John Armstrong, in his excellent blog, addresses the decline of the church in North America in a couple of recent posts. You can read them here and here.

John points out that the church in America has been in decline sine the 70's and asks what should we do to stop the bleeding. His belief is we need to do a better job in making disciples and in many ways he is right. But, I don't think discipleship quite gets at the heart of the issue so I'm going to be blunt:

The church in America is dying because we refuse to die.

Tertullian said, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church" and I believe history supports his observation. From the time of Acts when the church began to experience persecution, though the horrors of the Roman Empire under Nero where christians were used as human torches to light his garden, the church grew in strength and in numbers.

These believers were not joining because the faith offered self-help, successful living or hot Starbucks on Sunday morning. They knew that their faith in Jesus, the Messiah, could cost them their lives. In fact, they knew that this same Jesus had required death when he told his followers to pick up their cross and to follow Him.

Look at our brothers and sisters in China. They have been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and even killed for their love of Jesus. The church in China is exploding right now with growth. Seems kind of outrageous when you think of what it costs a Chinese national to become a Christian, but there you have it: it will cost them their lives but they are coming in droves.

What about believers in Islamic countries? People like brother Haik Hovsepian who was a bishop of the church in Tehran before he was brutally murdered in 1994 or the Christians killed by Muslims in Somalia for their faith knew the cost of following Jesus, but they followed Him anyway.

The answer to our problem lies deeper than a renewed focus on discipleship. We need to learn how to die.

We have taken all cost out of the equation and have equated following Christ with going to church, tithing and listening to 'christian' music while giving up smoking, swearing and drinking alcohol.

We want to make it as easy as possible for someone to join the family, but in doing so we have reduced the faith to a seminar on successful living and a wimpy effeminate Lord who's only purpose was to get kicked around by God so we don't have to.

So, as long as we insist on peddling a gospel of the consumer's savior; a Jesus who exists to meet our needs and to provide eternal happiness at a great value, we can expect the church to decrease because that gospel has no power, it's got no juice. Who cares about a faith that is nice and polite and tidy? Who cares about a faith that puts on a great Sunday program? Folks can get that by switching on their favorite TV show or attending a football game. Sure, guys like Joel Osteen will still pack 'em in, just like there are folks that will gladly plunk down thousands to drive a Pontiac Aztec. There are always some who will buy the crap offered up. (Apologies to Aztec owners, but really, that's a sad sad vehicle.)

So, what are we supposed to do? We live in a society where no one is going to kill us if we go to church. We don't have to sneak around, meet in caves and basements for fellowship, share bits and scraps of bible pages because the book is outlawed or worry about being imprisoned and beaten for our belief that Jesus is the son of God. How can we die for Jesus?

We die when we submit our will to God. We die when we make His desires more important than ours. We die when we are obedient to Him and we offer up our lives to Him as a living sacrifice. Every. Single. Moment/Every. Single. Day.

Jesus said, "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven." Of course the prayer continues and you can read it in Matthew 6:9-13.

The part I want to draw your attention to is, "thy kingdom come; thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven."

Jesus is recognizing that God's kingdom is at hand and His will needs to be manifest on earth, like it already is in heaven. That happens when we die to ourselves and allow Him to live through us. That's what it means to be the Body of Christ—you're living Christ here on earth. It's a crazy concept, but it does not work when you are doing your own thing, even if you prayed 'the sinner's prayer'.

When the church in America has died to itself and its people are allowing Christ to live through them the church will thrive. That's a church with power, life and salvation. That's the holy body of Christ, without spot or wrinkle, a light shining like a city on a hill, drawing all men to it. and all it takes is for you and I to just die to ourselves.

It's what our Lord and brother did—He died—and if it was good enough for Him it's good enough for us. Our brothers and sisters are doing it all over the world. Let's pick-up our crosses and die so that the church can live.

We want so badly for everyone to know Jesus. We call a whole wing of the faith, filled with multiple millions of believers, Evangelicals, after the idea that we need to tell everyone the good news of Jesus. But, it's hard to get anyone to listen. We try but who really cares anymore? They don't take notice.

But our society has sat up and taken notice. It's agreed with us that Jesus is just who we said he is: our personal savior. And in agreeing with us, society has asked, nay, insisted, that we keep to our word and keep Jesus to ourselves, because after all, it's personal.

And there we are, emasculated, void of power and unable to answer the peril and pain the world faces because Jesus is a personal savior, he's just for us. We'd like him to be everyone's personal savior, but of course, that's a personal choice best left to the individual to make if they decide to have a personal relationship with Jesus.

We don't like it that our faith has been relegated to the closet of personal belief. We feel stripped of our strength and punch when we're told that what we believe is fine for us, but really, it's not appropriate to impose our personal views on others.

And so, we're left to sit quietly with our personal savior and watch the world go by, like an old man on a bench, people watching at the mall. Ah! How interesting it all looks, but we can't interact, engage or shape the world we witness; just look.

We put ourselves in this place. We insist that Jesus wants nothing more than to have a personal relationship with you! We insist that Jesus died on the cross for you! We insist that Jesus loves you! (yes, always with an exclamation mark, because we really mean it)

We insist that it is all about what Jesus can, wants and will do for the individual. And in doing so we have lifted the individual above our God. We have put the individual on the throne. We've handed over the right to decide what is and is not to the individual, reducing the Lord of All to nothing more than a mechanism for successful living and happiness.

We're begging people to let Jesus in and in return they are exercising the power we have given them and telling us to keep it to ourselves.

I'm not saying people should not have a relationship with Christ or that it should not be intimate. I'm all for that and enjoy it myself. Well, I don't always enjoy it, as at times knowing God is hard, painful and full of a lot of dying, but that's my fault, not His.

What I am saying is this: we've made following Christ this personal choice that puts the individual in charge. The fact is, Jesus is Lord. Folks may not agree, but it does not change the facts. If we know his Lordship to be true then we should live like it. We can be full of grace toward others and we don't need to shove the gospel down anyone's throat, but we can be confident and unapologetic as we engage society.

Jesus transforms the personal lives of individuals, but only when they bow at his feet and cast their life into his hands. We can start by living this submission to him and nothing else in our own lives. The rest will take care of itself.

You see, when you put Jesus on the throne you start to do things that don't respect the wishes of society. You eat with tax collectors, you heal the sick, you care for widows and orphans, you drive out the moneychangers in the temple and you feed the hungry. You make fools of Pharisees and you cast out demons.

Whatever you do in his name, you will do it with authority and with grace and the world around you will have no choice but to take notice. It can't help it because it's not personal anymore. It's Jesus, manifested to a sick and dying world in power and in love. That's not a personal choice but rather a reality with which all must grapple and come to terms with.

You might end-up on a cross just like he did, but it will be OK, because your prayer will be 'not my will, Lord, but yours be done'.