Verizon is drunk this morning; I hope my posts can be read.
Bread of Heaven (“Cwm Rhondda” in Welsh), sung by the Morriston Orpheus Choir: I like a traditional hymn to start the day.
Please request any hymn you’d like to hear!
Category: Christian fellowship
So Why Have 40 Million People Stopped Going to Church?
Not exactly crowded, is it?
The Atlantic (of all people!) asks why so many Americans don’t go to church anymore, and cites a survey of some 7,000 respondents… concluding that over the past 25 years, some 40 million of us have stopped going to church.
You could only read a few lines of the article before they said you had to subscribe if you wanted to read the rest. I have no wish to subscribe, so I’ll try to answer the question myself: Why have people supposedly stopped going to church?
I’d say the No. 1 reason is because many churches have stopped being the Church. Is your church up to its eyeballs in politics (usually Far Left politics)? Do you find the Bible hardly mentioned there? Do you hear a lot of “interfaith” drivel about all roads leading to Heaven? Does your pastor dress up as Spiderman? (I wish that were a joke. It isn’t.)
Some years ago I returned to the church that I grew up in, and requested a chat with the pastor. I got a ministerette who warned me against taking the Bible too seriously. I don’t imagine she ever did. She also referred to adultery as “no big deal.”
I’m not in California, so I haven’t encountered any churches where they do “goddess” worship or past lives.
But I am here in cyberspace; and here we share hymns, prayers, study the Bible together, and in some ways function as a church. It is a kind of assembly; and it enables us to get together despite living thousands of miles apart.
It’s simple. You bring the Pachamama idol into the church, and Christians up and leave. You do “gay weddings,” and people up and leave. You preach false gods, and Christians up and leave.
There are a lot of ways to ruin a church; but the Church, Christ’s Church, will survive and conquer.
‘Revive Us Again’
I don’t know about you, but I could use some reviving, big-time. And this classic 19th-century hymn was written to provide it. Sung by Nathan (autoharp) and Lyle (guitar), at home in Denton County, Texas–Revive Us Again.
‘Blessed Assurance’
No hymn requests this morning–but I can’t go wrong if I tap a hymn by Fanny Crosby. Let’s try this one: Blessed Assurance, sung by the Harpeth Gospel Quartet. Background sets by God the Father.
By Request, ‘He Lives’
We have a hymn request from Thewhiterabbit: He Lives, sung by Alan Jackson. I’m thinking we must have sung this hymn in Sunday school–but I’m already running so late this morning, I don’t have time to think about it.
‘In the Sweet By-and-By’
I probably post this hymn too often: In the Sweet By and By, sung here by the Mennonite Singers. “And by faith we can see it afar…” Yes, that’s in Hebrews Chapter 11.
The hymn shop’s open, if anybody wants to hear another hymn.
By Request, ‘Peter and John Went to Pray’
Requested by Ina, a Sunday school favorite–Peter and John Went to Pray. Their miraculous healing of a man who was lame from birth is related in Chapter 3 of Acts. (Sorry, I can’t ID the movie that this clip is from.)
‘Behold the Mountain of the Lord’
My only excuse for posting this again is that I really love this hymn–Behold the Mountain of the Lord, traditional Scottish hymn, sung by Godfrey Birtill.
We’re open all day for hymn requests, though.
Welsh Hymn, ‘Calon Lan’
This hymn kept coming to mind last night, so I thought I’d better post it–spiritual balm for a wounded spirit.
Calon Lan (“A Pure Heart”) in Welsh, at Mynyddbach Chapel, solo by Bryn Terfel, chorus by the Dunvant Male Choir.
‘The Doctrine of Despair’ (2018)
I have to admit that my car accident the other day has made a dent on my morale. And some of the things I’ve been hearing! “This six-foot-five guy comes in here and wants to try on a dress…” Stuff like that.
Well, nothing worthwhile has ever been accomplished by anyone who just gave up. We have a King of kings to serve, we have to keep working. We are down here on the threshing floor and we don’t always see clearly; but God does. It’s not like He’s asking us to take over management of the Allied war effort in 1940, with France in ruins and Britain on the run; He had Winston Churchill for that.
We have our own battles to fight, and we must fight them, trusting in God.