From Greatness to Mediocrity

Greatness is a hard quality to measure, especially if you desire to measure it by God's standard, because we are so quick to measure according to our standards. Size of the church, the number of people, the type of ministries available are all ways in which we try to measure church health and growth. And the outward signs are not always the most accurate. In fact, rarely are they ever indicative of church health. However, Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay, has attempted to find a way to measure church health according to God's standard as accurately as possible. He admits it is not infallible, but he believes it is fairly accurate. Sadly, according to the measurements they can go by, it appears that there are churches that have gone from being great to being mediocre or worse. Churches that once were beacons of obedience to the Great Commission have now lost the flame that pushed them forward. This is a question for all of us to ask of ourselves and our own churches. Are we growing the way God wants us to be growing? Are we about the business to which God has commanded us? If not, is there a way back? Of course there is. Thom Rainer gives this encouragement towards the end of his post. I encourage everyone to check out his blog post because we all need to consider whether we are about the business God has called us to.

Read the full article here.