Let's Open Our Eyes

There is currently a church plant conference going on here at Watermark.  They will be traveling to different recent plants and studying what effective church plants look like.

This is what I have just learned.  In 1950  Vancouver had 80% attendance in churches and less than 1% were proclaiming atheists...  In 2005 those numbers nearly flopped.  There was less than 5% attendance in church and 41% were proclaiming atheists.  That is an incredibly depressing statistic.

Next a quote appeared on the screen.  It said this,

"The Church is PERCEIVED as an island of irrelevance in an ocean of need." 

Whoa.  

That means the church is not irrelevant, but that is how the church is VIEWED.  What have we done,  or not done, as Christians to gain this view of the church?  The church should be the most relevant thing when people are in need.  Our churches should have doors wide open to help those in need.

So what are we doing?  How can we change this view?  When people are in a time of need will your church doors be open?  Will they even know where they are?