ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
November 4, 2026
I’m not usually a doom-and-gloom kind of person. In fact, the glass isn’t just half full, but has the potential to overflow if we continue to pour into it. At some point, it spills over the top. Of course, there are plenty of people who are seeing the statistics associated with Christianity in America, and the numbers do not look good. Oh, sure, we can point to examples of churches that are growing, but most research suggests that 70-85% of churches in the United States are declining. And even more concerning is the number of people who once self-described themselves as Christian, but now describe themselves as nonreligious or spiritual. Yet in the late 1700s, depending on who you read, only between 10-17% of the U.S. population attended or held membership in a church. We are currently higher than that. But a few decades later, as the Second Great Awakening caught fire, the number jumped to nearly 40%. This was the revival that gave birth to our denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Now historians will name numerous reasons, but there was a movement to toss off a religion that seemed to lose sight of Jesus. Unimaginable things occurred, including our own denomination that in 1892 ordained Sarah Lue Bostick, a Black woman, as Jim Crow laws were crushing people of color. Yet Disciples celebrated her in many places as she did revivals and baptized over 1,500 people during her ministry. It is stories like this that make me optimistic about today. In fact, I am full of hope as I believe there is sacred potential in churches like Cypress Creek Christian Church that lean more passionately into Jesus as compared to a dogmatic religion that is more interested in power and divisiveness. What does it mean for there to be a New Great Awakening, where the extraordinary love of Jesus is made real, especially for those who have been made to feel by a dogmatic religion as if they stand outside that love? Are you ready for a New Great Awakening?
As we stand on the cusp of something new that has so much sacred potential, I pray that the opportunity is not lost to those who utilize the tools of fear and guilt to suck your Spirit from the moment. May it be so, Lord God. Amen.
