from the parousianetwork

So let me ask you: Are you trying to ride a dead horse? In recent years many committed Christians have become tired, frustrated and disillusioned with the institutional, organizational and denominational structure of the Church as they have traditionally known it. As one ministry friend of mine declared with a note of frustration, "If Moses had relied on a committee he’d still be wandering around in the wilderness!" Many of those Christians who are disillusioned with the Church as it exists today are among the 20% who have been doing 80% of the work of the ministry. They are tired of trying to ride a dead horse!

The traditional institutional church seems to have lost its Kingdom vision and has replaced it with a committee or a program. The church has lost its power. This powerlessness in the face of a wave of cultural collapse has taken its toll. According to Christian Sociologist and trend-watcher Dr. George Barna, his research has revealed that:

Our evangelism is ineffective. A majority of the people who made a "decision" for Christ in one of our evangelical churches "were no longer to be found in a church context within eight weeks of having made such a decision." We have evangelized for decisions rather than conversions. But conviction is not conversion and a decision does not produce a disciple. Our evangelism has degenerated to little more than a slick ad-marketing campaign, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the commitment of the average "convert" is about as deep and authentic as a celebrity commercial endorsement.
We close more churches each year in America than we open. I was recently stunned to hear that the evangelical denomination from whose seminary I graduated recently declared that it was closing some 50 churches in the Northwestern United States. Across America we are closing down more churches each year than we are starting. In Scotland, the Church of Scotland recently announced that it will close 600 of its 1,400 fellowships. Dead horses litter the landscape.
A minority of born again adults (only 44%) are certain of the existence of absolute moral truth!
In a typical week, 41% of the adults attending Christian churches are not born again!
Four out of ten born again Christians do not attend Church, and there are more than 10 million born again Christians who are not attending Church.
As a result of this collapse of our culture and its impact upon the church, many institutional churches are looking (and praying) for revival in the hope that God will somehow revive and breathe new life into their dying institutions and programs; in other words, they are asking God to resurrect their dead horses. But the history of revival demonstrates that God revives and breathes new life into people, not buildings, institutions or programs.

With precious few exceptions the institutional church structure is inefficient and inflexible for the times in which we live, and for the difficult times that may soon be coming. The Church seems equally unprepared for either revival or for difficult times.
read the rest here http://www.parousianetwork.org:80/a_tale_of_dead_horses.htm