Throughout history, the Christian faith has experienced incredible flashpoints of both disruption and growth. These points in history always seem to involve turning away from tradition and institutionalized stagnation. These turns are almost always toward a fundamental movement sparked by an individual or small group who depend on face-to-face word of mouth for validation and growth.
May I be so bold as to suggest that today we sit at the edge of a long overdue 3rd Great Awakening? It may have already begun in, of all places, educational institutions, not churches. As with the Protestant Reformation and the 1st and 2nd Great Awakenings, motivating conditions preceding these movements were unfavorable to following Christ's Great Commission. The same is true today. In fact, our present situation has had more than two-hundred years to ferment. Since the last Great Awakening mankind has, like a turtle, slowly withdrawn into their shell-a shell known as the church facility. Instead of going outside our comfort zone and introducing strangers to Christ through our ministry outside the church walls, we invite them into the church where they can hear a monologue-not a discussion with questions-about God's story from an ordained pastor draped in church traditions and theology.
Is your congregation dying? If you consider that question harsh ... is your congregation seriously declining? If you belong to one of the protestant congregations in the United States, the truthful answer, based on real data, is most likely... "Yes. Absolutely." How does someone know a congregation is dying or seriously declining? Can even a stranger notice that something is seriously wrong? There are both telling signs and less-noticeable signs.
You may have heard the tired slogan, "There's no 'I' in team." There is however an 'I' in Un-i-te, and unity is one of the primary subjects in this study guide. The 3rd Great Awakening?... A Spiritual Opportunity to Reverse Congregational Decline contains information that is written between the lines of the reference book "Between Two Breaths, the Seasons of Creation." The purpose of the reference book is to encourage dialogue instead of monologue, discussion instead of lecture, and relationships rather than institutional connection. This third study guide addresses and provides ways to place the 'I' where it belongs in your congregation by un-i-ting through the use of the Great Commission's original intent and application. Most importantly, this study gives a congregation a practical track to run on and some of the tools needed to create a great awakening within their congregational ministry.
This study provides a fresh look at the Great Commission through twenty-first-century eyes, to determine its relevance to the mission of twenty-first-century congregations. The difficulty within this task is perspective. This study will be divided into three sections, all with the aim of uniting local twenty-first-century congregations through Christs' Great Commission by:
- Becoming Informed
- Becoming the Church, Instead of Just Sitting in It
- Becoming Engaged
Conversations surrounding the questions within these three areas could be the vehicle and the fuel needed to carry a twenty-first-century congregation out of distress, division, and desperation and into assurance, unity, and hope... and maybe even a 3rd Great Awakening.