The Prophetic Voice, Mark Ledbetter February 16, 2024
A growing number of empty pews in the U.S. and Europe have forced some congregations to make tough decisions, one of which is what to do with church buildings and property they can no longer afford to maintain. As attendance dwindles in unprecedented numbers and facility maintenance overburdens local parishioners, the inevitable consequence is to sell the buildings to entrepreneurs who repurpose them for secular uses.
Lauded for their exquisite architecture and beauty, vacated church buildings located on prime real estate provide imaginative entrepreneurs with excellent opportunities to cash in on the demise of local congregations.
Seated in the splendor of the atmosphere of high wooden ceiling and stained-glass windows designed to capture themes from the Scriptures, patrons can now sip their alcoholic beverage of choice rather than partake communion; and where hymns, prayers, and sermons once echoed with the praises of God are replaced with occasional cheers or moans as sports stations display a variety of sporting events. Or in former cathedrals, people can dance the night away on a dance floor that once housed pews while bands perform where choirs sang, and sermons heard. Visitors who once entered reverently seeking comfort, peace, and encouragement now can console their sorrows at a bar or book a room and enjoy visiting the converted hotel and spa. Pews once seating a congregation with hearts and minds bowed in reverence to a holy God now serve as benches to accommodate the production needs of a brewery.
Justifying these conversions, entrepreneurs say these once hallowed structures have been “deconsecrated” and therefore not sacrilegious. Heaven forbid that once sacred grounds would become profane.
While I could lament the loss of such religious, architectural, and historical significance of these once emblems of sacred mission and community stability, the real message is not in the conversion of Church structures for secular uses, but the loss emphasis of conversion of lost souls and community witness.
These “conversions” are not only testimonies to the secularization of church buildings, but characteristic of a spiritual transformation that has taken place right before our eyes. Tragically, we have witnessed an evangelical implosion as one telling survey suggests. Half of those who identify as Evangelical have abandoned the authority of Scriptures and Jesus’ deity, virgin birth, sinlessness, death, and resurrection questioned, and He no longer believed to be the only means of salvation. In real numbers this means of the approximate 80.8 million Americans who identify themselves as Evangelicals, only 40.4 million are truly fundamental Evangelicals.
The startling reality is not that empty churches are being converted for secular uses, but there is a harvest of cultural Christians sitting on the pews every Sunday, individuals that may acknowledge Christ but do not know Christ.
Failing to draw the line regarding the authority of Scripture, liberal theology and cultural values and practices have infiltrated the ranks of the church and engaged in doctrinal and sociological disputes dividing congregations. Accommodating cultural ideologies in our preaching, teaching, and worship to the extent we have abandoned the call to holiness, no longer does the Church maintain our call to be an alternate community preaching a message of affirmation creating a “form of godliness” denying “its power” of transformation.
Cultural Christianity “looks and sounds very Christian on the surface, but is merely Christian by culture, rather than by conviction” (Inserra, 13). Pews occupied with individuals having a doctrine-creedal focus rather than a Christ-centered faith will miss heaven by eighteen inches, the distance between their heads and their hearts (Reidhead). Even churches appearing to thrive, like Sardis (Revelation 3:1f), Jesus has checked their pulse, and they are dead. Having abandoned their first love, Churches that pride themselves in doctrinally purity, like Ephesus need to remember from where they have fallen (Ibid., 2:1f). Churches imagining themselves to be self-sufficient and influential, Jesus describes as being “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Ibid. 3:14f). [see forthcoming posts regarding “Letters to the Seven Churches of Revelation 2 & 3”]
The most troubling issue is not empty churches, but churches filled with empty hearts, empty of a love for, a passion for Jesus.
A Prayer Adapted from Daniel's Prayer
“So now, our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplications, and for Your sake, O Lord, let Your face shine on Your desolate Churches.* O my God, incline Your ear and hear! Open Your eyes and see our desolations and the Church which is called by Your name; for we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your Church* and Your people are called by Your name.”
*(Daniel 9:17-19, "Church" replaces "city," a reference to Jerusalem)
Photo Credits: Stock photo ID:930575164 johny007pan; istock photo ID:1176907130, Jim Gould
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