Latin For "This Mess We're In"

"Status quo, you know, is Latin for the mess we're in."

~ Ronald Reagan

     We live everywhere from the desert to the rain forest, from the depths of the ocean to near earth orbit, from the frigid plains near the north pole to the deserts at the equator. We settle in and then do whatever it takes to make it as comfortable as possible. Human beings can live almost anywhere, but wherever we are we work hard to maintain a comfort zone.

     Most other creatures aren't like that. Fish don't live in the desert, and most of them live in a fairly narrow environmental band. Some live only in the depths of the ocean, and some only in high mountain streams. Some creatures adapt but most have very little ability to manipulate their environment. Frogs bury themselves in the muck in winter and bears find a den, but they don't build fires to keep themselves warm. We do. We work hard to maintain the status quo, our comfort zone.

     I presume that churches do the same thing that their human being members do. They work to maintain the comfort zone - a.k.a., the status quo. Whether the church is cold or hot, the atmosphere is dry or it's raining, the people who make up local churches like to stay the same. Even if the church is in a mess, individual churches will, more likely than not, do all they can to change as little as possible. That's probably why so many are stagnant or declining. Jesus said that His kingdom grows, so it's safe to assume a spiritually health church is growing.  

     Dr. Bill Day at the Leavell Center for Evangelism and Church Health has compiled reams of research and has developed a definition for a healthy growing church. It's based on how a church has performed in a few areas over a period of five years. His definition of a healthy growing church is one that 1) has had a total worship attendance increase of 10% over 5 years, 2) had at least one baptism of a new believer in the first and last year of the last 5 years, and 3) has a worship-attendance-to-baptism ratio of no greater than 15:1. That means that a church that baptized 2 people last year would have 30 in worship, a church that baptized 10 would have 150 in worship, etc. 

     Guess what percentage of churches met that percentage in 2015. Well, in Southern Baptist life, only 5.4% of Southern Baptist churches were healthy, growing churches. Some other denominations are doing a bit better, but most are worse. That means about 95% of churches are not healthy and are not growing. 

     Ronald Reagan said that status quo was just another term for "this mess we're in." If we're living in a mess and do nothing to change the mess, then the only people we can blame for the mess is ourselves. Sometimes a Christian realizes his stagnation. Sometimes a church sounds the alarm. How many times, though, does the Christian or church answer the alarm with more of the same? Don't mistake doing the same thing with more enthusiasm as what's needed.  

     Have you ever gotten your vehicle stuck in the mud? What do most people do when they're stuck? They press down on the accelerator and spin their tires faster and faster hoping that by doing the same thing harder and harder they'll get different results. Sounds like the way most of us deal with the mess we're in.

     If you keep going the way you're going, no matter how hard you go that way, you'll end up in the same place you were going before you tried harder. Most Christians and churches are plateaued. They are stagnant. That's not healthy. If your focus is on maintenance, you're going to lose. Here's why. 

     God has created us to be healthy, and healthy means growing. Maintaining the status quo is not growth, so it's not healthy. Unhealthy Christians and unhealthy churches don't stay the same for long. They decline and die.

     If you're going to church and your comfortable the way you're church is going, your church will probably keep going the way it's going. If it's healthy and growing, that's great. If it's plateaued that's unhealthy.

     Of course most people aren't going to church like they used to go. So, their church is declining. Their comfort with "not going" has become the way their church is going. No, going to church meetings is not the only part of being the church. But, is commanded. We need to gather with our church for what it does for us, and we need to gather for what we can do for others. Neither you nor your church will be spiritually healthy if you're not going, because healthy Christians are those who serve and healthy churches are filled with servants.  

     Once more, healthy, growing churches are filled with n't churches where the members are satisfied merely with going. They are filled with Christians who go to serve - who've learned that only in using their gifts to make other disciples can they find the fulfillment that God promises. 

     A biblical term for a healthy, growing Christian is a disciple. A healthy, growing church is a disciple-making church. The only status quo that disciples and disciple-making churches try to maintain is the image of Christ. Their goal is Christ-likeness. Since they have not yet arrived at that goal, their status quo is growth. They live to grow, not to remain the same.