What a totally bazaar concept “lost Christians”? This is an oxymoron! If these “Christians” have lost their faith in the Bible, the church and Christian beliefs then they are not “lost Christians” they are not Christians!
Thirty-one million people have left these churches because they were never believers they were just cultural Christians. It is happening in the U.S., Canada and Europe because many of the mainline churches in the West do not teach or practice biblical Christianity. All they have is denominational rituals. They baptize people into the church as babies and then they call them Christians. Then when they grow up and leave they say they are “lost Christians. It is nonsense, they were never Christians at all.
What is happening is that once these social Christians no longer feel social pressures from parents or spouses to stay they leave. Others leave when they lose faith in their warped concept of the Church, the Bible or God. The reason they leave Christianity is because they never had Christian faith in the first place. The reason why they leave your church might be because they never received salvation there.
There are no “lost Christians” Millions of people are leaving their churches because they never entered the one true spiritual Church in the first place – the body of Christ. If you church leaders really want to do something about it preach the gospel of salvation to your own congregations and preach them the whole counsel of God and start to practice biblical Christianity instead of just giving your congregation some psychology lesson or feel good message during a Sunday ritual service.
Dave Samford obvious does not even know what a true Christian is. His term seems to be anyone who even attended a Christian church. He then suggests they we bring those that leave back into this strange concept of Christian faith by fixing their hurt feelings and doubts about God. No, these people only will come to Christ when you give them the true Gospel of salvation and for the first time in their lives they actually believe it.
‘Lost’ Christians Greatest Crisis in American Church, says Author | Christianpost.com
PORTLAND, Ore. – The inability of the church to discuss a topic that has become taboo among many Christians is one of the root causes why millions of Americans are leaving the church and never to return, says one author.
There are “Christians who have experientially lost their faith” but have no one to turn to since church culture shuns the topic, Dave Samford said Thursday.
It’s not that these Christians lost their salvation, but that they have lost their faith in the Bible, the church and Christian beliefs, said the author, who was addressing attendants at the annual convention of the Evangelical Press Association in Portland, Ore.
Over 31 million Americans are part of this exodus from the church, Samford said, citing a Barna Group study.
“Any business that is losing 31 million customers is going out of business,” he told a room of Christian journalists and editors. “[It] is the greatest crisis among Christians today in the U.S., Canada and some parts of Europe…We must break the silence in our publications.”
Please don’t lump all of us who have abandoned the physical “church”. We aren’t all running from God. We’re running from MAN and his deception, instead! Please! There are exceptions to those of us who have “left the ‘church’ “. Some of us no longer attend a formalized religious establishment, but not because we have lost our beliefs, our faith, our love of God, our hope and dependence in our Lord Jesus or any of that.
It is because the so-called modern-day church is no longer the church that teaches the truth. The modern church has committed adultery, preferring, instead to be like the world. It sounds like the world, smells like the world, acts like it, speaks like it, dances like it, you name it. It has become the world.
I no longer trust pastors who never once utter the name of Jesus in their sermons, or who present one little scripture and build their own psychology lesson on it, with “truths” that contradict what our God put into His own Words. I cannot find a church that preaches salvation and Jesus’ sacrifice for mankind’s sins. Instead, I find only pastors whose own personal beliefs override the teaching from the Holy Bible.
Curiously, if one studies the Bible, what will be found is that the first church, and even the old testament people, all attended church for one main reason – to hear and learn from the reading of the scriptures, to learn what God’s words meant. Fellowship took second place – if that.
Now, people go to be socially accepted, to feel good about themselves, to have a safe social network, and a myraid of reasons, none of which has anything to do with Jesus’ death and resurrection for our sins to reconcile us to our Creator, God.
I am one who wants to talk about my Lord, the mighty things he has done in my own life, how much I love Him and what I’m learning in His Word. I can’t find anyone in churches nowadays who even will tolerate such a conversation, but for a minute or so, before he or she becomes bored and changes the subject to something about the next football game, the next shopping trip or some other non-God topic.
In a nutshell, I don’t attend church because I can’t stomach the false gods our so-called “church” worships. I feel very much alone, except for my children and my best friend who is like me – somewhat. Nevertheless, as for me and my house (I’m divorced, living alone), I WILL SERVE GOD.
I witness to whoever seems hungry. Then I let our Lord’s Holy Spirit work with their hearts. But – it’s heartbreaking to see that so many have turned from the truth, pursuing instead, a lie.
Good point, and one that I totally missed when giving reasons why people are leaving the churches. What you said I now hear quite often from people.
Thanks for you input.