Destructive Church Trends In North American Christianity

Christian churches in North America are facing a crisis. Attendance is down, giving is down, young people are leaving churches at alarming rates - but that's not the worse part. The worse part is that our Christian churches are exacerbating this crisis thanks to a handful of shoddy beliefs. And by the end of this video, you'll know what those beliefs are - and how to resist the pull of them.   ***VISIT THE FULL POST HERE: https://prochurchtools.com/16590-2/   What's In This Session? Branding is what others think about you - before our churches can truly reach our city and/or community - we need to understand how we are perceived (2:22) #1. Persecution Complex (2:55) More than 245 million Christians in the world are highly persecuted for their Christian faith. 1 in 9 Christians worldwide experience high levels of persecution (2:59) White evangelicals think they're super persecuted (4:23) God's Not Dead feeds the narrative (4:43) Don't belittle the real persecution of others by manufacturing fake persecution for yourself (5:10) James Harden comparison (8:48) #2. Theological Certainty (11:14) Hundreds of denominations and translations and you're certain yours is the absolute correct one (11:18) Theological certainty is a symptom of trusting beliefs more than God (12:47) Surrendering the need to be right, and our pride opens the door for empathy and compassion (15:47) Judge them by their fruits? The Protestant quest for theological certainty has led to a staggering number of different denominations and sub-denominations that disagree sharply about how significant portions of the Bible should be understood (19:35) Things that matter: incarnational living, selflessness, laying down one's own life for others, generosity, bringing life to death, bringing heaven to Earth, redemption, reconciliation, love being the uniting/redeeming/ultimate force in the world to do good (20:06) #3. Celebrity Worship (22:25) Canadian commercials versus American commercials (22:49) The face of American Christianity is Donald Trump, Mark Driscoll, Perry Noble, Bill Hybels, Pete Wilson etc. (23:46) The true danger of each of these beliefs is that they are ancient sins masquerading as Christian virtues (31:29)   Show Notes & Resources Mentioned: 2019 World Watch List Press Room Perceive Discrimination Against Christians Than Muslims Pro Church Tools Pro Church Tools on Facebook Pro Church Tools on YouTube Brady Shearer on Instagram Brady Shearer on Twitter Alex Mills on Instagram