The Prodigal Church

Scripture: Luke 15:11-24; Revelation 3:14-22

 

Introduction

 

I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.– Luke 15:7

• Last Sunday we celebrated our resident writer, Susan Bagato’s, new book Prodigal.
• We slipped away to Myrtle Beach, and I finally got some time to sit down and read it.
• I wanted to read it on the beach, but the weather was yucky, so I did the next best thing.
• I took it with me in the jacuzzi and read the first 110 pages before I could put it down.
• Usually, I read pretty fast, but I will typically drop out stuff that seems redundant, or fill.
• This was a rare occurrence where I read EVERY word in EVERY paragraph.
• It is an endearing read on the life of Susan and her call to return to church.
• We are fortunate that Susan answered that call and chose Biltmore; or DID she choose it?
• So many of the things that pushed her away from church were corrected in her experience meeting Biltmore.
• That hasn’t always been the case at Biltmore – or most churches for that matter.
• This sermon literally wrote itself as I read Susan’s story.
• Susan portrays herself as a prodigal, but I see an intersection with another prodigal.
• And that other prodigal is the church. In our case, Biltmore Baptist Church.
• Biltmore had to come home to be the kind of church that would attract Susan.
• Here are two things that happened to Biltmore to prepare us to welcome Susan home:

1. We had to come to the end of ourselves.
2. We had to accept the changes God was

1. We had to come to the end of ourselves

• In the story we read from Luke, it is the third in a series of three parables Jesus tells, about recovering something that is lost.
• God is trying to rescue every person He possibly can.
• God sent His Son for the very purpose of rescuing people from eternal doom.
• But how do you rescue someone who doesn’t know that they need rescuing?
• In the parable of the lost son, we have a person who goes off on their own way.
• He takes everything from his inheritance and then does a series of bad choices.
• He loses everything before he realizes the futility of his actions and has remorse.
• It was then that he came to the end of himself and realized how much better he had it.
• Even the servants lived better than the life he now found himself in.
• He was living and eating with the pigs and was miserable.
• How many churches will go out of business before they realize they are wrong?
• A little more than a year ago, Adam Gabbatt writes in his article, Losing their religion: why US churches are on the decline, for the Guardian.

Churches are closing at rapid numbers in the US, researchers say, as congregations dwindle across the country and a younger generation of Americans abandon Christianity altogether – even as faith continues to dominate American politics.

As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year in the country – a figure that experts believe may have accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Gabbatt cites research from Lifeway, a part of the Southern Baptist Convention:

About 4,500 Protestant churches closed in 2019, the last year data is available, with about 3,000 new churches opening, according to Lifeway Research. It was the first time the number of churches in the US hadn’t grown since the evangelical firm started studying the topic.

• According to Scott McConnell, executive director at Lifeway Research:

“In the last three years, all signs are pointing to a continued pace of closures probably similar to 2019 or possibly higher, as there’s been a really rapid rise in American individuals who say they’re not religious.”

“The younger generation just doesn’t feel like they’re being accepted in a church environment or some of their choices aren’t being accepted.

About a quarter of the young adults who dropped out of church said they disagreed with their church’s stance on political and social issues, McConnell said.

• A study by Pew Research found that the number of Americans who identified as Christian was 64% in 2020, with 30% of the US population being classed as “religiously unaffiliated”. About 6% of Americans identified with Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

“Since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of US adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular’,” Pew wrote.

• The statistics are alarming and Christianity is losing ground.
• Our story from Revelation reveals what is going on behind the scenes in God’s realm.
• Biltmore has had to come to the end of itself and face potential closing.
• Fortunately, we caught ourselves in time to turn things around. Nothing lukewarm here.
• The rest of the churches need to wake up and change before they become a statistic.
• Like the Prodigal Son, they need to come to the end of themselves.

 

2. We had to accept the changes God was making.

• The core of the Prodigal Son story is the amazing change that occurs in the man.
• In the beginning, he was self-absorbed and self-centered and rejected his father.
• He took his inheritance and went off on his own and the world ate him alive.
• He squandered his money on wild living and lost everything he had.
• The only job he could find was scrounging around for food to feed pigs.
• Jesus chose this example because of the level of desperation that came from serving pigs.
• Pigs were considered unclean by Jews and would have represented the ultimate in shame.
• He had to learn to be humble and open to the changes God was making in him.
• Likewise, Biltmore had to learn to be humble and accept the changes God was making.
• We have seen this church transform from a lukewarm church to a church on fire!!
• The change that took place in the Prodigal enabled him to swallow his pride and go home
• The change that took place in Biltmore enabled us to come home to serve this neighborhood as was originally intended and to grow our missions in a powerful way.
• In the end, Jesus uses this story to illustrate the result of the son returning to the father.
• He is telling us that our heavenly Father waits for us with open arms to return to Him.
• Does anyone doubt that Biltmore was greeted by our Father with open arms?
• Just like the Prodigal Son, Biltmore was ready to come home to the Father’s plan for us.
• As church leaders, we tend to think in terms of what we can change about the church to attract people to come back.
• I submit that we’ve got it backwards and I think the statistics tell the story.
• It’s not lost people who need to come back to church, it’s a lost church that needs to turn back to the Lord and turn back to the people.
• We are not here to judge and run a political agenda, Jesus didn’t do that.
• Churches need to tuck their tails and humble themselves and turn back to the Lord.
• He will welcome other churches just as He has done with Biltmore and the trend can be reversed.
• It’s not going to happen until, like the Prodigal Son, churches drop their arrogance and pious judgement of people.
• Thanks to Susan for telling her story and how it connects to our story.
• Now we just need to tell the story of the Prodigal Church – it really works.