[i] Win Arn, The Pastor’s Manuel for Effective Ministry (Monrovia, CA; Church Growth, 1988), 41.
[ii] Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books), 21.
The church climate today in America is in a dreadful mess. Moral scandals made famous by catholic priests and celebrity pastors such as Ted Haggard cause the church to be the laughingstock of America on late-night talk shows. The irrelevance, irreverence and impotence of of churches are blatantly obvious to even the most casual observer. Statistics abound regarding the lack of growth, and perhaps more disconcerting, the lack of health in our churches. The wretched reality is also that few churches are thriving, fewer are growing, and even fewer are reaching people for Christ in significant numbers. In looking at the current state of the church, Win Arn has noted, “In the years following World War II, thousands of new churches were established. Today, of the approximately 350,000 churches in America, four out of five are either plateaued or declining.” [i] The majority of the churches in this plateau stage are somewhere on the continuum between dryness and decay, and death for them may unfortunately be right around the corner. Arn goes on to note in his analysis that 80-85% of churches in America are moving towards decline or death. He also adds that a 14 % are growing as the result of transfer rather than conversion growth, with a mere 1% of churches growing because of conversions. Arn’s research goes on to indicate that 3,500 to 4,000 churches die annually. The state of the church around the country is not good. Most local churches are not healthy and are not growing. There is no doubt that it is needed. Disappointment with the church is all too easily found, far too rampantly felt, and way too widely seen. Mark Dever has noted this poor condition of the church by pointing out the sad reality that "there is dissatisfaction with the church on every hand. Bookstore shelves groan under the weight of books with prescriptions for what ails her. Conference speakers live off the congregational diseases that always seem to survive their remedies. Pastors wrongly exult and tragically burn out, confused and uncertain. Christians are left to wander like sheep without a shepherd. But dissatisfaction is not enough. We need something more. We need positively to recover what the church is to be." [ii] A return to the church’s biblical roots and essence is greatly needed to say the least.
[i] Win Arn, The Pastor’s Manuel for Effective Ministry (Monrovia, CA; Church Growth, 1988), 41.
[ii] Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books), 21.
I am the founding and Lead Pastor of RiverTown Church in Jacksonville, FL. RiverTown is a great church with some great people. For obvious reasons, I will talk a lot about RiverTown in these blog posts. Feel free to check out our website, www.rivertown.com, for more on what RiverTown is all about. 
You can learn more about the Purpose, Values and Vision of RiverTown by clicking here. Also, we'd love to have you worship with us one Sunday at 9:45 or 11:00 AM.
Dan is an alum of Samford University (B.S. in History, 1995), Beeson Divinity School (Master of Divinity, 1998), and Liberty University (M.B.A., 2009). He is wrapping up his Doctor of Ministry degree at Reformed Theological Seminary, and scheduled to graduate in the next year. Dan loves spending time with his wife and coaching his boys in baseball and football. He enjoys golf, or most any other sport in his free time. He loves to eat sushi, wings and of course barbecue (like all good Southern boys). The beach, Amelia Island and Disney are favorites for getting away with the family.
You can contact Dan by email at dan@rivertown.com or on his website (www.dannyadams.com). You can find him on twitter at www.twitter.com/danwadams.>
