Let me share with you something
that I see in the youth group, but I also see in the church
at large, individual congregations, because we have dumbed down the
gospel, because we're not preaching the true gospel. And we are using
carnal means to attract people. If you use carnal means to attract
men, you're going to attract carnal men and you're going to
have to keep using greater carnal means to keep them in the church.
So what has happened is this. We have these large churches
filled with many unconverted carnal people. But in those churches,
we also have this small group of people. that honestly want
Christ and they honestly want his word and they honestly want
to be transformed. They don't need anything else.
All they need is true worship of the true God and scripture
being preached to them and lived out before them. That's what
they want. Now, I want to tell you the great sin of the American
pastor. And this has got me in a lot
of trouble, but it's true. This small group of Converted
people in that local church, all they want is Jesus and all
they want to do is the right thing. They want purity. They want truth. They want Christ. But the pastor, in order to keep
this larger group of unconverted people, he caters to them. So
while he is feeding these carnal men and women with carnal things,
he is letting the sheep of God starve to death and he is going
to stand before God one day in judgment. Listen, brother, if
if my wife was going grocery shopping and when she was going
out to her car, some men assailed her, attacked her brutally and
you walked by. And you did not want to get involved
because you didn't want to cause trouble. You didn't want to put
yourself in harm's way. You just wanted everything to
go smooth. After all that was done, I would
look for those men to deal with them. But I want you to know
this. I'd look for you, too, because you had a chance to stand
for my wife, my bride. And out of self-preservation
or wrong ideas, you did not do it. You're just as much responsible
as those men who attacked her. And that's what's happening all
throughout America with pastors. It's the bride of Christ. There
are sheep in all these churches, many of them, even churches that
seem somewhat heretical in places. You usually find a group of people
who truly want Christ, but the leadership is catering to the
carnal and letting the bride of Christ starve to death, impoverished. And that is wrong. And there's
going to be judgment for it. And the same thing is happening
to the youth. I know young people that say, you know, Brother Paul,
I listen to you all the time. And I said, well, what about
your church? Well, they don't preach this. It's not what the
other young people want. And so they give them what they
want. I'm starving to death. A little child of God, it would
be better than a millstone be tied around your neck. Then you
cause this little one to stumble.
Churches Using Carnal Means to Attract Carnal People
There is a crisis. Christian youth are rapidly leaving evangelical churches for the world. This well-recognized disaster has been the topic of significant discussion in recent years for both church leaders and modern news media. DIVIDED follows young Christian filmmaker Philip LeClerc on a revealing journey as he seeks answers to what has led his generation away from the church.
Traveling across the country conducting research and interviewing church kids, youth ministry experts, evangelists, statisticians, social commentators, and pastors, Philip discovers the shockingly sinister roots of modern, age-segregated church programs, and equally shocking evidence that the pattern in the Bible for training future generations is at odds with modern church practices.
He also discovers a growing number of churches that are abandoning age-segregated Sunday school and youth ministry to embrace the discipleship model that God prescribes in His Word.