We're Starving To Death!

In recent weeks there have been several families, all a part of our church family, quit coming to church! As the spiritual leader of the church family that bothers me! Others in the church, come to me and say, "What happened to such and such family? We haven't seen them for many weeks!" My response far too often is, "I don't know. They seem to have dropped off the face of the earth!"

Now that is probably a little extreme! I really doubt that anyone has dropped off the face of the earth. With the size of our congregation, I realize after a couple of weeks that someone has been missing. After a month or more, I began to make some attempt to get in touch with people. Believe me, in this super day of technology and electronics, if someone doesn't want to be gotten in touch with, there is just about nothing anyone can do to make them respond when you reach out to them.
E-mails, Facebook messages and telephone calls all go pretty much unanswered. Stopping by the house unannounced is just about worthless, too, because you simply can't find people home anymore.

Seeing them in a restaurant or the super-market goes something like this. "Hey, how are you doing?" "Oh, we're just fine." "I've been trying to get ahold of you." "Oh, I know. We've just been so busy!" "I've missed you at church!" "I know. We've all been so sick lately." I'm sorry to hear that! Is everyone okay now?" "Ya! I think we have all finally beat the bug!" "Well, can I count on you being in church on Sunday?" "No! We're going to my brother's house in Dubuque this weekend!" "I'm sorry to hear that! I do hope you realize the importance of having your family in church on Sundays." "Oh, Pastor, you know we love it there. We'll be back soon!" But, "soon" never comes and after a while, the habit of going to church is broken and the damage is never repaired.

In my nearly 25 years of pastoral ministry, I have had conversations like the above paragraph, hundreds if not thousands of times. In almost every case, the parents who needed to have their weekends free, have paid a great price with the destructive consequences to their marriage or to the raising of their children. Why do you suppose that is?

I looked on the Internet and found some information on hunger strikes. They started out as a way to make things happen in the political realm. But they were soon overcome by the people they were trying to motivate, simply by them not making a big deal of it. The striking person eventually starved to death. Moms and Dads who are taking their kids out of the spiritual realm of the church are simply assuring that they, and their kids, will starve to death spiritually after a matter of time.

The Bible tells us that in the last days before the return of Jesus Christ to the earth, there will be a huge falling away from the church. My prayer is that if you are missing church Sunday after Sunday, you will quit messing around with something that is very important to your living, both now and for eternity! Think about it!