I read a lot about the decline of Christianity, stagnant or falling church attendance, and other church ills. But the conclusion of a recent editorial column by Michael Craven continues to stick with me.

Primarily he discussed the lack of discipleship among Christian American youth—who, like their elders, are quite hypocritical in matching their professed faith with their real-life practices. However, Craven's take on this was slightly different than what I normally see in these sorts of "doomsday for the Church" articles.

Rather than advocate for a different and/or better type of ministry (ministry to men is popular again), Craven suggests that church leaders are, well, insane.

According to Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." This is exactly what Craven accuses so many church leaders of doing when they address the languishing Christian faith in the United States with a new church program.

Here's what he ends his editorial with:

"It is astonishing to note that despite the growing body of evidence demonstrating the American church's failure to adequately and holistically disciple the faithful into maturity; the leadership in so many of our churches continue to do the same thing expecting different results, employing the same paradigm that emphasizes programmatic evangelism rather than making disciples."

Then he calls for leaders to bring the church back to the Great Commission.

While certainly discipleship can occur within church programming, statistics show that it usually is not. How many times must we hear Josh McDowell, George Barna and others decry the lack of orthodox Christian beliefs among American churchgoers before we realize our programs are failing?

Another observation by Einstein elucidates the tendency we have to get stuck in the means and fail to ever find the end. "Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem -- in my opinion -- to characterize our age," the genius said. Probably we could re-phrase it for church leaders to say, "Perfection of ministries and confusion of commission seem to characterize our churches."

This sentiment is expressed prophetically in Revelation 2-3, where Christ praises various churches for doing great things, yet admonishes them for also failing miserably.

According to a Religion News Service story about people who change their religion, there is some good news for Evangelical churches, as they rank high in converts from other religions and have seen a net gain over the past few years. However, a 2001 study also points out the biggest shift has been a complete renunciation of faith, nearly doubling the number of people in the United States who say they have no religion.

Though both may be equally as damning, in some ways no religion seems better than false religion. A well-informed atheist decrying the existence of God sits better with me than the reported 10 percent of Protestant teens who also deny the existence of the Author of their faith.

One Southern Baptist church leader is so disturbed by the trend of such faithlessness that he is calling for denomination-wide discipline to root out those who don't believe.

Somehow, I doubt the SBC will go to the extreme of sorting sheep and goats prematurely.  Still, the denomination is taking steps, offering a free online survey April 1-8 to provide "fresh information about teens, their families and youth ministry." Personally, I doubt it will turn up anything new. But I agree with Craven that it should inspire a new church paradigm.

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