Then I told them once more, “Go in peace to love and serve your neighbors.” I know that I may never see some of those people ever again.

I walked out those doors into the blinding heat of a summer day in southern Illinois and stepped into a future where I don’t know where I will go to church next Sunday, or even if I want to go. Frankly, I don’t know if my own faith will survive, and I’m not sure if the church in America will be there for the next generation like it was for me.

And I’m terrified because for the first time in my spiritual life, I don’t know what’s next.

More HERE.

Ryan Burge is well known author who has done a lot of statistical work on the shifting spiritual landscape in America. He teaches and lectures on it.

And he had to close his church…

“I don’t even know if my own faith will survive…”

I do pray for his faith. And I do know this about the last part of the sentence, “… and I’m not sure if the church in America will be there for the next generation like it was for me.”

First, I know the Church will be there. The Church of Jesus Christ will be there.

Second, it may not be like he remembers it growing up, so no, technically, it may not “be there” like it was for him. Or me. (As I am probably more than 10 years older than him.) And to that I want to say, “I hope not” in so many ways. I think the goodness of the Church will be there, but it is my prayer the toxicity of the political struggles will be washed out.

As we have wrapped up our book study on Jesus and the Powers at our church, the sense is stronger than ever in my own heart that this is a turbulent time that is necessary. The Church needs to “shrink” in order to grow. We need to be refined by the fire of the Holy Spirit and come through more focused on Jesus than ever before.

That has costs. I pray it is not Ryan Burge’s personal faith. I pray it is the toxicity of the current state of the conservative American Church.