{"id":1148,"date":"2016-10-07T07:49:54","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T12:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2016-10-07T07:49:54","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T12:49:54","slug":"food-for-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/food-for-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Food for Thought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Research by Dr. Richard J. Krejcir &#8211; Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Development (FASICLD)<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Every year more than 4000 churches close their doors compared to just over 1000<br \/>\nnew church starts!<\/li>\n<li>Every year, 2.7 million church members fall into inactivity.<\/li>\n<li>The United States now ranks third (3rd) following China and India in the number of<br \/>\npeople who are not professing Christians<\/li>\n<li>Half of all churches in the US did not add any new members to their ranks in the last<br \/>\ntwo years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My church growth colleagues have drummed up their reasons for the decline of the Church such as a lack of several key areas that are not functioning right in the local church. These areas are in the realm of vision, leadership, evangelism efforts, communication, church mentality, capital, child care, youth programs, and being seeker-sensitive. When these key areas are not functioning, the existing people will leave and others will not come. However, I have also found other factors that are in real, critical areas such as not teaching the Word or making God&#8217;s Word boring so that people are turned off. In addition, when our teaching is not tied into the needs of our people, we are failing to contextualize the message to the community. Then, the people will get the feeling that the teaching or the church is not informative, in-depth, or relevant to them, thus they are not receiving anything worthwhile from which they can grow or use in their daily lives.<\/p>\n<p>The following are essential to the Christian&#8217;s walk of faith:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A caring, effective love relationship with Jesus Christ as LORD.<\/li>\n<li>A lifestyle dedicated to obeying God&#8217;s Will.<\/li>\n<li>Daily devotional times, prayer, and studying of God&#8217;s Word.<\/li>\n<li>A joyful love and willingness to serve our Lord, even through personal sacrifice.<\/li>\n<li>A witness for Christ without hypocrisy.<\/li>\n<li>A firm desire to be God&#8217;s child through trust and obedience.<\/li>\n<li>A working faith in God&#8217;s promises for all daily needs and in all situations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Research by Dr. Richard J. Krejcir &#8211; Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development (FASICLD) Every year more than 4000 churches close their doors compared to just over 1000 new church starts! Every year, 2.7 million church members fall into inactivity. The United States now ranks third (3rd) following China and India in the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/food-for-thought\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Food for Thought<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8FugP-iw","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1154,"url":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/not-just-another-app\/","url_meta":{"origin":1148,"position":0},"title":"Not Just Another App","author":"admin","date":"10\/07\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The goal in designing the Unite App was not to just have another church app. The goal was to provide churches with a tool that accomplishes these initial features: Help members, pastors and staff become better acquainted Make it easy to visit and communicate with each other Enable convenient ways\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1390,"url":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/the-early-christian-house-church-and-todays-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":1148,"position":1},"title":"The Early Christian House Church and Today&#8217;s Experience","author":"Mickey Whitlow","date":"07\/31\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Early Christian House Church and Today\u2019s Experience How can our church experience be more like the early church? More than ever, we are dependent on many means of communication to manage our day-to-day lives. We are acquainted with email, text messages, notifications, and even video streaming. Our phones are\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1150,"url":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/is-your-church-revenue-all-you-need-need-more\/","url_meta":{"origin":1148,"position":2},"title":"Is Your Church Revenue All You Need? Need More?","author":"admin","date":"10\/07\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Some churches struggle with budget problems. The cause can be expenditures are too high; contributions are too low; or both. There are churches reaching their budget goals, but would like to expand their ministries and outreach if they had more income. Here are some effective strategies to improve revenues without\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":511,"url":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/church-membership-declining-in-u-s\/","url_meta":{"origin":1148,"position":3},"title":"Church Membership Declining in U.S.","author":"admin","date":"10\/26\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Church Membership and Participation in the U.S. is Shrinking \u2013 Should We Care? 1. \"Mainline Protestant denominations in the United States continue to a decades-long decline, while the memberships of Pentecostal traditions are on the rise, according to new figures compiled by the National Council of Churches. The figures in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":481,"url":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/church-planting\/","url_meta":{"origin":1148,"position":4},"title":"Church Planting","author":"admin","date":"02\/26\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The apostle Paul dedicated his very life traveling, preaching and establishing and nourishing churches across Asia Minor, Palestine and Europe. He is surely our greatest example of a church planter. We do not need more reason to be involved in church planting than what we are admonished to do in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":489,"url":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/ministry-through-activity-involvement\/","url_meta":{"origin":1148,"position":5},"title":"Ministry Through Activity Involvement","author":"admin","date":"08\/14\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The Muratorian Canon (c. AD 170) refers to Luke as the author of \"Acts of All the Apostles.\" The dictionary defines an activity as \"a specified pursuit in which a person partakes.\" The RDS Advantage church management system recognizes this link to name one of its powerful features \"Activities.\" As\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Blog&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1149,"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions\/1149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdsadvantage.com\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}