The Problem

---Part one of a three part series on the state of the Church in America---

For some it will take a moment of honesty, for others it will be merely calling out the elephant in the room, but the time has come to admit that the Church in America doesn’t look, act or live they way it should.

It’s time the church stopped and asked itself, ‘why do we exist?’ For the last several decades Christians have been so infatuated with keeping themselves clean from the ‘tainted’ world, arguing the finer points of high theology, and building programs that keep the masses coming that they’ve slowly drifted away from being the people that Christ called them to be. The result: when we look at the church instead of seeing and being drawn to a loving God we see a corrupt, political, broken social club. In Luke 6:43-45 Jesus tells us that all people will be known by their fruit. In John 15 he tells us that when Christians abide in Him they will bear His fruit, and in Ephesians 5:22 we are told what that fruit is: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control. So we must ask ourselves, ‘when the world looks at the church is this what they see?’ The answer is a resounding NO. The studies, statistics and books abound in support of the fact that Christians are missing the mark. If you are a Christian I would urge you to go, read and study (I recommend David Kinnaman’s book UnChristian if you are looking for a place to start) and you will see the glaring problem: The church in America is doing something wrong.