Millions skipped church during pandemic. Will they return?
Churches, synagogues and mosques are returning to normal services as the pandemic recedes

Read in ABC News: https://apple.news/AVsWQL8P9Rh-j50HD0yoWzw

Hospitals, Not Country Clubs: Churches Without the Broken Are Broken Churches

BINGO! SPOT ON! For Sure! Way to many Churches have turned into ‘clubs’ or ‘kingdoms of their own’ Walls! Not open doors to the very poor, handicapped, homeless and felons. Many love preaching to the choir! When is the last time you were in church and you saw people on their knees needing help? People in wheelchairs that have been driven to church by others? I was blessed to preach in Reserve, New Mexico for 9 years on and off, filling the pulpit as a circuit preacher. It taught me so much about GOD and HIS PEOPLE! God showed me what is wrong with many Churches! At FBC in Reserve people from all walks of life would come. One Sunday Deacon Charles McCargish invited a young man who was very poor and was in need of a bath. This young man came forward during the Alter call and asked Jesus into his heart and asked me to pray that he would give up drugs and turn his life around. Weeks later he died of an overdose, but he had accepted JESUS! BUT!!! It took Deacon Charles to ask him to come to Church that Sunday. Deacon Charles has done that for years…inviting the hurting to Church, to the hospital. We all need to carry out THE GREAT COMMISSION! AMEN! What is the Great Commission? We need more like Deacon Charles and his wife Joan, pictured above, they have ministered to the Catron County area for many years. I have many stories from my years at FBC in Reserve, I should write a book on what God has shown me. Serving at FBC in Reserve was so much better than seminary ever could have been for me! 9 years of on the ground, experiencing God at work in my life and many others. Are you shining your light in your community for JESUS? When is the last time you have reached into the depths of hell and asked someone to the hospital?

Ed Stetzer

It is a natural thing for Christians to want to be around other Christians. Something special happens in the fellowship of believers but too much of a good thing can lead to broken churches.

We can worship freely, study deeply and communicate clearly. Hanging out with like-minded people who (appear to) “have their stuff together” can be a wonderful thing.

I’ve been fascinated by the fact that a lot of Christians don’t seem to like non-Christians—otherwise known as “the lost,” “the unchurched” or whatever other term you may want to use. They want to keep away from the messy people—perhaps missing the obvious,

Hospitals, Not Country Clubs: Churches Without the Broken Are Broken Churches

Christians, let’s stop fighting each other and serve our neighbors in need instead

This is such a good write up! I would encourage you to share this with everyone! Please share it with your Pastor, for sure, please! The America Church is distress for many reasons. This message addresses the current state of affairs and offers solid solutions. Denominations are fading away. When we traveled to California last week we hit the streets and talked to many people, the majority of people we talked to are no longer affiliated with a denomination and too many do not go to Church any longer because of what they see in the behavior of Church goers and Pastors supporting evil politicians. The last 5 years or more has done great damage to the Bride of Christ by Pastors standing with politicians who exhibit ungodly behavior! The Jan. 6th insurrection of our Nations Capitol was one of the ugliest moves by Satan ever in America. The silence of many Pastors to this evil is still deafening!!!!!!!! The last 5 years will go down in my history books as one of the worst periods in Church history.

I still shake my head at Pastors who support politicians that use bad language, such horrible swear words and speak of people in such an ugly way, attack, attack and speak nonsense, crazy talk! This is the type of behavior you want to show the children of God????? This shows an unbeleiving world just what it wants to see from ‘so called Christians’.

We are a ministry that talks to people all the time, we love all people. We enjoyed our travels as we got to talk to the ‘pulse of America’. I always said when I managed radio stations that we need to have our fingers on the pulse of the people, we need to know what they need and want from us. God was with us, God sent us on this trip to visit Sharon’s Mom and family, but also to talk to God’s people, not political people with an agenda. Too many people that call themselves Christians are putting their politics before GOD ALMIGHTY! SHAPE UP PEOPLE!!!!!!!!! Stop drinking the political Kool-Aid. Have supper with the Lord! There is no doubt in my mind we will all be held accountable for this ‘new America’ we have created. A divided Country, a divided Church.

The Church better shape up! A lot of people have made a lot of money using GOD! I do not think that sits well with GOD at all! Stinks to high heaven!

Christians let’s stop fighting each other and serve our neighbors in need instead
I can’t help thinking that there may be a correlation between Christians’ infighting and the fact that fewer people want to be associated with us.

Read in USA TODAY: https://apple.news/AW_FOj09XQuGwZcEOVSV9Wg

ATTENTION CHURCH!!!!! What are you doing about this????? This is taking place under our watch!!!!!!!!!!! Here is our report card! If Mrs Fett, my first grade teacher, was grading my paper she would give me an F!

From Dr. Jim Denison:

“How’s that working for us?”

Tragically, our culture is rejecting God’s intention for sex more than ever before. Adultery is celebrated in popular television shows, music, and movies. Sex before marriage and cohabitation are assumed. Abortion is viewed as birth control. Pornography is at epidemic levels. Not to mention the escalation and promotion of LGBTQ ideology beginning with our children.

This culture-wide normalization of immorality is working:

• 69 percent of Americans say sex between an unmarried man and woman is morally acceptable, up 16 points since 2002.
• 42 percent believe sex between teenagers is morally acceptable.
• 43 percent say pornography is morally acceptable.
• 19 percent view polygamy as morally acceptable (up from 5 percent in 2006).
• A record 47 percent of Americans think abortion is morally acceptable.
• 70 percent support same-sex marriage.

Now let’s ask Dr. Phil’s question: “How’s that working for us?”

Since the sexual revolution began in the 1960s:

• The youth suicide rate is the highest it has been since the government began collecting such data in 1960.
• The percentage of children born out of wedlock has escalated from 8 percent in 1962 to 40 percent today. The odds that children in single-parent homes will live in poverty are high.
• Studies show that as many as half of all divorces involve one party using pornography. Even for those who stay married, pornography sabotages their ability to enjoy normal sexual relations.
• More than 62 million babies have been killed by abortion since Roe v. Wade. Abortion is the leading cause of death in America, surpassing heart disease, cancer, and all other causes.

• Foundation cracks can be deadly Yesterday, we focused on the fact that God has given us what we need to do what he intends us to do. Today, let’s add this fact: To experience his best, we must give our best to him every moment of every day. There can be no separation between “our” time and “his” time, no division of life into “sacred” and “secular” or people into “clergy” and “laity.” We must each be available and yielded in every moment of every day to experience God’s providential and empowered best every moment of every day. I am convinced that the dividing of our lives into “religion” and the “real world” is one of Satan’s most insidious and effective strategies for strangling the power and witness of the church in these perilous days for the gospel. In recent days, we have begun hearing reports of “major structural damage” discovered at the Champlain Towers South condominium complex three years before the deadly collapse. In response, a multimillion-dollar repair project was set to get underway soon. Now it is too late for the victims of this tragedy. Our society is in a similar condition to the condominium before its collapse. Cracks in our moral and spiritual foundations are threatening our future. In fact, I am convinced that Western society is experiencing God’s permissive judgment in response to our rejection of his word and will. Romans 1 describes such judgment: “God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (vv. 24–25). Does this seem familiar? “When God is dead” In How Should Christians Vote?, Dr. Tony Evans explains the way God’s permissive judgment works: “Freedom means you get to control the choice, but because God is the sovereign ruler over his creation, you don’t get to control the consequences. He will rule by either endorsing your choice, or he will rule by allowing you to have the consequences of a decision made against him.” He cites those who support abortion on demand and warns, “There is a price tag for legalizing the shedding of innocent blood. The more unborn babies are murdered in our land, the more we can expect violence in our culture as well. Because when a culture goes against God’s laws, God will allow that culture to experience the consequences of the breaking of that law—in this case the resultant devaluing of life as well as the effects of that devaluing.” Another example is our culture’s rejection of biblical sexuality and the resulting epidemic of pornography, sex trafficking, sexually transmitted diseases, and broken homes and lives. In When A Nation Forgets God, Pastor Erwin Lutzer writes, “It is said that after God died in the nineteenth century, man died in the twentieth. For when God is dead, man becomes an untamed beast.” “No one wants to do the dishes” How can God use us redemptively in these “untamed” days? “Professional” Christians have never been more marginalized and distrusted than we are today. Clergy abuse scandals and public moral failures have largely cost “ministers” our moral authority. However, the “laity”—Christians who serve for no reason except that they love their Lord and their neighbor—can make a compelling and transforming difference in the lives of those they influence. The key is that every believer must be yielded and available to God in every moment of the day. I’m reading Tish Harrison Warren’s eloquent Liturgy of the Ordinary and have been moved by the way she describes God’s work in the mundane: “The crucible of our formation is the monotony of our routines.” She quotes a sign that hangs on the wall of the New Monastic Christian community house: “Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes.” By staying empowered through prayer and other spiritual routines and available in the moment, we are ready for the opportunity when it comes. When the little girl is in the water, it is too late to learn to swim.

• Too much of the Church is showing an unbelieving world just what it wants to see: The Jan. 6th Insurrection of our Capitol did much more damage to the Church than you may think. It is reports like this on the cations by ‘so called Christians’ that hurt JESUS: On June 24, three people associated with the Global Outreach Ministries church in Melbourne, Florida, were arrested and charged for their involvement with the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Pastor Jim Cusick, 72, his son and church official Casey Cusick, 35, and church member David Lesperance, 69, were charged in federal court with entering restricted grounds, disorderly conduct, and violent entry of the Capitol building. They were released on $25,000 bond each while they await future court appearances. Florida now accounts for the most arrests stemming from the Jan. 6 uprising, which left five people dead. Of the 500 arrests made so far, 46 have been Floridians. QAnon infects churches Satan Makes Fools Even of Christians ‘Our Lord Isn’t Woke.’ Southern Baptists Clash Over Their Future. Leaked Russell Moore letter blasts SBC conservatives, sheds light on his resignation As I get ready to celebrate my 65th birthday on July 4th, I am greatly sadden by the condition of the Church and America. I have the blood of Jesus and I am of the white red and blue of our flag. Only of America had as much passion for JESUS as it does for politics and sports. All those flags should have been JESUS flags! One lady in Galt, California told me, “When Jesus returns I picture Him turning over tables in Churches.” Matthew 21:12: Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.
  I have seen this coming for years and years.I have been studying Spiritual Drought for years. This is just one of the studies I have read:Spiritual drought, though a persistent and unwelcome visitor, is not something with which we must constantly live. There are biblical means by which we can, by grace, put ourselves in the way of refreshment; we can be restored to once again feel the joy of our salvation. But this can only happen if we are able to discern why we might be experiencing spiritual dryness so we can take the appropriate action. With this in mind, I would like to suggest a few reasons we may be experiencing a season of spiritual drought and provide the correlating remedies.9 possible reasons for your spiritual drought