Just a thought

I had a post on here earlier that could have been misunderstood. So I deleted it and decided to try to be clearer on my thought. We are in a society that never seems to be satisfied. Unfortunately, what we do in this world and at home eventually sneaks into our churches. I've been a Missionary Baptist for most of my life. For a short period of time I went to an Independant Baptist church, where I really started learning the Bible. I came back to the Missionary Baptist because of what their stances are, and I believe that they are the closest to teaching the real truths of God. Although I do not agree with some of the individual churches stand hard on, I choose to not hold grudges toward those churches because they don't necessarily believe as I do.
With that being said, I am certainly not shocked at anything that goes on in churches to much any longer. I realize that the scripture teaches that there will be a great falling away before our dear Savior's return. I guess that I've always believed that the falling away was the fact that people just didn't want to come to church any longer. However, I realize that this is classically a correct belief, but I see major changes happen among Christian people that at one time excited me, but looking into it further, I descovering people are getting away from really serving God. We have gotten away from teaching the Bible and started trying to teach men's opinions. Christians do not study the message the pastor teaches or the lesson someone else teaches to make sure it is doctrinally sound. We accept it a face value. After all, the pastor went to a Seminary or College and he has a degree, so he has to be right. I am not knocking higher education, because it is needed. However, just because a preacher or teacher has initials behind their names doesn't mean they are always right and doesn't mean that they cannot teach false doctrine.
Education is good, but if churches are still falling appart, it should bother us! One of the problems I see is that we make serving God more convienant for ourselves, instead of ourselves more accountable to God. What I mean by this is we do not see the need to serve God. Many times I have heard, and I have been guilty of preaching, that we only give ourselves to God an average of 5 - 6 hours a week, when HE gave everything for us. I can remember when sports were not played on Wednesdays or Sundays at all. If there was a softball game or football game being played around town, it usually consisted of members of certain churches playing them after lunch and they were done by 4 p.m. Why? Because church started at 6 p.m. and it was understood that you had to be there. I can remember when stores were closed on Sunday just so people could go to church. If you had baseball, football, or basketball practice on Wednesdays, you were home by 5 - 6 p.m.m to go to church. We did not overlap these times. Now, churches have to schedule functions, revivals, etc, around school activites, summer sports, and whatever else we have. Today, there are very few revivals that go longer than 3 days. I can count on one hand of churches that I know of that still have 5 days of revival services and two of them still have morning and evening services. That's just unheard of, huh? People have gotten out of really living for God and have focused on living for this world. What's wrong with this picture?
Churches are closing their doors, people who call themselves Christians are falling out by the wayside, simply because they don't have any moral values anymore, and worse than this is people are dying and going to hell because 'Christians' do have time to do what God instructed us to do.
I honestly don't understand the movement that is going on, but God's Word tells me this would happen. I've been to some churches that when a preacher made a good point and someone said 'Amen,' others would look back at that person like they lost a screw. Can someone please explain to me what they don't believe that church is necessary any longer? What needs to change in churches? I can remember churches in the town I live in building gyms for the young people, just to attract them so the numbers would come up. Kids would enjoy it for a short period of time, but then they would quit coming too. We have gotten away from the basics. Mom's and Dad's need to get their children back into church, so they can be taught to serve the God that sent HIS Son to die for them. Not only that the parents need to be with them. We need to work on building churches up and not tearing them apart.
Churches are hurting because there is a generation of people who have decided to follow their own beliefs instead of listening to God. Moral of the story.......Don't only hear God; let's listen to HIM. Just a thought.