What does the Church need to survive?

What does God’s Church need today, to survive? Not another program, not another resource, not another video series, not another budget proposal, not another building project, not another shelter or pantry or campus recruitment campaign or revival conference or worship album, not another “fresh word,” not another brand, not another pastor, not another evangelist, not another missionary, not another organization, not another rally, no “strategies.”

Nope.

BACK is the way forward. No, I don’t mean back to hymns and lectures and pamphlets or a new Puritanical pedagogy, we gotta go back even further.

Nope, not to the days of great awakenings, not to your great-grandfather’s “good ol’ religion.” We gotta go back even further.

Nope, not to reformation, not to reaffirmations, as good for the Church as they were. We’ve got to go back. Back to simple Gospel, back to simple faith, back to Jesus’ profound and simple truths: “The greatest commandment is love.”

God’s Church needs men and women who are willing to sacrificially love at all costs, love without reservation, love without borders, love without preconceptions. God’s people need to humble themselves to begin to understand simple truths that were “foolishness to the wise”—truths so simple they were difficult for the intellectual to grasp.

Simple walking with Jesus, day by day asking God to remove all barriers to love in our lives. Back is the way forward. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John: Read them Church, and get to know the Jesus you’ve been claiming: the unadorned, unbranded, uncomplicated Christ.