Why the church must experience a radical departure from the “old normal” …

You and I both know there are some things that shouldn’t take much (or any!) explaining because they are so blatantly obvious anyone could understand.

One of those overtly easy things to understand is why the church must experience a radical departure from the “old normal.” If you don’t know the answer to this, let’s wade into it with a question …

Have you ever been so far behind in something that it would take a lot of time and a grandiose amount of effort just to get where you would need to be so you could start to move forward?

That’s the church!

From our new perch in a global pandemic, we look back at the old normal and find it has delivered to us a church that is:

– Biblically illiterate.

– Undiscipled.

– Unequipped.

– Declining in attendance.

– Declining in influence.

– A failure to love like Jesus, and even to even care.

– A majority of professing Christians don’t believe core biblical doctrines and don’t have a biblical worldview.

On top of that and other serious issues, most churches don’t do anything to equip members in how to effectively share the Gospel with the lost. Put another way, most local churches generally, and most individual Christians specifically, don’t make new disciples of non-Christians. Churches, church leaders, and Christians are disengaged from the mission of the church.

Why in the world would churches, Christians, and church leaders want to go BACK to that?

What the church has been for some decades now is the reason why the church must experience a radical departure from the “old normal.”

That means local church after local church needs to get serious and get busy figuring out what their “new normal” should, could, and Lord willing, will look like.

It means church leaders need to get serious and get busy figuring out how they will shepherd and serve differently.

And it means every individual Christian needs to examine how they are living out:

– The Great Commandment to love God and others.

– The Great Commission to make disciples of all the world.

– And the “Great Appointment” of being Christ’s ambassadors through whom God will make His appeal to the lost (see 2 Cor. 5:18-20).

As churches, as church leaders, and as Christians, we have in our laps an opportunity to make the changes needed to overcome our weaknesses and failures — and our sins — of the “old normal.” What is left to be seen is if we will seize the opportunity.

Scotty