The Dying Church

I find it odd that Jesus tells Peter 3 times "Feed my sheep" and yet day after day and week after week Pastors and Preachers whose prayer life is virtually nonexistant have the odacity to complain that their Churches are dying. The very first sign that a church is ailing is their blatant disregard for prayer both individually and collectively.

We are busy, but not dependent. We have programs, but no power. We have great riches, and yet are completly unaware that we are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:" (Rev 3:17). The absence of prayer declares to God "we have need of nothing."

"The outer must be preceded by the inner; public life for God must be preceded by private life with God; unless God has first spoken to a man, it is vain to attempt to speak for God.

. . .this principle, which we have drawn for our own use from Isaiah’s call, applies not only to the initial act, but to every subsequent detail of our life. It is true of every appearance which a minister makes before a congregation. Unless he has spent the week with God and received Divine communications, it would be better not to enter the pulpit or open his mouth on Sunday at all. There ought to be on the spirit, and even on the face of a minister, as he comes forth before men, a ray of the glory which was seen on the face of Moses when he came down among the people with God’s message from the mount." —James Stalker, The Preacher as a Man of God