Collapse? Not my Jesus!

I've recently received an article via e-mail from a couple of friends. The article was entitled "The Coming Evangelical Collapse" written by Michael Spencer. I've been wanting to write a response to the article and I got an excellent response from H.B. London. If you want to read all of "The Coming Evangelical Collapse" then click this link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090310/cm_csm/yspencer. Otherwise, here's is H.B. London's response:
There seems to be a lot of conjecture these days about the shape, size and health of the North American church. For instance, in our recent Focus on the Family 2009 Pastoral Ministries Survey (unscientific), it showed 53 percent of the churches who answered our questions were either plateaued or in decline. Seventy-five percent of those churches had an average weekend attendance of less than 200 participants.
A couple of weeks ago, my son Brad who works in Christian radio, sent me an article by Michael Spencer. It appeared on the Christian Science Monitor site and was titled, "The Coming Evangelical Collapse." I don't know much about Mr. Spencer. He has a blog and calls himself a "post-evangelical reformation Christian," but he does make some interesting, yet debatable, statements.
He believes that, in the next decade, "intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible." As a result, millions of evangelicals will quit. He goes on to tell us why. (The bold statements are mine.)
1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. What if the church had remained silent over the past 30 years? Do we, however, need to become more articulate in expressing what we believe rather than what we oppose?
2. We have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can stand the test of secular onslaught. We are often more style than substance. Youth have enthusiasm without basic theological knowledge. It is not too late to reverse that trend.
3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches and new churches. Maybe, maybe not — one of the fears I have is that pastors will avoid the challenge to confront the culture, and strong denominational leadership will vanish. We will play the comparison game and become disenchanted and fail to bloom where God has planted us.
4. We will see that all the 'good' evangelicals want to do will be viewed as 'bad' ... much of the work will not be done. This is not news — 20 percent of those in the church have always done 80 percent of the heavy lifting. There will always be a faithful remnant. The church will need to take on Gideon like courage.
Mr. Spencer sees the future full of house churches and says, "We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture."
Agree or disagree, we do have our work cut out for us.

I agree with H.B. London on all of those points, though I'm probably much more hopeful. We do, however, have our work cut out for us. My feelings is that Oakwood as a whole is on the right track. With our youth ministry's new focus on discipleship, and our children's ministry on Christian education, I think the future is bright for the next generation at Oakwood. I must admit, there is a disturbing trend that I see in some other ministries across the country that have fluff and no substance. We must take courage though and remember that we are God's people and this is His church. In Matthew 16:18, the Son of God says, "... and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). Let's take the warning to heart, but let's see that God's in control and do our best to serve and please Him.

Thus, keep the faith brothers and sisters!