This year 3500 churches will close, this month 1500 pastors will leave the ministry, and today approximately 7575 people will move on from church. Of those who move on, some never affiliate with a religion again, saying they just “gradually drifted away from the religion.” *
*According to Jonathan Dodson, in his article entitled "There’s a Discipleship Crisis in the Church Today" (U.S)
Although we have the largest churches in history, we also have the shallowest. This puts the Great Commission into vital perspective. We can have all the lights blazing, a flurry of activity and program after program, but when we focus on the work we are to do rather than the way we are to walk, we will reproduce the wrong kind of disciple.
*According to Jonathan Dodson, in his article entitled "There’s a Discipleship Crisis in the Church Today" (U.S)
Sadly, in many places, the Church is “a mile wide but an inch deep.”The Church has shifted from making disciples to merely making converts. There are many Christians but few disciples. Many church members don’t grow towards spiritual maturity. Chronic spiritual infancy has become the norm. Superficiality, immaturity and carnality characterise many Christians. Many so-called “Christians” are no different from the world in their core values and moral choices. By and large, especially in terms of biblical discipleship and spiritual depth, the Church is losing massive ground.
The key question for us as church leaders today should not be “How many?” but “What kind?” Rather than ask “Are we making disciples?”, we need to ask; “What kind of disciples are we making?” and, more importantly, “What kind of disciples are we?”. The Body of Christ will languish spiritually without true disciplemaking at its heart. We usually attempt to measure church growth with criteria such as congregation size, financial budget or facilities.However, true church health needs to be primarily evaluated by consideration of more qualitative criteria. There is a need to fundamentally redefine success in ministry.