I lost them to another house of worship. I usually got the blame for their decision to leave, but these Xer's did not support the church regularly and wanted to tell everybody else what to do or be in leadership. Guess what-it doesn't work that way.
I do believe that loyalty must be restored if the church is going to be the church again. The question is, How can we bring it back into this generation?
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