Apathy

It should be no surprise to anyone to hear that Christianity in America is struggling. Church attendance is dropping rapidly, and youth ministries and campus ministries are closing their doors all across the country. Nonprofit Christian organizations struggle to find volunteers. While 85% of Americans claimed to be Christians in 1990, that percentage has dropped to 65% in 2019.

So why is this? Why is it that the 21st century church is falling apart in America? Some people point to the removal of prayer from schools as the culprit (side note: you can’t make people stop praying, so prayer never really left the schools.), while others say that the church is facing too much political persecution. Others claim that the young people just aren’t interested in Christianity, so reaching them with the gospel is a lost cause. However, I believe that all these opinions are wrong.

The greatest enemies to the cause of Christ are Christians.

Shocking? yes. True? Absolutely. Now before you stone me for blasphemy, let me explain.

When people searching for something to fill their lives look to self-avowed Christians, what do they see? While I wish the answer was “people who love and serve others, who have something different about them and are excited about their faith”, oftentimes this is not the answer. Too often they look at Christians and think, “Well, they say they are a Christian, but they drink and cuss and sleep around just like anyone else. They gossip behind people’s backs and are just rude. Why, I don’t think I have ever seen them go to church, except maybe at Christmas or Easter. They don’t seem any better off than I am, so why would I want to be a part of that?”

According to the Pew Research Center, 68% of Christians say that their faith is of utmost important to them, yet of those polled, 53% attend a church service once a year or less, 47% have never met with other Christians for prayer, and 33% seldom or never opened their Bibles. While these are just statistics about the outward expressions of Christianity , the sad fact remains: There is a disconnect between the radical love Christians say they believe in, and the lifestyle they live. Friends, the church is dying because Christians have become apathetic in their faith.

Apathy: a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.

When did travel ball, Netflix, or homework assignments become more important than gathering with fellow believers? When did the life-giving word of God become boring to us? Why do we no longer get excited when we hear of God’s love for us? Most importantly, why don’t we care anymore? Church, we need to wake up! If the Church wants to truly make disciples like the Bible teaches, we do not have time to treat God’s word as common, and we most certainly do not have time to wait for people to come to us for salvation. The church needs to start getting excited about Jesus again! How can we expect to draw people to a faith we are only half-heatedly practicing ourselves? Who would want to worship a God who is just “OK”. As the recent AT&T commercials say, “Just OK is not OK”.

Yet herein lies the problem: We cannot simply stop people from being apathetic by telling them to get excited about their faith. We can try, but if the feeling is not there, we can’t conjure up excitement. As Daniel Quinn says in his book Ishmael:

“People need more than to be scolded, more than to be made to feel stupid and guilty. They need more than a vision of doom. They need a vision of the world and of themselves that inspires them……You have to give people something that is as meaningful as what they’ve lost.”

Ishmael section 12, chapters 6 & 9

The only way to shake this apathy that is pervading our churches is to dive into the Word of God and let it inspire our hearts anew, as if we were reading it for the first time. We ought to get excited about our faith, and so inspire others to love it too.

The best example I can think of to describe how the church should look is two 5-7 year old girls, Tess and Sydney, who I met at a dinner a few weeks ago. These girls love Jesus with all their hearts and are always excited to share what they are learning about their faith. Last week the girls came tearing into the room in a flurry of excitement. As they were jumping up and down and tugging on people’s clothes, they shouted, “Everyone pay attention! Guess what? We just learned why we have Christmas trees at Christmas!” The girls proceeded to tell everyone present all about Christmas, and about God’s gift to us in a manger. Just watching their excitement as they shared the gospel filled me with joy, and I thought to myself, “If all Christians, including myself, were this excited about Jesus, imagine how God could work through us!”

If Christians stated living with bold, exuberant faith like those two little girls, the church would flourish, lives would be changed, and the church would look more like Jesus! So, let us crack open our Bibles and take a moment to marvel at Christ again, and may his love spill over into our lives, empowering us to make disciples!