All over the country this weekend, small handfuls of people will gather in huge church buildings which once boasted very large congregations. At one time, America was widely considered a Christian nation, but that really isn't the case anymore. Today, only about 27% of all Americans attend church on a regular basis. And as a result, churches are dying in very large numbers, and this is a trend that appears to be accelerating. We are seeing that lack of church attendance resulting in churches closing. And as we are burdened to get the gospel out in every community, you have to have God's institution, the church, in every community to accomplish that purpose. According to LifeWay Christian Resources, when you break down the numbers, it means about 100 to 200 churches will close this week. Think about that. 100 to 200 churches may close this week because people no longer seem to care. You know, we have people that need to be saved. You have Christians that have gotten out of church that they need some place to come back to. You have people that are hurting, and where are they going to turn to? And if the churches continue to close up, there's just nobody for those people to go to. What's the problem? The fact is, we've forgotten God because we have forgotten His Church. If this country is to turn around, God's people must get involved. I think that taking the gospel to the ends of the earth is every church's responsibility. It starts in Jerusalem and it extends to Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost. The job of the church is to get the gospel to the entire world, and I think that we've not done the greatest job as far as getting the gospel here to our own country. We have spent much time raising funds and going overseas, and certainly that's needed. I'm very mission-minded and love missionaries and the work they do, but we need to be a missionary here in our backyard. Several years ago, our church was burdened to be involved in church planting. That was our original intention. And as we began looking around the communities here in the state of Indiana, we found that there are a lot of churches in almost every community, gospel preaching, even Baptist churches that would be similar to us, if not just like us. The problem is they have 10, 15 people. They're struggling to find a pastor, to keep a pastor, to pay a pastor. And some of these churches are simply closing down. Because of that, we've seen the decline of church attendance. We've seen the decline of morals in our country. And people just don't have a heart anymore for God and the things of God. And unfortunately, that's crept into our churches as well. And I think it's affected our attendance. It's affected the response people have towards the preaching of God's word. Sometimes we focus so much on getting the gospel to the mission field that we bypass the supply line. You can't have missionaries on the field if you don't have support at home. And if our churches are not strong, then we're not going to be able to get missionaries to the field. And so it is our job, home missions as well as foreign missions. What's the solution? What do we do? What's the key to keeping church doors open? There are basically two things that can be done. Revitalize or replant. Revitalize what we have or replant a new church. Revitalization is going to a church that is floundering. Maybe it is stagnant, the members are small, they're unable to move forward. And the idea of revitalization is going into that church and helping that church along. Well, I think you have a church that's, say, running 10 people. And you sit there and you look at what they can accomplish. And there's just not a lot. And you're just so limited on that scale. And of course, they can't even hardly keep their doors open because there's just nobody left. And we need to pump new life into them and help them to be able to get to that point to where they are able to get the gospel out and to have a pastor. And you can support missionaries, and you can have the programs, and you can have all the things. You can get the gospel out. Revitalization is the supernatural work of God in bringing a church from the brink of death back to life. A better word of saying it would be it's revival, but it's revival with teeth. There are definite steps that are taken so that a church can go from bare existence to thriving again. We can help these churches that need revitalization by praying. Nothing can be done of eternal benefit that doesn't involve God's hand in it. And God responds to the prayers of his people. So we have to pray. Two is we can be involved by financially supporting, helping so that pastors can give themselves to the ministry and not be distracted by other vocations and work responsibilities. That keeps pastors from burning out. It helps pastors to be able to give time to the ministry as well as maintain a right relationship with their families. We can help by participating in that church's evangelistic outreach. Imagine taking a bus or a vanload of people up to a location, going out for multiple hours in a community, knocking on doors, talking to people, helping get the word out about the church and its existence, go soul winning. Nothing invigorates a church more than to see someone who was saved to walk an aisle and profess their faith in Christ. Okay, so you get past that and you maybe get a little bit of financial help and then you get to building. Well, then it's just a matter of now you're working a full-time job. You're still trying to spend time with your wife and your children. You're still trying to do the work of the ministry, because you still have to prepare your sermons. You still have to pray. You still have to spend time with the Lord. But then on top of that, you're trying to knock doors and knock doors and knock doors and hand out tracts. And you're doing all of this work. So what happens is that if we can come in and assist financially so that he doesn't have to work a part-time job or a full-time job and is able to pastor full-time, that opens him up for the ministry of the Word and prayer, visitation, soul winning, and other opportunities of outreach and really getting the program going in the church. Help is more than prayer and money. It is sometimes good old-fashioned elbow grease. In a real practical way, there are work responsibilities. I'm talking about refurbishing or helping with rebuilding, maybe some cleanup, some elbow grease and things like that that can be a great benefit to churches that are struggling. Oh, the sky's the limit on what somebody could do. You could come and help the new church mow the grass. You could come trim bushes. You have a situation where you're revitalizing a church, it probably means that it hasn't been cleaned really well for a long time. Another thing that can happen is in the summertime, imagine a church that hasn't had a vacation Bible school because they don't have the workers. But if a youth group or maybe a church group was able to go and help for a time, that could be a big difference. There would also be the possibility of going and supporting a revival, providing special music. Just showing up and being there in attendance can be a real morale booster as far as the struggling church is concerned. Replanting a church amounts to a church that has closed, a building that was paid for and built by God's people for the purpose of getting the gospel to the masses. Why take that church, that building, sell it? and the money go away. And then if a new church is planted, you have to start all over again. And you have to find a location, a place to temporarily meet. You have to pay all of the money it's going to cost to build a new building, and then to basically re-spend or reinvest money that has already been invested in the past. Why not take that money and use it to help plant a new church in an established facility? And of course, that would mean reconstituting a congregation, new leadership of a pastor, and eventually other church leaders, etc. But it allows the church to get a step up in getting replanted. If we don't get involved, what can happen? Maybe what we need to do is help churches that are already existing. We are presently involved in helping a church right now. There's about 15 to 20 people that go to this church. They're looking for a pastor. If we had not stepped in to help them at this time, they wouldn't have continued because they were talking about closing because they didn't have a pastor. Now, there's hope that we can find a pastor and we can take them through this rough spot until they're established again and can shine brightly for the cause of Christ. What is the great need in America? It isn't conservative politics. electing a certain candidate, gaining financial prosperity, or fixing all of our social ills? The answer is Jesus Christ. The solution is getting God back into the thinking, the mindset, the decision-making process of America. And that can be done only by God through His Church. I think anytime any individual dies without Christ and goes to hell, and eventually the lake of fire for all eternity, that is a big deal. And the less churches you have, that's less gospel that's getting out. And so as a result of that, that's just less and less knowledge of God, less and less of the gospel getting out, people being saved, and that just means more and more people going to hell. So we have got to revitalize these churches. so that Christians are revived in their hearts, so that there's a desire for them to go out and spread the gospel, so that we can reverse this trend of decline and see a revival in our nation. Politics can never fix the problem because the problem is a spiritual issue. And God established the church to be the vehicle through which he gets the gospel to the masses of humanity. And so it's really a spiritual problem that has to be solved with spiritual solutions. And so that's really the burden is to see churches not only planted, but churches thriving and not just surviving. God Bless.