I recently encountered a man wearing a T-shirt that stated, in bold letters, "Worn by someone who doesn't like the church." I had never seen something like that before, but I did know that there are many people in our country who are down on the church.
Many of the law enforcement officers today do not go to church and are not very happy with the church. Nevertheless, they strongly believe in God. It sounds like a paradox, but it isn't. A lot of the people they have to deal with are church members -- people who are not doing a very good job of representing their Christian beliefs in the world. For law enforcement officers, they are no better than anyone else. Frankly, that's a sad commentary on the church.
It gets worse. According to a doctoral student (also a minister) working on his doctoral project (Nate Marsh, associate executive minister of American Baptists Churches of the Central Region: Vol. 113, No. 10), the statistics gathered from Focus on the Family, Barna, Pastor to Pastor, and Ministry Today reveal the church is in deep trouble. Here are his most recent statistics regarding pastors:
• 1,500 pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout or contention with other churches.
• 50 percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.
• 80 percent of pastors and 84 percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.
• 50 percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could but have no other way of making a living.
• 80 percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
• 90 percent of pastors said their seminary or
Editorial on 03/15/2017