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  • P.S  The church is complacent and apathetic because there is an identity crisis.

  • I believe that the fire to evangelize ignites when you understand your identity in Christ..and become filled with compassion(love).  That alongside true encounter is what birthed the evangelism found in the book of Acts.

  • Prayer!!!

  • It is never good to allow a church to be complacent. Doing things the same way every week, using the same type of worship singers, preachers, etc can send the church into complacency. One thing that must take place, is to continually have weekly prayer for the church, the Pastor, the Worship Team, etc; and also pray that God would continue to touch the heart of every person who attends service and that they would not leave the same way as they came in. Pray for a continuance of a refreshness of God's Spirit. Pray for those who have stopped attending. One thing that causes complcency in the church is when we allow ourselves to become complacent in our personal walk with Christ. We must keep our daily walk fresh by daily meditation in God's Word, daily praying, and always praising God when things are good and when we are also facing adversity. The complacency of our own spiritual life can spill onto the rest of the church like a virus. In other words, Keep it fresh personally, spiritually, and as a body. I pray that this helps.
  •      Webster's New World 4th edition dictionary defines complacent:  1.) Self-satisfied & 2.) Affable.  I question if there really is such a thing as a complacent Church.  Over the years I have heard sermons comparing the so called Church in America to the Church at Laodicea, I think the comparison itself is full of complacency.  The Church at Laodicea was part of the Body of Christ, because this is what God's Word teaches, but how can we be sure that the corporation that is called the Church in America is really part of the Body of Christ?  I don't think that it is, but I do envision a move of God in America that awakens people out of their complacency.  No longer will the state as we know it have a monopoly on force, but "We the People" excercising our God given inalienable rights will take on the full stature of Christ until we are taken out of this world(2 Thes. 2 vs 7). 
  • The best model for fresh evangelistic fire is the model used by the Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and the other apostles as evidenced in the Book of Acts.  That model is Power Evangelism!  When the people saw and experienced signs, wonders, miracles, healings and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in operation, they came to the Lord in droves, and the disciples were inspired to do even more evangelism!  The power and the glory displayed will do more in an afternoon than a year's evangelistic program that has no tangible power.  We simply have to do it His way.  For this Gospel of  the Kingdom  comes not in word only, but in demonstrations of the Holy Spirit and power!
  • Feelings can lead actions OR follow actions, we decide. People may not FEEL like evangelizing, but if they JUST DO IT, with some form of a simple and actionable plan, the fire begins to grow from within. I would recommend organizing a door-too-door outreach or a street preaching effort, for just one Saturday. It doesn;t matter if 2 or 20 people come, those who do come will become excited about evangelism and then be able to infect other people in the church for your NEXT outreach, which should be in two weeks after the first. You don't have to excite EVERYONE all at once, just a few at first will help, because they will nautrally and normally urge others to come WITH them for the next outreach.

  • Well...if a bunch of folks left that church, it would start something.  Sometimes the complacency comes from the whole thing of being comfortable with who is around you.  Like family.  Sure, a church is often like family, and should be.  But it should also be a dynamic place - not as in astounding or exciting- but as in ever changing.  Life is dynamic.  We do not live in such a manner that everything is the same ever day every week every month every year.  Kids grow up.  Young adults get married.  They have kids.  The kids grow up.  The old folks die.  The cycle is ongoing.  Change is everywhere every day.  Yet too often within our church we want things to  never change.  I'm like that.  I hate the "new music" that has been out and about for the last 10 years or so.  I love my old hymns.  But there must be change.  There must be a dynamic move inside the group in order for anything of any value to come out of the group.  

    Part of what Juanita said applies here as well.  The dividing walls must come down.  What kind of walls??  How about titles and positions and the forever, ongoing myth of clergy and laymen?  Until that wall is broken, not much else will happen with any sincerity.  Why do you think so many "sit in their seats and let someone else do it"?  Because they have been told for centuries now that what gets done is to be done by the "professionals".  And little or nothing has been done over the last 50 years or so to negate that, in spite of "pastors", (being the paid professionals that they are, standing on a platform above the congregation of folks all staring in the same direction doing what the leaders tell them to do), telling everybody that they need to DO something.  Then, of course, the leaders turn around and have conferences and retreats for "pastors and leaders", widening the gap even more.  Why should anybody who sits in the seat or pew change?  They are being told one thing and shown another.  The joining and connecting is broken at the very place where it should be started, and I do not believe that much of anything can be stirred up as a fire when it is being watered down.

  • This is an excellent question.   I just asked today, 'The body of Christ is not working... not doing the work, what do we need to do to mobilize it."   I am suspect tht what is needed is a dedicated team of people who will take responsibility, across a community - to stir people up.     Church dividing walls have got to come down.   These prevent the body of Christ from joining/connecting.   When that happens, nothing will work as God intended.
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