Closed Churches

Today I received an email from Fundamentatop500.com and in the newsletter this month there was the following article.

I was struck by the subject matter and thought I might need to pass it on to you.

Please read this with care.

"As I was visiting Wednesday, I was struck by the number of old church buildings I passed. A generation or two ago, these were spirit-filled country churches. Today they are Grange halls, thrift shops, and apartments.

It was sad. It was like driving through a graveyard.

These bygone churches reminded me of a passage from a book I had read:


"While the country churches are the stronghold of the evangelizing and missionary enterprises of the Church at home and abroad there are alarming conditions of weakness in many country churches. ... there were in Maine at that time 282 pastorless churches in farming districts and some of the deserted churches were then serving as cheese factories, dance halls, and road houses." The Day of the Country Church, by James Oliver Ashenhurst (*This book was written in 1908! How much worse is our condition now?

Last year, I read that churches in America are closing at a rate of 3,000 per year. Massachusetts -- the very state where our pilgrim fore-fathers landed -- now rates fourth from the bottom in belief in God according to a 2009 survey. Right below Massachusetts is my own state of Maine.

Following is Gallup's entire list of states, in order of what percentage of respondents said religion is "an important part" of their daily lives:

Mississippi: 85%
Alabama: 82%
South Carolina: 80%
Tennessee: 79%
Louisiana: 78%
Arkansas: 78%
Georgia: 76%
North Carolina: 76%
Oklahoma: 75%
Kentucky: 74%
Texas: 74%
West Virginia: 71%
Kansas: 70%
Utah: 69%
Missouri: 68%
Virginia: 68%
South Dakota: 68%
North Dakota: 68%
Indiana: 68%
Nebraska: 67%
New Mexico: 66%
Pennsylvania: 65%
Florida: 65%
Maryland: 65%
Ohio: 65%
Iowa: 64%
Minnesota: 64%
Illinois: 64%
Michigan: 64%
Delaware: 61%
Wisconsin: 61%
District of Columbia: 61%
Idaho: 61%
Arizona: 61%
New Jersey: 60%
Wyoming: 58%
Colorado: 57%
Hawaii: 57%
California: 57%
Montana: 56%
New York: 56%
Connecticut: 55%
Nevada: 54%
Rhode Island: 53%
Oregon: 53%
Washington: 52%
Alaska: 51%
Massachusetts: 48%
Maine: 48%
New Hampshire: 46%
Vermont: 42%

Where will we be in our children's time?

Where are the preachers who will give up hope of wealth and fame to serve in little country churches, bringing our nation back to God one soul, one community at a time?

Where are the missionaries to America, a nation rapidly becoming a pagan land?

We can give up an say, "well, we're in the end times. It's just gonna be like this." Or we can rise up and fight back against the dark tide sweeping our nation.

One day after big storm, a man walked out on the beach and saw thousands of starfish washed up and dying on the sand. A boy was picking them up one-by-one and tossing them back into the water. The man said, "What are you doing, son?" The boy replied, "saving the starfish." The man chuckled at the boy's ignorance and said, "There's no way you can save all those starfish -- there are too many of them." The boy picked up another one and tossed it out into the waves. "There's one more."

Maybe we can't save them all. Maybe this country will never turn back to Christ. But, if we try, we can save "one more."

** Authored by Pastor Ron Meldrum

This article made me stop in my tracks and take notice of what a serious condition we are really in in America. If you have not stopped to Thank God for your Church and your Pastor, then you need to log off the computer and get alone with God in Prayer and start by saying "Thank You"!

For all Pastor's, Preacher's, Missionaries and Evangelist's... "Thank You" for your service for The King of King's!

In His Highest Service,

Brother Dunn